Elections in Ukraine: too far, too close
Gaston | 27.10.2004 15:53 | Analysis | Repression | Social Struggles | World
While the whole world is holding its breath waiting for the US elections, and European activists are involved in struggles in such distant territories as Bolivia and Palestine, - the whole cycle of events going on in Ukraine passes unnoticed. But neither First nor the Third World, neither part of "axis of evil" nor European Union, Ukraine is too far to be understood, and too close to be interested.
While presidential elections are coming (31 Oct.) - the scope of repressions in Ukraine more and more resembles KGB-era.
The situation is quite unfamiliar for Europe but more similar to post-soviet Eastern-bloc countries: while the majority of the liberals and moderate right-wingers support oppositional candidate, former prime-minister Victor Yuschenko, - most part of his support comes not from them , but from the "common people", tired to live under criminalised authorities. The presidential candidate from the authorities' side, Mr. Victor Yanukovych (current prime-minister) became a living incarnation of their fears: twice criminally convicted for assault, beating and robbery, one of the people who became rich under illegal corrupted "privatisation" schemes, a person, who publicly called his opponents "assholes".
During the recent 10 years the authoritarian tendencies in Ukraine became stronger, and to secure the dominance of the president, the blatant censorship was introduced in media. Combined with economic problems, everyday uncontrollable police brutality and further submission to Russia's regional interests, it led to popular discontent even among usually patient Ukrainians.
In the recent weeks the authorities, scared by losing the battle, more and more actively are trying to suppress opposition and all those who are taking activist stance in any field. The stuff of the only non-censored TV Channel in Ukraine - "5th Channel" - are on hunger strike for the third day because of the authorities' desicion to close it down. Offices of several NGOs, concerned with voters' rights and financed by the West, were raided and searched, as well as several houses of the activists of different kind. In one of the offices there was a bomb "found" - under all accounts just brought there by police, - which gave a pretext to open a criminal case.
Protesters at opposition rally are attacked by plainclothed police armed with empty bottles and hammers. People who go to that rally have their buses' tyres cut by traffic police. Etc., etc.
This is just a very short summary of the recent two pre-electoral weeks. Nowadays there's a common fear that the election night's events can turn into a bloodshed as far as a big number of troops and police are massed in Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
One of the alternative, non-commercial Ukrainian political news web-sites, operated by the team of the volonteers, launched an English-language newswire, which will be updated as they will be translated by the translators' team:
http://maidan.org.ua/eindex.html
Please don't ignore the events and news from the biggest country of Europe. It's not about elections anymore - it's about the right to stay against the pressure, about the freedom of speech and about the right not to live in fear.
In the coming days people who are going to go out to the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities may need your support.
The situation is quite unfamiliar for Europe but more similar to post-soviet Eastern-bloc countries: while the majority of the liberals and moderate right-wingers support oppositional candidate, former prime-minister Victor Yuschenko, - most part of his support comes not from them , but from the "common people", tired to live under criminalised authorities. The presidential candidate from the authorities' side, Mr. Victor Yanukovych (current prime-minister) became a living incarnation of their fears: twice criminally convicted for assault, beating and robbery, one of the people who became rich under illegal corrupted "privatisation" schemes, a person, who publicly called his opponents "assholes".
During the recent 10 years the authoritarian tendencies in Ukraine became stronger, and to secure the dominance of the president, the blatant censorship was introduced in media. Combined with economic problems, everyday uncontrollable police brutality and further submission to Russia's regional interests, it led to popular discontent even among usually patient Ukrainians.
In the recent weeks the authorities, scared by losing the battle, more and more actively are trying to suppress opposition and all those who are taking activist stance in any field. The stuff of the only non-censored TV Channel in Ukraine - "5th Channel" - are on hunger strike for the third day because of the authorities' desicion to close it down. Offices of several NGOs, concerned with voters' rights and financed by the West, were raided and searched, as well as several houses of the activists of different kind. In one of the offices there was a bomb "found" - under all accounts just brought there by police, - which gave a pretext to open a criminal case.
Protesters at opposition rally are attacked by plainclothed police armed with empty bottles and hammers. People who go to that rally have their buses' tyres cut by traffic police. Etc., etc.
This is just a very short summary of the recent two pre-electoral weeks. Nowadays there's a common fear that the election night's events can turn into a bloodshed as far as a big number of troops and police are massed in Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
One of the alternative, non-commercial Ukrainian political news web-sites, operated by the team of the volonteers, launched an English-language newswire, which will be updated as they will be translated by the translators' team:
http://maidan.org.ua/eindex.html Please don't ignore the events and news from the biggest country of Europe. It's not about elections anymore - it's about the right to stay against the pressure, about the freedom of speech and about the right not to live in fear.
In the coming days people who are going to go out to the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities may need your support.
Gaston
Homepage:
http://maidan.org.ua/eindex.html
Comments
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Message sent to UK National Union of Students:
02.11.2004 21:07
I had almost zero responce to may emails and leaflets (below). The number of international election observers is still chronically short. Hello, wake up everybody, this is an international scandal.
Message sent to UK National Union of Students:
While Blair and Bush cosy up to Putin, Putin helps vile Ukrainian regime destroy democracy and repress the Ukrainian people, including students...
Subj: Last chance to save Ukrainian democracy - from Blair, Bush, Putin and Kuchma
Date: 05/10/2004
Contents of this message:
1. leaflet to delegates at the Conservative Party Conference
2. e-mail / fax to Tony Blair
3. appeal by PORA - a civic group of young people in Ukraine - Letter of Freedom and Solidarity
Earth calling the BBC: Hello, is anybody in?
"We need your help because regime will be afraid to break the rules in front of world community"
-
From: Philip Giddings, British international election observer registered with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America - Ukraine Presidential Elections 31 October and 21 November 2004
Tel or txt: 0781 5976219
To get confirmation of just how serious the situation in Ukraine is, please e-mail
URGENT MESSAGE FOR REPRESENTATIVES AT THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE
NEW LABOUR,
NEW SOVIET UNION
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: 31 OCTOBER AND 21 NOVEMBER 2004
Don't let Blair betray Ukraine:
please support the movements for democracy and civil society in their hour of need.
* Be an Opposition! Hold the Government to account for its acquiescence with the 'Putin Plan' to polarise Europe with a new iron curtain and a new bloc of mafia states in the European space of the former USSR.
* Expose the lip service being paid to 'free and fair elections' in Ukraine by the UK and EU, who are not sending ANYWHERE NEAR enough international election observers to make that happen.
* Challenge the BBC and other national news media to start covering Ukraine NOW, as they covered Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s - the forthcoming Ukrainian elections are at least as critical to the future of Europe.
Blair and Bush are acquiescing in Putin's designs on the former Soviet Union, such as, helping Ukraine's criminal regime prepare to falsify the Presidential Elections to stay in power. This is not only the greatest international scandal since the non-existent WMD in Iraq, but also spells disaster for the future of Europe. A new iron curtain is set to fall across Europe, polarising the European Union and a bloc of authoritarian mafia states in the European space of the former Soviet Union. Putin knows that Ukraine – a country of 48 million people and the second-largest in Europe – is critically important to this project.
However, Ukraine is different from the other former Soviet East European states, such as Moldova and Belarus: it has a strong democratic opposition which is challenging for the Presidency against the regime's puppet candidate. The fairness or otherwise, the outcome and the consequences, of the Ukrainian Presidential Elections, hang in the balance. Therefore, anything YOU do to influence the situation at this time will help to make history!
These elections could be the finest hour for Ukrainian democracy – or the darkest. Ukraine is approaching its day of reckoning following years of struggle by the movements for democracy, human rights and civil society, in the teeth of State persecution. Their courage deserves international solidarity, which they will get if there is DECENT UKRAINE COVERAGE IN THE UK NATIONAL NEWS MEDIA, STARTING NOW.
Television cameras can expose the outrage of a morally bankrupt, criminal regime attempting to falsify presidential elections or conjure a pretext for cancelling them. The regime understands the power of television: the TV election broadcast of their puppet presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, makes him look respectable by showing footage of him at 10 Downing Street, shaking hands with Tony Blair. How sickening is that!
We are talking about a country with streetwalkers as young as seven who sleep in the sewers; a country where anti-poverty programmes don't even start while the public services are corrupt from the top down, and the oligarchs usurp billions of dollars from State finances. Try telling the child prostitutes that they are a price worth paying to keep Putin sweet in the ‘war against terror'.
Subj: UKRAINE: THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, PLEASE ACT NOW!
Date: 30/09/2004
To:
CC:
FAO The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Denis MacShane MP, David Atkinson MP
Others will be copied in
From: Philip Giddings, British international election observer registered with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
Tel or txt: 0781 597 6219
Why is nobody listening?
1. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and its delegation in Ukraine, every independent civic organisation in Ukraine, (what is now left of) the entire independent media in Ukraine, every relevant independent expert, observer and commentator, every organisation that represents Ukrainian communities in every country of the world is calling for thousands more international election observers to be sent to Ukraine NOW.
2. If the true winner of the Presidential Election on 31 October (second round on 21 November) does not become the next President, because the election was successfully fixed, there could be violent conflict and a blood bath on the streets of Kiev and the consequences for the rest of Europe will be catastrophic.
There is still time, but very little time, to recruit and send more observers, from the sources that supply the OSCE election observation missions.
I appeal to the Government to do this and the following immediately:-
sponsor large adverts for volunteers in the major broadsheet newspapers - [The UCCA is still registering international observers - contact them at
raise the media profile of the crisis in Ukraine. Solidarity in Poland was in the prime-time television news practically every day. The democratic opposition in Ukraine should get at least as much coverage because at least as much is at stake.
Please don't use my name, or there may be one less international election observer!
For a one-stop digest of Ukraine news from sources all over the world, take the Action Ukraine Report. Delivered free by email. Contact
Message sent today to BBC World Service phone-in programme:
"The best asylum policy is a foreign policy that does not create thousands of genuine political asylum seekers in the first place.
Example:-
Thousands of people in Ukraine are being persecuted by the Ukrainian regime ahead of the Presidential Election on 31 October. There is overwhelming evidence that the regime is preparing to fix the election to stay in power. If the elections were free and fair, Ukrainians would vote for change and against the regime (based on reliable opinion polls), thereby ensuring the survival of Ukrainian democracy.
If the election result is disputed, there could be violent clashes between the regime's forces and thousands of protesters - thereby generating thousands more refugees and asylum seekers.
Yet, if there were enough election observers to monitor the election properly, the true result would be reported, ascertained, and beyond dispute. That would ensure that only the true winner would have a legitimate claim to the Presidency; thereby making a peaceful transition of power far more probable.
Despite the above, however, the EU and USA can't even be bothered to send enough international election observers to monitor the election properly. Thousands more are needed urgently.
The cost of sending them is negligible compared with the cost of not sending them: from care and subsistence for the asylum seekers, to the catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and the rest of Europe.
There will be a new Iron Curtain along the EU's eastern frontier. On one side, the liberal democracies; and on the other, mafia-controlled regimes whose main exports to us will be Class-A drugs, child porn and [the sweated labour of exploited] illegal immigrants."
Subj: Letter of Freedom and Solidarity
Date: 05/10/2004 17:18:17 GMT Daylight Time
From:
To all CITIZENS of FREE WORLD
Now, while you are reading this letter, 48 millions of people that
live in one of the largest European countries, have a unique chance to
make their choice and change ruling corrupted regime.
THIS AUTUMN 2004 is THE MOMENT OF TRUTH FOR UKRAINIAN NATION
WE KNOW THAT CHOICE OF UKRAINIAN PEOPLE IS CLEAR.
They are tired of years of corrupted regime and distrusted government.
They are exhausted by permanent lie and lawlessness. They want
prosperity and stability for their children. They want to live in a
democratic country. They value freedom of expression and freedom of
press. They want to join European community. They want their choice to
be heard and respected.
But we also know that THIS CHOICE COULD BE FALSIFIED, as it happened
during parliamentary elections in 2002, during the elections in
Mukacheve and in tens of small towns all over Ukraine. We recognize
that people's choice could be disgraced and replaced by the will of a
small oligarchic group. And again millions of Ukrainians will be
deceived
We started this letter of freedom and solidarity to protect free and
fair results of elections.
IF YOU BELIEVE IN FREEDOM,
IF YOU CARE ABOUT FUTURE OF UKRAINE,
SIGN THIS LETTER
to PREVENT FALSIFICATIONS and STOP REPRESSIONS against
thousands of young Ukrainians, who created a national network of
volunteers and started PORA (TIME) civic movement, aimed at ensuring
and protecting fair and democratic elections of the President of
Ukraine.
WE NEED YOUR HELP because regime will be afraid
to break the rules in front of world community,
because only UNITED we can win.
There is no alternative to public action:
1. Check our website www.pora.org.ua/en and learn about activities
of PORA
2. Sign our letter of freedom and solidarity
3. Make a difference: join PORA Campaign and contribute to campaign
4. Forward this letter to your friends
There might not be other chance
It is TIME to act, TIME to struggle, TIME to win
Civic Campaign PORA
www.pora.org.ua/en
Englishman