Kuchma signs watered-down law on Ukrainians abroad (04/18/04)

Kuchma signs watered-down law on Ukrainians abroad

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma finally signed legislation on March 26 ascribing certain rights to those ethnic Ukrainians living abroad who identified themselves as Ukrainians. He did so after some critical aspects of the draft bill were dropped by its authors in the Ukrainian Parliament.

The water-downed version of the original draft legislation left national democratic deputies who pushed the bill through to passage and diaspora leaders unsatisfied with the outcome. Most diaspora leaders agreed it gave them no special status, only the ability to obtain free five-year visas into Ukraine.

Undaunted, however, some lawmakers are already preparing to introduce additional legislation. A draft bill delineating a "Concept of a National Policy Regarding Ukrainians Abroad" is currently being completed and should receive the attention of Ukrainian lawmakers before the summer recess, explained National Deputy Oksana Bilozir in an interview with The Weekly.

"The law that was recently signed by the president does not resolve the issues and the problems of those Ukrainians who do not live in Ukraine," explained Ms. Bilozir.

The head of the recently formed Ukrainian Christian Party, which is associated with the Our Ukraine faction in the Verkhovna Rada, said the presidential administration and the government continued to fail to understand - or simply did not want to do so - the benefit the Ukrainian diaspora and the expatriate community could bring the country.

She said that, especially in the West the diaspora community was so well organized and sufficiently financed that it needs to be given a leading role as one of the central lobbying arms of Ukraine.

Ms. Bilozir also noted that Ukraine's state authorities could not continue to disregard a recent economic immigration that had left another 7 million Ukrainians living abroad - forced to do so in order to support their families back home. She explained that the recent Fourth Wave of immigration was in all likelihood the largest current investor in Ukraine with expatriates sending back to their family members still living there a total of some $400 million in small amounts each month.

"There has been no state policy on how to work with the Ukrainian diaspora and the expatriate community," noted Ms. Bilozir. "If you glance at the latest sociological surveys, nearly every third Ukrainian today lives outside of Ukraine. That means that we need to utilize them to become our representatives, our symbol to the world."

She said that key elements of the original bill, which had not made it past the severe editorial hand of the presidential administration, had made the original intent - to give Ukrainians abroad status as an integral part of the Ukrainian nation - practically imperceptible in the final version.

The lawmaker said that Ukraine's executive branch had hacked off articles specifically giving Ukrainians living abroad who could qualify for special status the same rights and privileges as citizens of Ukraine. She also explained that another setback was the president's disagreement with the need for a special state committee for Ukrainians living abroad.

Ms. Bilozir noted that the lack of an overall policy - what she called a conceptual strategy on how relations between the diaspora and expatriates on the one hand and the state on the other should proceed - had weakened the argument for the need for a separate state committee on the matter.

"There is not a single government document that addresses the relationship between the country and the diaspora," explained Ms. Bilozir.

The Christian Party leader, who is a member of the Committee on Diaspora Relations and chair of its EuroAtlantic subcommittee, said she appreciated the criticism against the approved legislation, especially from the leaders of the North American diaspora and the Ukrainian World Congress, who had helped to draw up the initial draft bill.

However, she suggested that diaspora leaders needed to understand that an essential breakthrough had taken place. She said the driving force for the bill, National Deputy Ihor Ostash, who had worked for passage of the legislation for nearly three years, and the other lawmakers who had pushed the effort over strong political resistance decided in the end that a basic first success would be to finally have a legal definition on a "Ukrainian abroad" and recognition on the legal books that a diaspora entity existed.

Today, a Ukrainian living abroad who may qualify for special status, which would give him the ability to obtain a cost-free, five-year Ukrainian visa, is a person who can show an attachment to the territories of Ukraine, whether ethnically, culturally or historically. Ms. Bilozir underscored that this includes ethnic Russians, Poles, Jews, Tatars and other ethnic minorities "who consider Ukraine their homeland and care about its future."

"Now we want the conceptual policy," explained Ms. Bilozir, referring to the legislation now being prepared. "This will give depth and substance [to the initial law on the status of Ukrainians living abroad] and the issue will develop. Then the members of the diaspora and those living abroad become part of the Ukrainian polity. It opens the door to move forward."

Mr. Ostash, who was on travel in Europe and could not be reached for comment, wrote the original law on the status of Ukrainians living abroad. He nurtured it as it traveled through the lengthy and often snaking corridors of the legislative and executive branches of the Ukrainian political system, and through to successful passage in the Verkhovna Rada on November 20, 2003, only to watch the legislation vetoed by President Leonid Kuchma on December 13, 2003. After more discussion and much compromise, President Kuchma signed a scaled-back version of the bill at the end of March.

"Mr. Ostash did a huge amount of work, and the fact that there is now a legal basis for the meaning of the term 'a Ukrainian living abroad' is a huge accomplishment," explained Ms. Bilozir.

The national deputy said that the draft legislation on a conceptual strategy and national policy on Ukrainians abroad is now in review by the government and is scheduled for parliamentary review in June.

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