LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (02/20/05)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Western media miss main point

Dear Editor:

Like many of my Ukrainian friends I was glued to the Internet for the past three months following the events of the Orange Revolution. As seen on the Internet, the world media coverage of the events of Orange Revolution was generally positive and friendly to Ukraine.

However, the Western media, for the most part, missed the main point of the Orange Revolution. It was not a struggle between the West and the East, Moscow and Washington, as some claim, but a struggle by the Ukrainian people for their place under the sun. In rain and snow, during long freezing winter nights, week after week, they stood on the maidan, or Independence Square, and fought for their future and the future of their posterity. It was Ukraine's winter in Valley Forge. And now Ukraine has her own George Washington - his name is Viktor Yuschenko.

Western press coverage of the event, while being friendly to Ukrainian cause, was generally shallow and usually ignorant of history to the point of absurdity. To quote one of the more absurd statements, the Financial Times wrote of "Moscow, Ukraine's traditional ally." For 350 years this "traditional ally" was a despotic torturer of Ukraine that left behind oceans of tears, rivers of blood and mountains of tortured bodies. The final manifestation of such barbarity can be seen by all in Mr. Yushchenko's disfigured face.

In any case, for many of us now is the time for closure. The burden carried by the nation for 350 years is finally lifted from its shoulders. The nation is now free of our "traditional ally." And thanks to God we have lived long enough to see President Yushchenko on the maidan.

Ihor Lysyj
Austin, Texas

About Bush's signals to Ukraine

Dear Editor:

In his programmatic state of the union address on February 2, President George W. Bush mentioned Ukraine twice: first, in the opening two sentences, and then in the international section. Said President Bush: "As a new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege: We have been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly elected leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories, Ukraine and a free and sovereign Iraq." He continued later: "...Because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace ... That advance has great momentum in our time, shown by women voting in Afghanistan, and Palestinians choosing a new direction, and the people of Ukraine asserting their democratic rights and electing a president. We are witnessing landmark events in the history of liberty."

To President Viktor A. Yushchenko's inauguration on January 23, President Bush had sent a high-level presidential delegation headed by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. The two official members of the delegation were John E. Herbst, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs. The three public members of the delegation were: Vera M. Andryczyk, president, Ukrainian Federation of America; Nadia Komarnyckyj McConnell, president, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; and Dr. Myron Kuropas, adjunct professor at Northern Illinois University.

By first dispatching a prominent delegation to Kyiv under Secretary Powell, who had played a strategic role in persuading President Leonid D. Kuchma not to send Ministry of Internal Affairs troops to suppress the Orange Revolution and to allow for a re-vote, and by mentioning Ukraine twice in key passages of his state of the union address, President Bush, in effect, was sending a double signal to Ukraine "in clear language," which can be translated as: "Are you still with us, as we would like you to be?"

On February 4, the Verkhovna Rada elected Yulia Tymoshenko, a very skillful and energetic politician and a decisive supporter of Mr. Yushchenko, to become prime minister by a vote of 373-0. On the same day, pro-European Union and pro-NATO Borys Tarasyuk was reappointed as foreign affairs minister.

All this raises the delicate question of whether it may not be in the long-term interests of Ukraine to keep those 1,600 Ukrainian troops in Iraq, despite the high casualties caused by insurgents' and terrorists' actions. Whatever the motivation of former President Kuchma, former Minister of Defense Yevhen Marchuk sent those troops to Iraq because he regarded them as a down payment on the overdue admission of Ukraine to NATO. I am positive that Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who decisively helped Mr. Yushchenko during the electoral crisis of 2004, had advised Messrs. Marchuk and Kuchma to do so. I know some of the political difficulties in Brussels and in Kyiv, but I strongly believe that only quick admission to NATO, in the next two to three years, will be able to forestall another attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to take over Ukraine. So does Dmytro Pavlychko, in his interview with Svoboda published on February 4.

Finally, there is one more reason that President Yushchenko should heed the signals of President Bush. Viktor Yushchenko is a winner, but so is George W. Bush. Winners should stick together lest they be tied down by losers, Lilliputian-style.

Yaroslav Bilinsky
Newark, Del.

The letter-writer is professor emeritus, University of Delaware.

Bush and Putin, and Yushchenko

Dear Editor:

The New York Times on Tuesday, December 28, 2004, published an excellent editorial titled "President Victor Yushchenko."

President George W. Bush should follow the example of The New York Times, as well as the suggestions of Sen. Hillary Clinton and directly express congratulations to President Yushchenko.

On a few occasions in the past Mr. Bush asserted that he had looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin's eyes and knew that he is a friend. Perhaps he can now look into Mr. Putin's eyes and ask him: "Volodia, what do you know about the attempt on Mr. Yushchenko's life?"

Ivan Z. Holowinsky
Somerset, N.J.

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