A wish and a prayer for the Ukrainian democrats, please

Daily Kommersant reports Russian troops in Ukraine

By PAUL MIAZGA
Kyiv Post Senior Editor

The Russian daily Kommersant published a report on Nov. 29 stating that up to 800 Russian special forces, or spetsnaz, began arriving in Kyiv early on the morning of Nov. 23 and changed into Ukrainian uniforms at a Ukrainian military base just outside the capital.

The report says that at 1:32 a.m. on Nov. 23 a Russian Antonov An-26 (serial number RA-26410) arrived at a Ukrainian military base near Irpen, located 10 km from the city center. The base is adjacent to a compound operated by the BARS government security agency, which has as many as 3,000 service personnel protecting the Presidential Administration in central Kyiv.

According to the Kommersant report, at 3:17 a.m. on Nov. 23, a second plane arrived, a Ukrainian-registered heavy lift Ilyushin Il-76. The occupants of both the Antonov and the Ilyushin boarded buses waiting on the tarmac and were transported to the base at Irpen. Kommersant also reported that up to 800 such spetsnaz forces of the Vityaz regiment have arrived in Ukraine from Russia on Russian military transport aircraft, many also having landed at Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport from Nov. 24-26.

The location of the troops is currently unknown.

The deputy head of the Boryspil Airport security service, Lt. Colonel Lyashenko, refused to give clearance for the first of the planes to arrive from Russia on Nov. 23 and immediately tendered his resignation. The press service of the airport security service would not give the reasons for Lyashenko's resignation, but did confirm that Lyashenko had resigned his post.

The staff at another regional airport nearby also refused to give landing permission to further planes arriving on Nov. 24, but they were overruled and the planes landed, said an anonymous source within the State Security Service (SBU) on Nov. 25.

The source stated that each plane, after landing, was then loaded with sensitive documents from the Presidential Administration, the SBU and other departments before taking off again, bound for Moscow.

Officials at Boryspil airport and with the Interior Ministry have so far declined to comment on the matter. Russian Ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, on Nov. 26 called the reports of Russian forces in Ukraine as "completely absurd and an open provocation."

Of course, msolga. I only referred back up to the other post about him because you had said to Walter, "tell me more, I know nothing & wondered".

Tymoshenko has also reported there are enough materials to bring an action against President Kuchma for the treachery of Ukraine's people. "There are a lot of investigators willing to start this case," she has stated.

Yulia Tymoshenko has also thanked the rally participants for defending all objects last night - the Cabinet, the Presidential Administration and camping. Yulia Tymoshenko has reported that last night there was given an order to make troops ready for action.

"At 11:10PM warriors got the arms and set out for Kyiv from Petrivtsi, Boryspil and Zhytomyr along the Brovary highway. Yet some conscious and honest officers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs did their best to stop this punitive force," has said Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko has added that the officers of the Ministry of Defense gave the government to understand they would not tolerate killing their people.

The people's deputy has reported it was Minister of Internal Affaurs Bilokon who had ordered to send troops to Kyiv.

Pora has shaken Ukrainians awake
by Wendelmoet Boersema
link to original

As a modern "International" they have sprouted in eastern Europe: the students movements who challenge the established order. After the Serbian Otpor (Resistance) and the Georgian Kmara (Enough) the stage is now taken by the Ukrainian Pora, 'It's Time'.

KIEV - Wet snow sticks to the volunteers, who are making one cheese or meat roll after another. Steam is rising from big stoves. On the Kreshtshatik, Kievs Stalinesque main street, there are almost twohundred tents. Woodblocks, warm clothing and food are lying in big heaps, brought by sympathisers. Andrey (16), student at the trade school, is hurrying to fill hot thermoses. "I've been out doing this for four nights now.''

The organisation of the tent camp is mainly in the hands of Pora, the Ukrainian student movement. Their flags, yellow and black, colour the streets of Kiev.

For the past half year, the Ukrainian youngsters of Pora have been getting trainings from, mostly, their Serbian colleagues of Otpor. With the slogan 'Gotov je' (He's done), Otpor played an important role in October 2000 in driving out the Serbian dictator Milosevic. "We know what it is to live under a dictatorial regime", says trainer Sinisa Sikman from Otpor, which has been renamed 'Belgrade Centre for Nonviolent Resistance'.

What the student movements have in common is their fluid organisation. There are no statutes, meetings, no real leaders. The actions are humoristic. Pora has had Che Guevara T-shirts printed in a Ukrainian folkloric blouse. With symbols (the fist of Otpor's set the pattern), flags and stickers they have rallied large crowds. In Kiev it was said often: "The youth has shaken us awake.''

That didn't take place without conflicts. Of the over 10,000 Pora activists hundreds have been arrested this month. The authorities accused Pora of 'terrorist activities'. A thorn in the eye of the Ukrainian rulers is also the involvement of western NGO's in Pora's rise, such as the American Freedom House. An advisor of this organisation, the former Otpor leader Aleksandar Maric, was refused entry to the country at Kiev airport early this month.

Not just in Ukraine do people see this involvement as evidence of the hand of the US, which through organisations like Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute tries to influence elections in authoritarian countries. According to the British newspaper The Guardian their Ukrainian campaign involves a sum of 14 million dollar. strategies include the exit-polls, which have to set the tone in the media, the training of observers and the organisation of nonviolent resistance. American ambassadors have actively involved themselves with the opposition in different former Soviet republics during recent elections.

This American involvement is not always successful by the way, let alone decisive. In Byelorussia the Americans managed to get the (at the time strongly divided) opposition behind one candidate, but this little charismatic trade union leader lost against President Lukashenka. The Byelorussian student movement Zubr exists now mostly underground.

Ukraine furthermore has a tradition of civic resistance of its own. The intellectual source of the youth protest is the Kyiv-Mohyla University, located in the picturesque neighbourhood Podil. Founders of the student movement Pora, but also of other Ukrainian youth organisations, the civic movement 'Znayu' (I know) and human rights organisation 'Chista Ukrayna' (Clean Ukraine) study at this young university. The college was founded in 1990 after the example of the famous humanist Kyiv-brotherhood School from 1615.

That is also why the first tent camp - an oppositional strategy from Soviet times - emerged before the gates of 'Mohylianka', as the students lovingly call their university. The rector of Mohylianka applauds the political awareness of his students, and has attracted the anger of the authorities by that. An attempt to search the university campus was rebuffed by the students.

Pora now experiences its finest hour. "It is impossible for me to say what we are going to do tomorrow", says spokesperson Anastasia Bezverha. "The situation here changes every hour".

At the office of Pora it is now quiet, after extra guards have been added at the door. Just before the elections it was still a steaming, crawling anthill in the cramped basement office. "Everybody now is on the street", says Anastasia. "Of course our friends support us, from Georgia, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Estonia and even Azerbajjan. But this is our revolution. Pora peremogi. Time for a victory.''

Guardian (UK): Ukraine's leaders in poll climbdown

President admits new election may be needed as US signals concern

Nick Paton Walsh in Kiev
Tuesday November 30, 2004

The Ukrainian government made a significant climbdown last night in its stand-off with the opposition when outgoing president Leonid Kuchma said another round of elections might be required because the "country needs a legitimate president".
"If we really want to preserve peace and accord, and if we really want to build up the democratic society that we talk about so much ... let's organise new elections," Interfax reported him saying ...

... At 10pm on Sunday, opposition deputy Yulia Tymoshenko said Mr Kuchma had 24 hours to sack and prosecute Mr Yanukovich, and the heads of the eastern regions who have threatened to secede from Ukraine, or the protesters would block his movements.

Meanwhile, outside the presidential administration, blockaded for five days by a tent city, protesters danced to a rap song based one of their favoured chants: "We are many, and we will not be defeated."

Ukraine TV Journalist Stages Silent Revolt

By Carl Schreck
STAFF WRITER

MOSCOW - When the anchorwoman for Ukraine's state-owned television station UT-1 reported Thursday morning that Viktor Yanukovych had officially been declared the winner of the presidential election, Natalya Dmitruk staged a silent protest.

Dmitruk, shown in the bottom righthand corner of the screen wearing an orange ribbon indicating her support for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, told viewers in sign language that she considered the Nov. 21 election a farce.

"I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine," Dmitruk signed. "Our president is Yushchenko. Don't believe what they say. They are lying."

Dmitruk, 47, whose parents are deaf and who has worked at UT-1 as its sign-language interpreter for almost three years, then went back to signing anchorwoman Tatyana Kravchenko's report before straying from the script one more time at the end of the 10-minute segment.

"My soul is heavy that I had to repeat these lies," Dmitruk signed. "I will not do it again. I don't know if we'll see each other again."

Dmitruk's personal revolt came amid a mutiny of Ukrainian television journalists against the management of pro-government stations and a gag order on showing the growing masses of Yushchenko supporters demonstrating in the capital.

By the end of last week, the journalists claimed to have won, though critics say their coverage still is not what it should be.

Contacted by telephone in Kiev on Sunday, Dmitruk said she felt she had a special responsibility to speak her mind. "The deaf don't have any other option for getting television news," she said, referring to the reports she does daily on UT-1 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

"I figured they could fire me, but I wasn't scared. The only thing I was worried about was that they might get rid of the sign-language news."

On Wednesday, 14 journalists at UT-1 and 1+1, a privately owned but pro-government channel, went on strike to protest the use of "temnyki," instructions from the presidential administration on how certain subjects should be handled. The strike soon spread.

After her morning report, Dmitruk joined the strike, one of more than 220 journalists and contributors at the state-owned channel to do so. They put out a statement condemning the "one-sided coverage" that "deprives Ukrainian citizens of important news."

Thursday evening, journalists at 1+1 said they had struck a deal with management. They went back on the air for the first time since Tuesday to announce the deal and to apologize.

"We acknowledge our responsibility for the biased information that the channel spread after coming under pressure from various political forces," the 1+1 journalists said. "From today, ... we guarantee that any information we broadcast will be complete and objective."

Inter, another privately run and strongly pro-government channel, promised Friday to put an end to biased reporting. Inter is controlled by members of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine, which is headed by President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk.

No formal agreement was reached at UT-1, but the channel changed its policy and on Friday began showing the huge demonstrations in support of Yushchenko in Kiev.

Natalya Ligachova, head of the media watchdog organization Telekritika, said all the national channels are now showing footage of the Yushchenko supporters, but she still did not consider it completely objective coverage.

"Unfortunately, they are not showing as much of it as they should," Ligachova, whose organization monitors Ukraine's television media, said by telephone from Kiev on Sunday.

She complained that Inter and UT-1 were giving the impression of balanced coverage by showing footage of meetings between representatives of Yushchenko and Yanukovych instead of running reports highlighting the marked difference in the amount of public support for the two candidates.

"When they show a rally of 4,000 for Yanukovych and a rally of 100,000 for Yushchenko and don't make it clear how much more support Yushchenko has, that's not accurate reporting," Ligachova said.

Until Thursday, Channel 5 was the only channel giving significant airtime to the pro-Yushchenko protests and airing critical reports about the Yanukovych camp.

For example, on Thursday the station reported that Yanukovych supporters were brought to Kiev on special buses and trains and were being paid 200 hryvnas (about $30) per day to stay. Kuchma has accused Channel 5 of trying to prepare the way for a coup.

Ligachova said Channel 5 had been blacked out in much of eastern Ukraine, where Yanukovych claims most of his support, as a result of its critical coverage of the prime minister. A woman named Tanya who answered the phone Sunday at Yushchenko's headquarters in Donetsk, confirmed that Channel 5 and also TRK Era, another station critical of Yanukovych, were not being received.

"Now our only source of reliable information is Radio Era," she said. "We've been listening to Radio Era all day."

Television channel 1+1 has changed its content for the better but is still not providing objective coverage, she said. "Before it was just complete lies, now it shows the truth more often," she said.

n Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, accused Russian journalists on Friday of "lies and manipulating public opinion" over the election dispute, The Associated Press reported.

He singled out state-controlled Channel One television and newspapers he did not name for acting like "slaves who envy others' freedom," and said they were "poisoning one part of the Ukrainian people against the other."

Channel One, which is broadcast in Ukraine and many other former Soviet republics, has given blanket positive coverage to pro-Yanukovych demonstrators and accused their opponents of worsening tensions.

Ukraine building siege lifted
From correspondents in Kiev, Ukraine
02dec04

UKRAINE opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko signed a compromise agreement today that obliges his supporters to lift their siege of government buildings.

According to the agreement - signed by Yushchenko; the declared official winner of the presidential runoff, Viktor Yanukovych; outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and European envoys - the blockade that has paralysed the work of Ukrainian authorities must be lifted immediately ...

'No Confidence' Vote Adds to Ukraine Turmoil
Ukraine Parliament Brings Down Government

UKRAINE: SUPREME COURT MAKES EXPECTED VERDICT
MOSCOW, December 3 (RIA Novosti's Vladimir Pronin) - At last! Ukraine's Supreme Court invalidated the presidential runoff to appoint another. The verdict, which followed seven hours' debates, points out bad trespasses in the runoff of November 21, and highlights Central Election Commission non-compliance with several election law clauses.
The court annuls a Central Election Commission resolution of November 24, which gave presidency to Victor Yanukovich. The verdict qualifies the resolution as illegitimate-it is impossible to see with whatever degree of precision what the runoff returns actually were, says the Supreme Court.
The Central Election Commission did not care to verify reports from territorial commissions, and failed to regard complaints according to due procedure. More than that, it gave up complaint consideration long before it was over, the court stresses.
"The trespasses rule out any reliable evaluation of election returns," says Judge Anatoli Yarema, who presided the Civil Law Chamber session of the Supreme Court.
A second presidential runoff has been appointed for December 26-three weeks after December 5. All Civil Law Chamber members have signed a related statement.
The verdict is final, and immune to appeal, concluded Mr. Yarema.
The Supreme Court verdict was quite predictable. It evidently aims to meet opposition demands as much as possible. Another option, to null both rounds and start another presidential campaign from scratch, is impracticable-as the acting legislation has it, the arrangement would make both principal hopefuls give up the presidential race for others to compete. The party in office has no lack of eligible personalities. The opposition is harder put-it has a negligible chance to come at another charismatic leader on a par with Victor Yuschenko, if not for Yulia Timoshenko, its second-largest figure.
The court verdict will surely come as a disagreeable surprise to outgoing President LeonidKuchma. He appeared in Moscow on a blitz visit, yesterday, to talk the matter over with President Vladimir Putin. While at the negotiation table, Mr. Kuchma harshly objected to the runoff re-enacted-a statement he had made on many previous occasions. Another presidential runoff is unprecedented in global legal practice. That is what the incumbent proceeds from.
A precedent is coming up now. The issue is getting over to parliament. It has to legalise the Supreme Court verdict with related constitutional amendments. The road to the presidential palace has opened to Victor Yuschenko.

It would be wrong, however, to regard Mr Yanukovych as a completely dead duck.

Until this election, it was an axiom of Ukrainian politics that you could not win the presidency without the support of the heavily populated industrial eastern regions.

Mr Yanukovych's popularity in the east and south is unquestioned and the eagerness of his supporters to turn out and vote will only have been strengthened by the scenes in Kiev.

Security expert and former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Zherebetsky does see certain dangers ahead for Mr Yushchenko.

One is that Mr Yanukovych might withdraw from the race, despite his declaration on Saturday that he would run again.

His nightmare scenario would be for Mr Yanukovych to withdraw, and then call on voters in the east and south to boycott the election, adding to the risk of separatism developing in these regions.

If Mr Yanukovych withdraws less than 10 days before the vote, Mr Yushchenko becomes the single candidate.

If he withdraws sooner, then the candidate placed third in the first round of voting, Oleksandr Moroz, will take his place.

Mr Zherebetsky says Mr Moroz, a Socialist, would pick up all Mr Yanukovych's votes and some more besides and could therefore be a formidable opponent.

KIEV, December 4 (Itar-Tass) - The delegates to the Congress of Councils in Kharkov, eastern Ukraine, on Saturday urged Viktor Yanukovich and Viktor Yushchenko to withdraw from the revote in the second round of presidential elections set for December 26.

A statement which the delegates made on Saturday also contains a request to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma to appeal to the Constitutional Court and demand that it recognize the Supreme Court's decision on the revote as a politically engaged action that interferes in the competence of the Central Electoral Commission.

"The actions in one part of Ukraine have produced a return reaction in its other part. It is obvious that this reaction has helped preserving the country's unity. However, the Supreme Court's decison surprised many. Apparently, it was passed under pressure. Yushchenko's supporters are applauding but it's we who have questions now," Kharkov Governor Yevgeny Kushnaryov said in his report to the congress earlier on Saturday.