Protesters in Kyiv demand Kuchma's resignation

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Clad in riot gear and brandishing billy clubs and shields, special forces troops of Ukraine's state militia beat protesters in the early morning hours of September 17 while tearing down and sweeping away a tent city the opposition movement had established only hours before.

The police action came after some 25,000 people had marched through the city center on September 16 and held a mass public rally in Kyiv's European Square calling for the resignation of President Leonid Kuchma.

The protest - called "Arise Ukraine!" - was organized by the president's political opponents to coincide with the second anniversary of the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze, the young journalist who has become the center of a protracted controversy in Ukraine after audiotapes ostensibly implicating Mr. Kuchma and his cronies in the disappearance became public several months later.

Leaders of the demonstration said the tent city inhabitants had simply been demanding that the president accept a petition and several resolutions passed during a mass rally earlier in the day and agree to meet representatives of the protest movement.

They explained that up to 126 people were unaccounted for after the police action, while police said they had arrested 51 persons. There were no official reports of injuries.

"Yesterday Ukraine turned another sad page in its history when authorities showed the fascistic tendency of the regime," explained Yulia Tymoshenko, one of three leaders of the anti-Kuchma opposition.

She said that if law enforcement officials simply wanted to remove an illegal demonstration they could have formed a police line and ordered people out. Instead they chose intimidation and violence.

"There was no way out, simply no way out," said Ms. Tymoshenko, who underscored that the protesters held hands and offered little resistance while the police action took place.

Law enforcement officials said the operation and the arrests were warranted because the tents were set up after a Kyiv city court had expressly banned actions that would infringe on the rights of other citizens. They also said they had found a grenade, two guns and knives in the tents.

"The militia acted correctly and professionally," said Oleksander Zarubytskyi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who explained that setting the tents up on central thoroughfares posed a traffic hazard.

A court had ruled a week before that demonstration in the city center was illegal because they infringed on the rights of other citizens to go about their daily business. However, the national deputies who organized the mass protest invoked their right to immunity from prosecution and the right of citizens to free assembly and protest and proceeded with the event.

Demonstrators, led by Ms. Tymoshenko of the Tymoshenko parliamentary faction, Oleksander Moroz of the Socialist faction and Petro Symonenko of the Communist faction, set up more than 150 tents on either side of the presidential offices, as well as before the Cabinet of Ministers Building, in the early evening of September 16 after the mass demonstrations had finished. With a steady rain falling through the night, only about 1,000 protesters remained when state militia officers began congregating in ever-increasing numbers around the Presidential Administration Building after midnight.

By 4 a.m., on September 17, when the operation began, National Deputy Anatolii Matvienko, the leader of the Sobor Party, which is part of the Tymoshenko Bloc, estimated that close to 10,000 law-enforcement officials had gathered at the spot. Mr. Matvienko also explained that he had spoken with Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Smirnov only minutes before, when it had become apparent that a serious incident might take place. The minister told him, "There is nothing to worry about," explained Mr. Matvienko.

Wearing black helmets and bulletproof vests, and wielding flexible batons and metal shields, officers of the Berkut special forces encircled the tent city and began to squeeze towards the center, taking apart tents and flaying the protesters - many of whom were still asleep - with their batons as they closed the circle. In less than 15 minutes, according to a personal report by one photojournalist, the police had hauled the 167 tents onto dump trucks and scattered the still-stunned throng.

Some demonstrators were detained in police vehicles and driven off before being unceremoniously dumped onto the street, according to an account given by Viktor Koptiuk, 52. The resident of the village of Hrybovytsia, Volyn Oblast, said he received such treatment as the clean-up action was ending. He described his ordeal on the web site of the Green World Information Center.

"There were four detainees in the [automobile]. The [militia] put me next to the door and the vehicle started to move forward with the doors remaining open. After 200 meters, as the vehicle turned a street they threw me out without bothering to stop," explained Mr. Koptiuk.

Yushchenko joins the opposition

Earlier in the day on September 16 as the thousands of protesters congregated to commemorate the death of Gongadze, the young journalist, and to call for the resignation of President Kuchma for the alleged crimes and corruption of his administration, people were still uncertain whether National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, the most popular politician in Ukraine, would take part.

After hemming and hawing about his participation, which he had said would be based on whether President Kuchma agreed to negotiate a series of demands Mr. Yuschenko's Our Ukraine Bloc had put forward, on September 10 he finally acknowledged that he would join the protesters. His assent came on the eve of a national democratic forum that he had called to begin a large-scale political debate on how democratic reform efforts were moving forward in Ukraine. His decision to become part of "Arise Ukraine!" came after President Kuchma and his administration gave every indication that they would not take part in the conference.

The flags of the various political parties within Mr. Yushchenko's political bloc waved over the pro-national democratic crowd that was assembling on Khmelnytsky Square - as did the colors of the parties of the Tymoshenko Bloc, who were to march with them - but as the column moved forward the Our Ukraine leader was nowhere to be seen, much to the chagrin of many of his supporters there.

To the Socialists who congregated on Kontraktova Square in the Podil district and the Communists arriving at Arsenal Square, many of whom consider Mr. Yushchenko a part of the political establishment, his presence mattered less, although one middle-aged woman admitted that he remained a key to the success of the "Arise Ukraine" movement.

"Kuchma has insulted him repeatedly, and if he is truly for democracy he should demonstrate today," explained Kateryna Myronenko on Kontraktova Square. "If he joins, then our chances [for success] are great."

As a lunchtime crowd watched from windows, sidewalks and cafes, the three separate columns - representing three different political ideologies - marched down separate streets shouting "Kuchma Out." The three streams of humanity met at European Square, where Mr. Yushchenko and the other leaders of his bloc, along with the leaders of the three opposition factions, awaited them.

During the rally that took place, speaker after speaker called for unity and the need to put aside ideological differences in the effort to oust President Kuchma.

"By coming together here, we have showed the authorities that we can be and are united," explained Mr. Yushchenko, who railed against the dictatorial tactics state authorities are increasingly employing.

"The authorities have ruled by emphasizing the divisions they say exist in Ukraine, by breaking us into pieces: East and West; Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking, and by the various religious confessions," added the Our Ukraine leader.

The speakers read out a series of resolutions that the four political leaders, including Mr. Yushchenko, signed before the multitudes, which called for the resignation of President Kuchma, a call for the international community to isolate the state leader politically until he does resign and a plea to law enforcement bodies to abandon support for him. They also called for a special session of the Parliament to address the issue of the impeachment of the president.

Intimidation tactics didn't work

Demonstrations against the Kuchma administration took place across the country on September 16, including 10,000 marchers in Lviv and thousands of others in Symferopol, Kharkiv and even Donetsk, belying efforts by state authorities to limit the size and scope of the anti-Kuchma action.

In the days leading up to the mass rallies, the state had asked religious leaders to appear on national television to warn people that demonstrations could become violent and that restraint must be shown. Some said that uprisings never lead to a better life for the citizenry, while others said that alternative avenues of discourse should be considered.

On the day of the demonstrations a nationwide television blackout occurred, which television industry officials claimed was part of a previously scheduled preventive maintenance regime - something that had not happened on any channel in a decade and never across the entire television spectrum at once. The blackouts, inexplicably, were lifted as the demonstration took place.

Traffic police halted busses coming into the city, and, as Mr. Symonenko charged, set objects on the roads into Kyiv to purposely cause tire blowouts. At the end of the press conference that followed the morning confrontation with the state militia, Mr. Symonenko displayed a round metal object shaped like a star with sharp prongs extending from the center, which he alleged as one such object, and said, "This is how our militia keeps the peace."

On September 13, the government - also unexpectedly and without explanation - had called for a three-day closure of monetary exchange points, which later was explained as a move by tax authorities to review financial exchange operations. Opposition members, however, said it was an attempt to restrict the ability of demonstration organizers to obtain access to funds needed to prepare for the marches.

Although the demonstrations were nationwide and drew large numbers of Ukrainians, they did little to soften the presidential administration's stance regarding the protesters' demands.

The president's chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, came out of the executive building in Kyiv after the demonstrators had gathered on September 16 and told Ms. Tymoshenko that just as the demonstrators had a right to protest, "we have a right to take appropriate action."

President Kuchma, who decided to leave the country for a quickly scheduled appearance at the World Economic Forum in Salzburg, Austria, on the day of the demonstrations, rejected demands upon his return that he meet with a group of lawmakers representing them. National Deputy Taras Chornovil, who had delivered the request for a meeting to the president, said that Mr. Kuchma's response was that a meeting to discuss the demands of the demonstrators was "an affront" to the Office of the President.

In an interview with The Standard, an Austrian newspaper, held as the demonstrations took place, Mr. Kuchma said the existence of the opposition movement and the demonstrations being held were sufficient proof that democracy - which protesters claim is being restricted in Ukraine - is alive and well.

"We are still learning democracy and how people can demonstrate their disagreement with state policy," said Mr. Kuchma.

The "Arise Ukraine!" organizers, who continue to hold informational meetings daily on Independence Square, in what they describe as an effort to overcome an informational blockade by state authorities, announced that a second demonstration will be held in Kyiv before the Parliament Building on September 24.

Anti-Kuchma protesters adopt resolution addressed to president

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, September 22, 2002, No. 38, Vol. LXX

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