NEWSBRIEFS (07/21/02)

NEWSBRIEFS

Russians to ban Mazepa movie?

MOSCOW - Russian authorities are to recommend that Ukrainian filmmaker Yurii Ilienko's film "A Prayer for Mazepa" should be banned because it could harm relations between Ukraine and Russia, the Interfax news agency reported. "We are explaining the matter to theater owners. I think to some extent the film distorts history and would not benefit Russian-Ukrainian relations," Culture Minister Mikhail Schvydkoi told reporters. A two-and-a-half-hour epic, the film recounts the pact between Mazepa (1644-1709) and the Swedish king Carl XII against Tsar Peter the Great in the Russian-Swedish war of 1708-1709. Mr. Ilienko calls the work a "filmic poem" dedicated to removing the "curse on the great leader Mazepa," a reference to what he described as the nationalist leader's "disappearance" from official history books. Russian critics claim however to have detected unhealthy nationalist tendencies mixed with anti-Russian sentiment in the movie, reported Agence-France Presse. Mr. Ilienko told 1+1 TV: "When they ban an intellectual product, so to say, it is just unbelievable. It is just unbelievable. It simply means that there is censorship in their society and someone tells them what they should watch and what they shouldn't. I feel very sorry for them." Furthermore, he said he believes that a ban on his film in Russia will be the best advertisement for it, and that the ban will be challenged by video pirates. (Agence-France Presse, BBC Monitoring)

Ukraine bolsters arms-sales controls

KYIV - The Ukrainian government announced on July 15 that it will introduce more stringent controls on arms sales, the Associated Press and Reuters reported. These will include more controls over intermediaries engaged in the arms trade that have presented fake "end-user certificates" to Ukrainian state arms sales companies in the past. Under the new regulations, a buyer will have to guarantee that military equipment will not be resold without written permission. Negotiations for arms sales will also be subject to greater control. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Iraq's envoy denies arms purchases

KYIV - At a press conference in Kyiv on July 15, Iraq's ambassador to Ukraine, Hisham A. Ibrahim, vehemently denied recent reports that his country has purchased Ukrainian weapons in violation of United Nations sanctions. However, at the same time he underscored Iraq's interest in Ukrainian military technology, the Associated Press reported. According to Ambassador Ibrahim, the reports of arms sales are "within the aggressive campaign of the U.S. against Iraq - 100 percent." Allegations that Ukraine sold a high-tech radar system, the Kolchuha, to Iraq in 2000 have circulated for months and re-emerged most recently when the Financial Times of July 8 quoted arms-control experts as saying that "Iraq is exploiting its growing links with Ukraine in an effort to obtain weapons technologies." President Leonid Kuchma and other officials have repeatedly denied the accusations. "We need Ukrainian technology as much as Ukraine needs Iraqi oil," Mr. Ibrahim said. "If it were possible, we would cooperate with Ukraine in military spheres, but for us, the embargo prevents it." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada forms arms-sales commission

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada formed an ad hoc committee on July 11 to investigate charges that Ukraine sold arms to countries that were subject to United Nations arms embargoes, the RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported. The ad hoc committee will be headed by Serhii Sinchenko, a national deputy from the Communist Party of Ukraine. In an interview with RFE/RL, Mr. Sinchenko said a similar committee had existed in the previous Verkhovna Rada, but its jurisdiction was limited to 1991-1998. Over that period Parliament recommended that the Procurator General's Office initiate 10 criminal prosecutions for illegal arms sales, but the work of the committee was abruptly terminated and the cases were never brought to trial. (RFE/RL Newsline)

U.S. treasury secretary arrives in Kyiv

KYIV - U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill arrived in Kyiv on July 11 as part of a tour of former Soviet republics, ITAR-TASS reported. According to a statement issued by the Department of the Treasury, the focus of the trip will be to "accelerate private-sector investment, growth and job creation." Mr. O'Neill told Ukrainian leaders that investors will no longer tolerate ongoing legal abuses in Ukraine. In meetings in Ukraine on July 12-14 with President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh, he praised Ukraine's land-reform efforts, but Reuters added that he also warned Ukraine that if it hopes to attract necessary foreign investment steps must be taken to ensure that Western businesses are treated fairly. He also told Ukrainian leaders that the United States "is seriously concerned about Iraq and its intentions" regarding recent allegations that the country is working with Ukraine in order to build up its military arsenal. After his visit to Ukraine, the treasury secretary was to travel to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Zhyr banned from election

KYIV - Oleksander Zhyr, the former chairman of the temporary parliamentary commission investigating the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, was banned from seeking re-election in the repeat parliamentary elections in the 35th electoral district (Dnipropetrovsk), UNIAN reported. On July 12 Mr. Zhyr was forbidden to participate in the July 14 elections, which were won by Viktor Drachevskyi, Ukrainian media reported the next day. He was removed from the ballot by the local election commission following a court decision that found him guilty of financial improprieties during the campaign. Mr. Zhyr lost the elections in the first ballot in March, but demanded a repeat election, which was granted by the Central Election Commission. Mr. Zhyr, an officer of the Security Service of Ukraine, was an outspoken critic of President Leonid Kuchma during his term as a national deputy in the Verkhovna Rada. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Greek PM supports Kyiv's WTO bid

KYIV - "We support Ukraine's entrance to the WTO and stand for the strengthening of Ukraine's relations with NATO," the Associated Press quoted Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis as saying at a press conference in Kyiv on July 2. Mr. Simitis and Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh discussed ways to increase bilateral trade and to cooperate in joint projects such as shipbuilding and oil- and gas-transportation projects. Mr. Kinakh said on Ukraine's Novyi Kanal television that his government is interested in Greek participation in the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline. During 2001 trade volume between Greece and Ukraine totaled $226.8 million. Mr. Simitis mentioned that European Union leaders might grant Ukraine status as a market economy at an upcoming summit in Denmark on July 4 . (RFE/RL Newsline)

RFE/RL to end Czech service

WASHINGTON - RFE/RL President Thomas Dine announced at a press conference on July 2 that funding for Radio Svobodna Evropa will end on September 30, meaning the Czech-language service will stop broadcasting. Dine said that by mutual agreement Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty will dissolve its partnership with Czech Radio, which provides a frequency for the Czech-language broadcasts. RFE/RL's oversight body, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) in Washington, decided not to renew financing for Radio Svobodna Evropa for the new fiscal year that begins on October 1. "It was an extremely difficult decision because Radio Svobodna Evropa has been a most-important component of RFE/RL since it was founded more than half a century ago," Mr. Dine said. "But we have new priorities and new financial burdens we have to carry in our budget that did not exist before September 11." RFE/RL ended broadcasting to Hungary in 1993 and to Poland in 1997, Dine said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma and Cardinal Husar meet

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, leader of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, as well as members of the Church's synod, discussed cooperation between the state and the Church. At the July 8 meeting, President Kuchma said, "The Ukrainian authorities show by their actions that we need a united church. There is no doubt that we are always ready for cooperation." He added that "the letter of the law" needs to be observed in connection with this, as the state has no right to interfere into Church affairs. Cardinal Husar thanked the president for a decree on restoration of Church rights following Soviet-era policies against the Church. He presented the president with the passport of early 20th-century Ukrainian President Mykhailo Hrushevsky, which had been kept in Rome. Mr. Kuchma said the passport would be donated to a national museum. UGCC bishops also asked the president to see to it that the investigations into the murders of a clergyman of the Drohobych Eparchy two years ago and of a nun in Vinnytsia a month ago are intensified. Mr. Kuchma promised to issue an order to that effect to the Procurator General's Office. (BBC Monitoring)

Site of massacre discovered

ZHOVKVA, Ukraine - Builders at a Ukrainian monastery have unearthed about 130 skeletons, prompting officials to speculate that they stumbled on evidence of a massacre by Soviet secret police after World War II. The remains, some of children, were found under the floor in the monastery in western Ukraine that was once used by the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, banned by Stalin in 1946. "These people were buried so secretly that even the locals did not know they were in the monastery. It looks like entire families were killed," said Yevhen Yanushevych of the Zhovkva regional administration. (Los Angeles Times)

Unpaid coal miners demonstrate

KYIV - An estimated 650 marchers gathered in the capital on July 16 to protest months of unpaid wages for coal miners and other grievances, the DPA news service reported. The miners gathered in front of the Energy Ministry, where police monitored the peaceful proceedings, and called for payment of back wages, higher wages and increased state subsidies to the industry, the agency added. About two-thirds of the country's 209 mines are state-run, DPA reported. Repeated calls for closures and layoffs have been countered by fears of social fallout over the fates of the 600,000 people who work in the sector. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Fires in Chornobyl-affected regions

MIENSK - A number of wildfires are burning in the Homiel and Brest regions of Belarus that were the worst affected by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine, resulting in higher radiation levels in the area, the Associated Press reported, citing officials from Belarus's Emergency Situations Ministry. The ministry said that at least 30 peat fires and 11 forest fires are burning in the regions. Belarusian Emergency Situations Minister Valeri Astapov said radiation levels have increased in the fire zones, though he did not reveal any specific figures. (RFE/RL Newsline)

| Home Page |