Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day (09/03/06)

Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A new Ukrainian citizen has emerged after 15 years of independence, President Viktor Yushchenko told the nation on August 24 in his Independence Day address.

Feeling his strength on the maidan in 2004, which the president described as a victory for the Ukrainian people, this new citizen is aware of his ability to attain justice and realize his talents, and knows that his rights won't be trampled upon.

"We have changed," Mr. Yushchenko said. "We are becoming free."

Low-key celebrations marked Ukraine's 15th anniversary of independence in the nation's capital, largely out of respect for the casualties of a Russian plane that crashed in the Donetsk Oblast two days earlier.

Blue-and-yellow flags hung on virtually all downtown buildings, and celebrators kicking off a four-day weekend crowded onto the Khreschatyk and Independence Square as has become tradition.

However, the fireworks, military displays and rock concerts were moved to August 25 and 26.

"Due to the motives of good-neighborliness and mutual mourning with the Russian people, the president initiated changes in the events, which were foreseen in a festive scenario," said Markian Lubkivskyi, a presidential advisor. Most, if not all, of the crash's nearly 170 victims were Russian citizens.

Independence Day celebrations this year cost the Ukrainian government $1.56 million and the Kyiv city government $1.3 million, according to Dmytro Tabachnyk, vice prime minister for humanitarian affairs.

President Yushchenko began commemorations of Ukraine's Independence Day with a moleben at St. Sophia Cathedral at 9 a.m., which was attended by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz and other leaders.

Following the moleben, the president addressed the nation at St. Sophia Square, where several thousand people with flags gathered and sang the national anthem.

By this time, former President Leonid Kuchma was in attendance.

The Ukrainian president acknowledged disappointment among the people, but assured them that "your expectations weren't betrayed, and they never will be betrayed."

Immediate disappointments only lead to eventual victories, he added.

Ukrainians ought to learn from their thousand-year history of victories, he said, which include battles at Khotyn, Zhovti Vody, Konotop, Makivka, the fight against fascism and the fight for independence during the second world war.

"A society, which in its daily life forgets and doesn't remember its own victories, obviously can't have a future," Mr. Yushchenko said. "I turn to the millions of Ukrainians who live for the future. In 15 years of independence, we learned how to be a people, a state, and we are gaining the knowledge to become a nation. That's our true victory."

Ukraine has become a democratic country during its 15 years of independence, Mr. Yushchenko said.

As evidence he cited the government's navigation through the 2006 parliamentary crisis. "We tore ourselves away from it without a war, without tanks, without blood," he said. "We emerged from it thanks to democracy and the law."

Mr. Yushchenko acknowledged that the nation hasn't finished transforming itself and that a Soviet mentality continues to permeate many government officials.

"As the head of state in the name of society, I turn to all those whom the Ukrainian people charged with government duties - power is not a privilege, but a responsibility." he said.

Ukrainian citizens don't enjoy equality before the law, and massive judicial and police reform will be necessary to achieve it, he said. He also promised that every corrupt scandal will fall under judicial review.

As for the Ukrainian language, Mr. Yushchenko reaffirmed that no alternative exists to Ukrainian being the official state language. Every government official should know, use and live by it, he said.

"This is the language of our freedom," Mr. Yushchenko underscored.

The president said he believes that in the next few months the new Verkhovna Rada will pass legislation recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide committed against the Ukrainian people.

The government also needs to create a Holodomor victims memorial in Kyiv, he said.

Ukraine remains on track toward integration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) Mr. Yushchenko said, emphasizing his belief that this will be accomplished.

He also used his speech to tout his government's economic performance.

GDP growth has accelerated from 5.5 percent in January 2006 to 7.7 percent in July 2006, he said. Real incomes have risen by 20 percent in the first half of 2006.

Finally, the Ukrainian people support the creation of a single, particular (pomisna) Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Mr. Yushchenko said.

The presidential Independence Day address typically takes place on Independence Square, however, protesters opposed to the new coalition government have, since its formation, set up a small tent encampment and refused to leave until the coalition's dissolution.

Although the Ukrainian government paid respect to Russian citizens by not holding a rock concert and fireworks display immediately after the plane crash, the respectful gesture was not returned by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

Its leadership, including Patriarch Volodymyr Sabodan, chose to avoid the moleben ceremony and Mr. Yushchenko's presidential address. The UOC-MP has been highly critical of Mr. Yushchenko's frequent calls for a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

It has also criticized Mr. Yushchenko for participating in services of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and accepting holy communion in that Church, which the UOC-MP doesn't acknowledge.

As a matter of principle, Patriarch Volodymyr refuses to attend any service or ceremony where UOC-KP Patriarch Filaret is present.

While the UOC-MP opposes Ukraine's religious independence, others were critical of Ukraine's independence overall.

About 25 members of the Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia Front gathered in the naval port city to condemn what they described as Ukraine's occupation of Crimea.

"If all patriots on the peninsula rise up and exercise their political will and citizen activity in the struggle for a Russian Crimea and Sevastopol, then the pitiful and wretched state under the name of 'Ukraine' will be thrown to the trash heap of history and will disappear from the glorious and hard-suffering Crimean lands," said the group's statement.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's artists, writers and thinkers, both avant-garde and underground, gathered at Hulai-Pole in the Zaporizhia Oblast to celebrate "Independence Day with Mahkno," a festival honoring the legendary anarchist born in that town.

Held on August 24 and 25, the festival will become an annual event that will draw an international crowd next year, organizers said.

The day before Independence Day, President Yushchenko led government officials in unveiling a bronze monument of Vyacheslav Chornovil, who symbolized the Ukrainian independence movement in the early 1990s. Located at the intersection of Hrushevsky Street and Museum Lane across from the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the monument depicts the former dissident handsomely and bravely standing against a fiercely blowing wind while backed against a wall.

"The words 'independence' and 'Vyacheslav Chornovil's life' are synonyms," Mr. Yushchenko said, while calling for a new investigation of the car accident that took Mr. Chornovil's life on March 25, 1999.

The Toyota vehicle Mr. Chornovil was riding in collided with a truck making an illegal U-turn on a Kyiv Oblast highway.

Among those attending the unveiling ceremony were First Lady of Ukraine Kateryna Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yanukovych, Rada Chairman Moroz, current Rukh leader Borys Tarasyuk and Mr. Chornovil's wife, Atena Pashko.

Taras Chornovil, the late activist's second son, who is a national deputy representing the Party of the Regions, did not attend.

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