Orange Revolution's heroic sign-language interpreter honored in D.C. (05/08/05)

Orange Revolution's heroic sign-language interpreter honored in D.C.

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - For years Natalia Dmytruk was seen and not heard, attracting little attention, except from the hearing-impaired, as the sign-language interpreter in the corner of Ukraine's official UT-1 television news broadcasts.

On November 25, 2004, however, when the results of the second round of Ukraine's presidential election were being announced in favor of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, she signed a personal message of protest that reverberated around the world and drew even more attention to what came to be known as the Orange Revolution.

Five months later, she and three fellow representatives of the women of Ukraine were honored in Washington "for their unyielding spirit and commitment to changing their country - and the world - for the better." The honors were presented April 26 by Vital Voices Global Partnership, a non-profit, bipartisan American organization dedicated to increasing the rights and leadership role of women around the world.

Also receiving the fifth annual Global Leadership Awards during the ceremony at the Terrace Theater of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were women activists from three other countries, honored for their work on behalf of women's rights, for economic empowerment and against human trafficking.

Introducing the four Ukrainian women, actress Sally Field called Ms. Dmytruk "one of the most courageous women of the Orange Revolution." She recalled how during that fateful newscast, Ms. Dmytruk revealed an orange ribbon on her sleeve as she signed:

"Everything you've heard so far in the news was a total lie. I am ashamed to translate these lies. Yushchenko is president. Good-bye. You will probably never see me here again."

Receiving the award with Ms. Dmytruk were:

Oksana Horbunova, the head of the Ukraine office of the International organization for Migration (who was honored by Vital Voices in 2002 for her work against the trafficking of Ukrainian women);
Oksana Yarosh, professor at the Lesia Ukrainka Volyn State University and former head of New Wave, a non-governmental organization working for democracy; and
Lyudmila Merlyan, manager and head of the Gender Committee for the "Civil Parliament of Ukrainian Women," which has developed recommendations regarding gender policy in Ukraine.

Joining them on the stage were two other women from Ukraine: Yana Grinyenkova Dieringer, who is now interning with Vital Voices in Washington, and Oksana Horbunova's daughter Kateryna, a final-year law student at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

Leading up to their award, the audience of more than 500 guests saw a four-minute film of the maidan protests accompanied by a soundtrack of one of the popular protest songs, "Slava Ukrayini."

Vital Voices was created two years after the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, initially as a U.S.-government program called Vital Voices Democracy Initiative. It was organized by then - First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to promote the advancement of women worldwide as a U.S. policy goal.

It became a non-profit, non-governmental organization, Vital Voices Global Partnership in 2000. Melanne Verveer, who was First Lady Clinton's chief of staff at the White House, now chairs its board of directors.

The other women being honored that evening were:

Mu Sochua, who returned to Cambodia in 1991 after 18 years in exile and became her country's leading advocate for human rights and against human trafficking, domestic violence and worker exploitation;
Dr. Latifa Jbabdi, who spent more than 35 years fighting for equality and women's rights in Morocco and was instrumental in bringing about recent changes in Moroccan law which, among other things, now give women the right to divorce their husbands and the right to petition for custody of their children; and
Jaya Arunachalam, the founder of the Working Women's Forum in India and pioneer in building leadership skills among thousands of poor working women throughout India. Using micro-credit assistance as a tool, her organization is credited with economically empowering more than 700,000 women members spread over 3,000 villages and 1,600 slums of India.

The Kennedy Center program included remarks, greetings and presentations by prominent political, entertainment and media representatives, among them: Sen. Clinton (D-N.Y.) and her colleague, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.); Dr. Albright; Thomas Kean, former New Jersey governor and now president of Drew University; and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Cheney; Andrea Mitchell of NBC News; actresses Sally Field and Julia Ormond; and the legendary folk singer Judy Collins, who closed the evening by leading the audience in singing "Amazing Grace."

Sens. Clinton and Hutchison spoke about the relationship between women's rights and the well-being of societies.

Investing in women has a "ripple effect," Sen. Clinton explained, noting that it improves the standard of living for families, communities and society in general. The elections that were held recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, she said, conveyed the message that the United States "really does believe that it's imperative that when we talk about and try to create conditions for democracy and freedom, women have to be included completely."

Sen. Hutchison pointed out that "It isn't just the women who suffer when they are not equal partners. It is the society as a whole. The societies where women are not a part, are not as vibrant, they're not as vital and, in fact, they even have a lower gross domestic product."

"So, it is an economic issue; it is a human rights issue; it is an enlightenment issue," she said.

Among the evening's guests were former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual, the wife of Ukraine's ambassador to the United States Iryna Reznik, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Ukrainian American Coordinating Council President Ihor Gawdiak, Ukrainian Congress Committee of America President Michael Sawkiw Jr., and Julian Kulas, president of The Heritage Foundation of First Security Federal Savings Bank, one of a long list of sponsors of the gala evening that also included such Fortune 500 companies as Citigroup, Coca-Cola, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors and Boeing.

Before returning to Ukraine on May 3, Natalia Dmytruk addressed the students of Washington's Gallaudet University, a leading institution for the deaf and hearing impaired.

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