======================================================== ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR An International Newsletter, The Latest, Up-To-Date In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis and Commentary Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion, Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World ONE-HUNDRED AND ONE DAYS SINCE THE UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION NO NEW SPEAKER OF THE PARLIAMENT, NO NEW PRIME MINISTER & NO NEW CABINET OF MINISTERS The Action Ukraine Report (AUR) brings you the news from Ukraine. Send the AUR to your colleagues and friends..keep them informed! ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR - NUMBER 724 Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor PUBLISHED IN WASHINGTON, D.C., WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2006 -------- INDEX OF ARTICLES -------- Clicking on the title of any article takes you directly to the article. Return to the Index by clicking on Return to Index at the end of each article 1. YANUKOVYCH: "WE'LL MAKE SURE THE RADA IS DISMISSED!" By Yanna Sokolovskaya, Izvestia, in Russian Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Translated into English by Lisa Koriouchkina for UKL The Ukraine List (UKL) #394, compiled by Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Monday, 3 July 2006 2. RADA COALITION BELIEVES PARTY OF REGIONS BLOCKING RADA'S ACTIVITY IN ORDER TO DESTABILIZE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION IN UKRAINE Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 3. ORANGE COALITION OFFERS OPPOSITION LEADING POSITIONS AT PARLIAMENT'S SUPERVISORY BODIES Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 4. UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT MEETS WITH PARLIAMENTARY LEADERS Associated Press, Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 5. REVIVED ORANGE COALITION NEEDS TO REINVIGORATE UKRAINE'S REFORMS DIALOGUE & DEBATE: By Taras Kuzio, Visiting Professor, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. The Ukrainian Observer magazine, The Willard Group Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2006 6. DOES THE REVOLUTION DEVOUR ITS CHILDREN? Petro Poroshenko as the double murderer of the Orange Coalition COMMENTARY: By Andreas Umland Ukraine-Analysen, No. 10, 27 June 2006 Translated into English by Nykolai Bilaniuk for UKL The Ukraine List (UKL) #394, compiled by Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Monday, 3 July 2006 7. AN ORANGE GOVERNMENT FOR UKRAINE - BUT FOR HOW LONG? Russia Profile Experts Panel: Yury Fyodorov, Edward Lozansky, Anthony T. Salvia, Andrei Seregin, and Andrei Zagorski Introduction by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile.org, Moscow, Russia, Friday, 30 June 2006 8. THE SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT DIALOGUE AND DEBATE: By Olesya Oleshko The Ukrainian Observer magazine, The Willard Group Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2006 9. UKRAINE: 10 YEARS OF THE CONSTITUTION Adoption of Ukrainian Constitution on June 28, 1996 was pivotal event PRESENTATION: By Ambassador Roman Shpek in Brussels Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the European Union New Europe, Athens, Greece, Monday, July 3, 2006 10. NATO GETS COLD FEET ON 2008 ENLARGEMENT Second thoughts about opening door for Ukraine, Georgia, three Balkan states REUTERS, Brussels, Belgium, Monday July 3, 2006 11. NATO HOPES UKRAINE WILL CONTINUE ITS EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION AFTER FORMATION OF NEW CABINET Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 3, 2006 12. USA TRYING TO PREVENT CIS CONSOLIDATION AROUND RUSSIA Belapan news agency, Minsk, in Russian 1536 gmt 4 Jul 06 BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Tuesday, Jul 04, 2006 13. FORMER ADVISER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA POSES ENERGY HAZARD TO G8 PARTNERS By Alex Nicholson, Associated Press Business Writer AP, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 14. THE TENUOUS NATURE OF UKRAINE'S FUTURE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY By Ethan S. Burger, Esq., Scholar-in-Residence School of International Service, American University Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TRACCC) American University, Washington, D.C., June 2006 15. CRITICIZING RUSSIA WITH GOOD REASON OPINION: International Herald Tribune (IHT) Paris, France, Sunday, July 2, 2006 16. EUROPE NEEDS A SOFT-POWER APPROACH Europe and Russia are today poised to pull Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine in two different directions. OPINION: By Charles William Maynes, The St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, June 30, 2006, Issue #1182(48) 17. UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CLERIC SLAMS "GODLESS" WEST OVER NATO, EU AT ROUND-TABLE MEETING IN MOSCOW Says NATO is hostile to Russia and to entire orthodox civilization Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian 0948 gmt 4 Jul 06 BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 18. IFJ RAISES ALARM OVER WESTERN ATTACKS ON WHISTLEBLOWERS AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM U.S., Great Britain & Denmark intimidate and stifle independent journalism International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday, July 04, 2006 19. FORMER DEPUTY GOVERNOR SENTENCED FOR FALSIFYING RESULTS OF 2004 MUKACHEVE MAYORAL ELECTION Eight others receive sentences for rigging elections and accepting bribes Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 20 . COLD WAR & BLIND ANTI-AMERICANISM Joseph Stalin would have greatly appreciated your piece on Cold War II LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR: By Mykola Ryabchuk Addressed to Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar, Norway Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #724, Article 20 Washington, D.C., Wednesday, July 5, 2006 ======================================================== 1. YANUKOVYCH: "WE'LL MAKE SURE THE RADA IS DISMISSED!" By Yanna Sokolovskaya, Izvestia, in Russian Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Translated into English by Lisa Koriouchkina for UKL The Ukraine List (UKL) #394, compiled by Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Monday, 3 July 2006 On Tuesday, huge furniture barricades appeared in the Verkhovna Rada Assembly Hall. Members of the Party of Regions used chairs to block a tribune and a presidium table. By turning off the voting system "Rada", they disrupted a parliamentary session during which "Orange" deputies were going to elect a speaker and a PM. Meanwhile, several thousands of people supporting the opposition gathered for a meeting of protest outside the Parliament building. This many people have not gathered together in the downtown Kyiv since the events at Maidan. "We'll block Rada for 30 days," - Viktor Yanukovych, a leader of the Party of Regions, threatened. How far will the opposition go in its confrontation with the "Orange" authorities? Yanukovych (VY) elaborated on this as well as many other questions in an interview with Yanna Sokolovskaya. Izvestia: Are you sure, you can sustain the siege for 30 days? Viktor Yanukovych: We'll block the Rada throughout all this time. After that, by law the Parliament would have to be dismissed. It is important to make sure that not only the interests of a coalition representing one half of a country but the interests of all the people are recognized. We'll make sure that laws in Ukraine are executed properly. We will not allow re-opening the session because we no longer trust some members of the temporary presidium. One of its members, a representative of "Nasha Ukraina" Mykola Katerynchuk is constantly closing the Parliament meeting. In the Rada, our rights are ignored. We wanted to have a deputy meeting; however the microphones were turned off. The Parliament was literally split into the "Orangists", the members of a coalition, the privileged and the rest, i.e, those without any legal rights. And those without any rights basically make one half of Rada and represent the interests of half of Ukraine. Also, we disagree with the Rada's resolution that was proposed by the coalition. The resolution specifies that a PM is elected before a speaker. This is a violation of the order. Our Political Council (politsoviet) is ready to protect the Constitution. Izvestia: Will you block only the Rada or will you include local councils (soviety) as well? Viktor Yanukovych: Next week, in all the regions that trust us, we will explain our position at assembly meetings of local councils. We are preparing meetings of protest as well. Izvestia: Could a parliamentary crisis bring about an economic crisis? Viktor Yanukovych: The situation in Ukraine is dangerous from the economic as well as the political point of view. The crisis is deepening. The coalition is only making it worse. It [the coalition] has not started carrying out its duties yet but is already harming Ukraine. Izvestia: What is your opinion regarding Yulia Tymoshenko's intention to break the gas agreement with Russia? Viktor Yanukovych: It's an attempt to instigate anti-Russian attitudes, and by so doing it's an attempt to cover her lack of competence. However, a coalition that has not fully been formed does not have a chance to break agreements with Russia. The Ukrainian government signed the documents. And the government has not changed. If the government attempts to break the agreement with Russia, then tomorrow Ukraine will rise up against the government. People are already unhappy with the increasing prices and tariffs, with the fact that local budgets are not fulfilled. Izvestia: Yushchenko's team refuses to give the Russian language the status of a regional language in Ukraine. How will you defend rights of the Russian-speaking populations? Viktor Yanukovych: We protected the Russian language and will continue to do so. We will not give up this paragraph of our program. The Council of Europe's initiative to scrutinize the Ukraine's adherence to the Charter of the Regional languages is a direct response to the events in the Russian-speaking regions. We salute this decision. Izvestia: Why do authorities demand [Ukraine's] speedy admittance to NATO membership? Viktor Yanukovych: 80% of Ukrainians disapprove of NATO. [You] ask people whether they want improvement in living conditions or NATO [membership]. And you will understand that today authorities have lost their sense of the situation. They forgot what the priorities are. They are no longer solving acute questions but are trying to blackmail people. -30- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK TO UKL: http://www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 2. RADA COALITION BELIEVES PARTY OF REGIONS BLOCKING RADA'S ACTIVITY IN ORDER TO DESTABILIZE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION IN UKRAINE Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 KYIV - The parliamentary coalition believes that the Party of the Regions' reason for blocking the operations of the parliament is its desire to destabilize the political and economic situation in Ukraine. Oleksandr Turchynov, a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, which is a member of the parliamentary coalition, announced this to journalists. According to Turchynov, the meeting of the conciliatory council of leaders of parliamentary groups and factions that took place on Tuesday morning was unable to adopt any decision that would unblock the activities of the parliament. Turchynov stressed that this was despite the fact that the parliamentary coalition accepted the demands that the Party of Regions previously made. In particular, he said that the parliamentary coalition agreed to postpone the formation of parliamentary committees until election of the leadership of the parliament and to elect the speaker and deputy speakers of the parliament through secret ballot. Turchynov said that the Party of Regions started making new demands after this. 'Our conclusion is that the motive for the blocking [of the operations of the parliament] is not [the party's] positions on the regulations of the parliament. The motive is exclusively to destabilize the political, public and economic situation in the country,' Turchynov said. The same time, he stressed that the Party of Regions has no other reasons for blocking the operations of the parliament. He also said that the parliamentary coalition was prepared to take adequate measures within the Constitution and the legislation to protect the constitutional rights of deputies. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the parliamentary coalition condemned the Party of Regions on July 3 for blocking the activities of the parliament and preventing the roundtable intended for resolving the conflict in the parliamentary from taking place. The roundtable intended for resolving the conflict between the parliamentary coalition and the opposition could not start on July 3. The parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions is blocking the work of the parliament because it says it wants to prevent a vote on the candidates for the posts of prime minister and parliament speaker in a single package in violation of parliamentary regulations, prevent amendment of the regulations themselves, and prevent distribution of parliamentary committees exclusively among members of the parliamentary coalition. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 3. ORANGE COALITION OFFERS OPPOSITION LEADING POSITIONS AT PARLIAMENT'S SUPERVISORY BODIES Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada [parliament] coalition has offered opposition factions leading positions at the Rada's supervisory bodies. This was disclosed at a news conference by representatives of the coalition following negotiations with opposition faction leaders. Deputy Roman Zvarych of the Our Ukraine faction said that during the negotiations the parties reached an agreement on all of the disputed issues excepting the distribution of parliamentary committees. According to Zvarych, a draft agreement with the opposition consists of about ten provisions. He said that agreement was reached among other provisions on those describing procedures for the election of the Rada leaders and the appointment of the Prime Minister. In his words, the parties have agreed to set up a working group to be in charge of legislatively determining the status of the opposition's rights and drawing up draft amendments to the Rada's internal procedural operations. The coalition and the opposition agreed that the parliament leaders should be elected by secret ballot, Zvarych said. According to the deputy, the coalition proposed that the opposition hold consultations with the political forces dominating in some or other region on the appointment of heads of local governments in respective regions pending the coming into force of Bill No. 3207. The coalition has also offered the opposition that the Constitutional Court judges from the Verkhovna Rada's quota should be elected and sworn in by the end of the current parliamentary session. According to Zvarych, the Party of Regions claims leading positions in the Rada's committees on the national budget, legal issues and the fuel and energy complex. The opposition, for its part, offered the coalition leadership in Verkhovna Rada committees on maternity and childhood, as well as culture and sports affairs, but this proposal cannot suit the coalition, the lawmaker said. Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the eponymous BYT faction, said that the coalition is doing what it can to prevent the Verkhovna Rada's work to be unblocked by use of force. In her words, the coalition stands prepared to give over all supervisory functions to the opposition. "We are drawing up [provisions] on the oppositions' rights in such a way as if we ourselves are the opposition," she said. Tymoshenko said that the supervisory parliamentary committees will have powers comparable to those given to dedicated investigatory commissions. "We, when being in opposition, could not even dream of this," the BYT faction leader said. The Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz offered that the opposition be given the positions of the Verkhovna Rada's deputy speaker, first chairpersons of all of the parliamentary committees, chairman of the committee on privatization, the head of the Audit Chamber plus five or six committees with supervisory functions which will be controlled by the opposition. The Party of Regions faction, according to its leader Viktor Yanukovych, decided that it would examine at one of its meetings the coalition's proposals aimed at ending the parliamentary crisis. As Ukrainian News reported before, the coalition on July 3 issued a statement to condemn the Party of Regions for blocking Verkhovna Rada's work and frustrating the roundtable conference aimed at settling the ongoing parliamentary crisis. Roundtable conference on the settlement of the ongoing Verkhovna Rada crisis had never opened on July 3. The parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions is blocking the work of the parliament because it says it wants to prevent candidates for the posts of prime minister and parliament speaker to be voted in a single package in violation of parliamentary regulations, to prevent the regulations themselves to be changed, and prevent the distribution of parliamentary committees exclusively among members of the parliamentary coalition. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 4. UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT MEETS WITH PARLIAMENTARY LEADERS Associated Press, Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 KIEV- President Viktor Yushchenko met with leaders of parliamentary factions Tuesday in a bid to end a political crisis caused by an eight-day opposition protest in parliament that has prevented the formation of a new government. The pro-Russian Party of Regions began blocking the parliamentary podium last week while the new coalition was planning to call a vote on naming Yulia Tymoshenko prime minister. The party, led by Yushchenko's 2004 election rival Viktor Yanukovych, won the most votes in March parliamentary elections but fell short of a majority. Three parties, including those of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, agreed last month to form a majority coalition. Yanukovych's party has demanded chairmanships of key parliamentary committees and the first deputy speaker post, sparking coalition accusations of blackmail. "I am sure that today we are very close to solving all the problems," Yushchenko told the politicians Tuesday, according to his office. His chief of staff, Oleh Rybachuk, sounded upbeat as he emerged later, saying participants in the meeting found a compromise and were taking a three-hour break to work on the necessary documents with political councils of their parties. "We have very good chances of unblocking the parliamentary work tomorrow," Rybachuk told reporters. The majority coalition brings together the key political players in the Orange Revolution, the massive protests that erupted in 2004 after Yanukovych was declared to have received the most votes in presidential elections. That election eventually was declared invalid and Yushchenko won a rerun. The parties later fell out, and Tymoshenko was dismissed as prime minister last September. Her return to the post was a key element in the new coalition formation. Petro Poroshenko, who resigned as security chief amid the infighting last year, is to be nominated parliament speaker. The Party of Regions objects to a coalition proposal to hold the votes on the prime minister and the parliamentary speaker on a single ballot - in violation of parliamentary rules. Such a ballot would benefit the Orange allies because it increases the likelihood of the controversial Poroshenko winning approval. The Party of Regions wants the chairmanships of key parliamentary committees and the appointment of its members as governors in the eastern and southern regions it dominates, but the coalition is considering giving the Party of Regions mostly deputy chairmanships. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== Send in names and e-mail addresses for the AUR distribution list. ======================================================== 5. REVIVED ORANGE COALITION NEEDS TO REINVIGORATE UKRAINE'S REFORMS DIALOGUE & DEBATE: By Taras Kuzio, Visiting Professor, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. The Ukrainian Observer magazine, The Willard Group Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2006 The eighteen months since the Orange Revolution have been difficult for Ukraine. Defeating an autocratic regime has proved easier to accomplish for Ukraine's opposition than launching much awaited reforms or consolidating a new democracy. There have been too many missed opportunities. The creation of an Orange coalition and return of Yulia Tymoshenko to the post of prime minister, gives Ukraine a chance to reinvigorate its reforms and restart its integration with Europe. It would be wrong to paint all that has happened since the Orange Revolution in a negative light. There have been a number of notable advances, such as the holding of free and fair elections in March--the first truly free elections in Ukraine. There exists an open and free press. Civil society, invigorated by the Orange Revolution, remains robust in Ukraine. Oligarchs are no longer receiving preferential insider treatment as they did under Leonid Kuchma. The re-formation of an Orange coalition now provides President Viktor Yushchenko with a second, and final, chance to overcome widespread disappointment in his performance and weak leadership. Most Ukrainians have concluded that he is a one-term president; an Orange coalition gives him a chance to change this prevailing sentiment. SO, WHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG? Following the election of Yushchenko the commonly held assumption was that his political force, Our Ukraine, would naturally come first in the 2006 parliamentary elections. After all, Our Ukraine had come first with 24 percent in the proportional half of the 2002 elections under President Leonid Kuchma. Following the September 2005 crisis this optimistic view was downgraded to the prediction that Our Ukraine would come second. Polls by reliable Kyiv-based sociological firms predicted that this would indeed be the case. The elections proved, in the end, to be a major upset for Our Ukraine--as it not only came in third, but with ten percent fewer votes than four years ago. Why? One reason is obviously beyond Our Ukraine's control. In elections voters often punish those in power and it is easier to obtain votes when in opposition (as in 2002). But three other factors have worked against Yushchenko and Our Ukraine. FIRST, the conflict between the Tymoshenko government and the National Security and Defense Council, led by Secretary Petro Poroshenko, damaged the Orange camp. The conflict should have been put to rest by the president, who, instead, let it brew to a boiling point and then dismissed both sides after the head of the state secretariat made accusations of corruption. Accusations of corruption against politicians in Ukraine, and the CIS, tend to take serious root in the public's mind-often without proof (which Oleksandr Zinchenko never provided) and regardless of the fact that, in a democratic society, people are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. SECOND, Yushchenko needed to ensure his candidate for prime minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, obtained sufficient parliamentary votes. Instead of remaining in Ukraine and working the parliamentary corridors, Yushchenko spent four days in the United States and returned home a day before the vote-ultimately failing by 3 votes. In a panic, he then chose to lobby the Party of Regions to obtain their support by agreeing to a ten-point memorandum that included amnesty for election fraud and immunity for local deputies. This strategic mistake was compounded when the president summoned Ukraine's oligarchs to a meeting, where they were promptly re-named the national bourgeoisie. THIRD, a hastily agreed-to gas contract on January 4 stipulated the use of Rosukrenergo as an intermediary. Not only were those who were sent to negotiate in Moscow incompetent in their prosecution of their duties, they were completely ignorant of the fact that the EU, the United States and entire Western media were on Ukraine's side at that point. In other words, it should have been Russia capitulating to Ukraine - not Ukraine to Russia. Sending the head of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (i.e. head of Naftohaz Ukrainy) to Moscow, with an interpreter, to negotiate through the gas crisis was surreal. The gas contract, in turn, led to a January parliamentary vote of no confidence in the Yekhanurov government. The former Kuchma camp voted against the contract regardless of the fact that they themselves had established Rosukrenergo in July 2004 when Viktor Yanukovych was prime minister. The Tymoshenko faction instead of abstaining in the interests of Orange unity also voted in favor of the no confidence vote. INSTITUTIONAL AND PERSONALITY ISSUES Added to these difficulties have been the non-functioning of three institutions under Yushchenko: the Constitutional Court, the presidential secretariat and the National Security and Defense Council [NSDC]. Added to this has been poor leadership and non-existent public relations work--both here and abroad. There has been little understanding of the need to explain decisions to the public and to bridge the gulf between leaders and citizens-an implicit platform of the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko has insisted that parliament swear-in Constitutional Court judges following the vote on the Orange coalition government. The Constitutional Court has not functioned since autumn of last year. Two other important institutions that need to be revived are the presidential secretariat and NSDC. The lack of an effective presidential secretariat has paralyzed the executive. Neither Zinchenko (until his resignation in September 2005), nor current presidential secretariat head Oleh Rybachuk, have been able to organize an effective administration for Yushchenko. Disillusionment among presidential secretariat staff is widespread, particularly following Rybachuk's disastrous interview on BBC's Hardtalk show. Perhaps more important is the growing sense of concern about Yushchenko's ability to grow into the position of president. Not everybody is cut out to be a president, as we know even in the West, but heads of state can learn on the job, and be advised and coached as to how best to evolve into their positions. Yushchenko not only lacks an efficient secretariat, but honest and loyal advisers who will be up front with him while giving him their total loyalty. Yushchenko, like U.S. President George W. Bush, needs his Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney. Little wonder that Yushchenko sometimes looks like he is all alone--without any staff or party members upon whom he can rely. The NSDC, under Anatoliy Kinakh, has not functioned as an institution designed to deal with domestic and external threats to the state. The council has failed to provide an adequate response to the Party of Regions' use of the Russian language or NATO at the local level in eastern Ukraine or the Crimea. This, in turn, prevented the holding of military exercises, which damaged Ukraine's international image and put in question whether Ukraine will be invited into NATO at the 2008 enlargement summit. Again, the Party of Regions showed its opportunism in supporting anti-NATO rallies in response to military exercises. Of course, Yanukovych's opposition to the exercises is blatantly hypocritical. He voiced no opposition when he was grandly touring NATO headquarters in Brussels as prime minister, and he had voiced no opposition when the exercises were held regularly by the Kuchma administration from 1997-2004. WHICH COALITION IS BEST? The election results put President Yushchenko in a lose-lose situation, while Tymoshenko was an instant winner. Building a coalition with either Tymoshenko or Yanukovych would be difficult for Yushchenko. The former would require that Tymoshenko return as prime minister, while the latter would necessite a deal with the defeated presidential candidate that could lead to Orange voters flocking to Tymoshenko. Tymoshenko meanwhile, could choose between being either prime minister or head of the opposition. The best solution to this conundrum might have been a Grand Coalition of the three Orange forces and the Party of Regions, or a non-left Grand Coalition (i.e. without the Socialists). President Yushchenko never took this strategic step, as it was left for others to raise and negotiate as coalition talks dragged out. The merits of a Grand Coalition might have been numerous, but neither the president nor any of the other parties ever gave such a coalition serious consideration. At the end of this long and laborious process, we now seem slated for an Orange coalition on a very shaky foundation. The Orange coalition gives Yushchenko a second, and final, chance to prove himself between now and the end of 2007--as the 2009 election campaign will unofficially begin in early 2008. Public disillusionment in Yushchenko's leadership skills and his ability to effect change (or better still, a break with the Kuchma era) has led to a growing consensus that he is likely to be a one-term president. A successful and durable Orange coalition until 2009 gives him a chance to right this ship. BUT, IS THE ORANGE COALITION SUSTAINABLE? If the Orange coalition is sustainable until the 2009 presidential elections, and it has real successes, these will prove beneficial in improving Yushchenko's standing. If Tymoshenko is still prime minister in 2009, she will not be in a position to run against Yushchenko in the next presidential elections. If the Orange coalition collapses a second time, Yushchenko will face Tymoshenko as a strong candidate in the next presidential race. The Orange coalition and government will be operating in an improved climate, compared to the original Tymoshenko ascendancy as prime minister. In 2005, Tymoshenko had no concrete program, operated with a hostile Kuchma-era parliament and lacked support from a parliamentary coalition. This go round, Tymoshenko has a detailed, negotiated program that was born of these recent, lengthy coalition talks. Tymoshenko now has a parliamentary coalition to buttress against immediate and wholesale failure. Other areas remain the same as in 2005. The sustainability of an Orange coalition and government is dependent on overcoming the personal and ideological conflicts that plagued 2005 and led to the collapse of Tymoshenko's first premiership - and the Orange Revolution coalition, in September of last year. Tymoshenko needs to be a better team player, limit her time in the media spotlight, compliment her old Orange Revolution cohorts, president Yushchenko and drop any ideas she may have of reprivatization. Out of government, Tymoshenko has sought to assure investors and Western governments that she is investor friendly and respects property rights. This return as prime minister gives Tymoshenko a chance to prove it in practice. In an ideal world, a Viktor and Yulia show, as The Economist describes it, would be a match made in heaven. Think back to Czech President Vaclav Havel and Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus and close your eyes and try and see Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. Perhaps a soft spoken and democratic president together with a radical reformer could work wonders inside Ukraine--as it did in the Czech Republic. Of course, Ukraine is not the Czech Republic (but Ukraine is also, as Kuchma wrote in 2004, not Russia). One has yet to see if Yulia Tymoshenko can become the Margaret Thatcher, whom she compared herself to in a May interview in the British Spectator magazine. If the Tymoshenko sequel follows the original script, it will not be Our Ukraine who will be blamed. Our Ukraine could then find public support in reforming a coalition and government with the Party of Regions. If the Party of Regions has any strategic vision it would start preparing for this political possibility. It would first and foremost need to revamp its image by jettisoning its discredited leader, Yanukovych, for somebody who is not associated with the 2004 election fraud. QUO VADIS UKRAINE? The three members of the Orange coalition - Our Ukraine, Tymoshenko bloc and the Socialists - keep telling us that they are committed to Europeanizing Ukraine through deep and structural reforms. Now is their chance to prove it. A reinvigorated Orange coalition would appear at an opportune moment for central and eastern Europe. During the next two years, 'Europe' will move eastwards into the western CIS that will itself retreat eastwards. Ukraine's accession to the WTO this year ahead of Russia will lead to the creation of a Deep Free Trade Area (DFTA) with the EU in 2007. The European Parliament seeks to define the DFTA as 'Associate Membership' as it will be achieved at the same time as the 1998 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will be replaced by an 'Enhanced Agreement' between the EU and Ukraine. With an Orange coalition in place, Ukraine is also set to be invited to join a NATO Membership Action Plan at NATO's Riga summit this coming November. An invitation to NATO full membership at NATO's enlargement summit in 2008 seems, at least for now, premature. When Ukraine holds its next presidential elections in 2009, the country will therefore be an Associate Member of the EU and NATO, which President Yushchenko (and the Orange Revolution) can take credit for. These strategically important foreign policy goals will only be achievable if the reinvigorated Orange coalition actively works to fulfill the promises of the Orange Revolution, by pursuing and implementing democratic and economic reforms. Participants in the Orange Revolution wished to see their country Europeanize and this wish should be implemented by Ukraine's leaders. The Viktor and Yulia show now have the opportunity to pursue the same successful Europeanizing reforms in Ukraine as Klaus-Havel undertook in the Czech Republic. Ukraine's Orange leaders should do all they can to ensure that Tymoshenko's return as prime minister is a lasting and more productive one. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/221/880 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 6. DOES THE REVOLUTION DEVOUR ITS CHILDREN? Petro Poroshenko as the double murderer of the Orange Coalition COMMENTARY: By Andreas Umland Ukraine-Analysen, No. 10, 27 June 2006 Translated into English by Nykolai Bilaniuk for UKL The Ukraine List (UKL) #394, compiled by Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Monday, 3 July 2006 The important question concerning the distribution of posts within the ruling team of the second Orange Coalition formed 22 June 2006 could hardly have been answered by Our Ukraine in a more amazing way: A new edition of the political thriller Yulia Tymoshenko versus Petro Poroshenko. The controversial but popular former gas princess regained the coveted post of prime minister. In a strange use of the principle of checks and balances, "Our Ukraine" is once again placing the unpopular but ambitious chocolate king Poroshenko at her side - this time in the role of the parliamentary speaker. Already the first Orange Coalition failed because of the fact that the policies of the prime minister, who had been confirmed by a large majority of the parliament, was increasingly derailed by Poroshenko, the Security Council secretary at that time. In 2005 Poroshenko used his close relationship with President Viktor Yushchenko (he is the godfather to Yushchenko's children), in order to push a creeping expansion of the ill-defined authority of his Security Council, leading to a gradual undermining of Tymoshenko's government prerogatives. Accusations of corruption against Poroshenko finally led to scandal and to the dismissal both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko, as well as their replacement by the technocrats Yekhanurov and Kinach. It is unclear why Our Ukraine believes that the new constellation with Poroshenko as parliamentary speaker will work any better than the failed alliance of 2005. Yet now Poroshenko's function as parliamentary speaker will nevertheless be to see to the passage of bills introduced in parliament by the second Tymoshenko government. One could hardly have done a better job of preprogramming discords within the new coalition. Also it is incomprehensible why the representative body of Ukraine will now be led by a figure whose negative rating among the Ukrainian population reaches record levels of suspicion. Besides, the ideals of the Orange revolutionaries are subjected to a bizarre mockery: in the eyes of the voters, the Kuchma oligarchs have only been replaced by other industry magnates who are no less dubious. Moreover Poroshenko is being appointed to one of the highest national honours of Ukraine, a position which was never offered to the Pinchuks and Akhmetovs of the Kuchma-Yanukovych gang, and which is reminiscent of the destructive effects for the administration of president Boris Yeltsin of the political ascent of the similarly unpopular Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky . There is general astonishment at Our Ukraine's persistence in promoting the rather hated Poroshenko, and also his recently elevated role in containing Tymoshenko's lust for power, which surely is needed. Although Poroshenko's finances played an important role in the presidential elections of 2004, even at that time Tymoshenko's contribution to Yushchenko's success was possibly a more important factor in the triumph than the ambivalent support of Poroshenko, through her renouncement of running for the presidency herself, and her effective campaigning for the Orange cause. Finally, if one considers the election campaign and the results of the parliamentary elections of March 2006, one is forced to assume that Poroshenko carried joint responsibility for the embarrassing performance of Our Ukraine on this occasion. He was one of the most prominent campaigners for Our Ukraine, and often the spokesperson for Yushchenko's alliance, for example on the popular ICTV talk show "Svoboda Slova". It may be assumed that the numerous public appearances of the unpopular oligarch in Yushchenko's name contributed to a discrediting of the latter in the eyes of many voters who had earlier supported him for the presidency of Ukraine. In light of this constellation, one is already tempted to hope that should these gloomy prospects be confirmed, that at least the agony of the second, apparently already half-stillborn democratic alliance will be mercifully short. Even observers who sympathise with the ideals of the Orange Revolution may possibly prefer that Our Ukraine form a "Grand Coalition" with Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions rather than watch the Orange forces tear themselves apart publicly. -30- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: Dr Umland is a DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service] Lecturer at the National Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK TO UKL: http://www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 7. AN ORANGE GOVERNMENT FOR UKRAINE - BUT FOR HOW LONG? Russia Profile Experts Panel: Yury Fyodorov, Edward Lozansky, Anthony T. Salvia, Andrei Seregin, and Andrei Zagorski, Introduction by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile.org, Moscow, Russia, Friday, 30 June 2006 Ukraine finally has a government. Three months after the March 2006 election and barely missing a constitutionally-mandated deadline for assembling a parliamentary majority, the three political parties that came to power in 2004 after the Orange revolution in Kiev and then split so resoundingly in the fall of 2005, decided to try their luck again. The Our Ukraine party of President Viktor Yushchenko, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko and the Socialist Party formed a coalition that many analysts predict will not last more than a few months, plunging the country into a new crisis sometime in the fall. There are several reasons for this gloomy scenario. For one, the coalition commands a tenuous majority of 249 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. This number is only slightly more than the 226 required to form a governing coalition. The defection of any coalition party leads to an immediate collapse of the government. Secondly, the relations between the coalition members are extremely tense. Yulia Tymoshenko will return to the coveted post of Prime Minister, since her Bloc holds the most seats in the coalition. Because of the constitutional reforms passed shortly after the Orange Revolution, this position is the most powerful one in the Ukrainian government. Tymoshenko therefore eclipses President Yushchenko and has the ability to exert enormous influence on all aspects of Ukrainian foreign and domestic policies. But she will effectively be counterbalanced by the choice of Our Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko for the post of the speaker in the Rada. Poroshenko feuded bitterly with Tymoshenko for the prime minister's position following the Orange Revolution and most believe that he was responsible for engineering her dismissal from the job last September. Tymoshenko and Yushchenko have publicly accused each other of corruption and there is little hope that they will be able to put their personal differences behind them. The Socialists had hoped to secure the speaker's job for their leader, Alexander Moroz, making them less willing to work with Poroshenko, and, additionally, they lost control over the powerful Interior Ministry and State Property Committee. Even before formally reassuming the duties of prime minister, Tymoshenko has already ruffled a lot of feathers by announcing that she will review the infamous gas agreement of January 4, 2006. It doubled the prices for Russian gas exports to Ukraine while fixing Russian gas transit fees at very reasonable levels. The unraveling of the gas agreement might lead to a disruption of gas supplies to Western Europe. Sensing the danger, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned last week against excessive European dependence on Ukraine as the only transit country for gas shipments, while Italy's new Prime Minister Romano Prodi expressed concern that Ukraine was not filling up its underground gas storage facilities to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies to Europe at times of peak consumption. Prodi's statements were taken to imply a more general warning to Ukraine not to let its relationship with Moscow further affect its commitments to Europe. In contrast, new U.S. Ambassador to Kiev, William B. Taylor, Jr., publicly stated that Washington was ready to assist Ukraine if it wanted to renegotiate the January gas agreement with Russia. [QUESTIONS FOR THE FIVE EXPERT PANELISTS] So, how long will the new Orange coalition last? And what might be the alternative coalitions? What does Ukraine's new government mean for its relationships with both Russia and the West, particularly in light of the upcoming NATO summit in Riga, which could produce a membership action plan for Ukraine? Can Ukraine expect any reaction from the G8 on either its government or its gas policy? [STATEMENTS BY THE FIVE EXPERT PANELISTS] [1] Andrei Zagorski, Associate Professor, MGIMO University: Ukraine went through an important learning process in negotiating a political platform for a parliamentary majority. This implies the ability to compromise and to adhere to the agreement reached. Considering the egos of those involved, the success of these negotiations should be recognized. Therefore, the formation of the coalition was more important than the time it took. Tymoshenko is a charismatic leader, but she is not free to make any policy choices. The coalition partners that gave her the majority restrict her actions. And she is the least likely of the three partners to risk the coalition's failure. While Our Ukraine and the Socialists could potentially form a government with other coalition partners, her Bloc could not. The issue of NATO accession is just one example of the compromises reached within the coalition. This policy objective has neither popular support nor a parliamentary majority, since one of the coalition members, the Socialist Party, would vote against NATO membership, as would the two opposition parties. During the coalition negotiations, a reasonable solution was found on this controversial issue. NATO opponents were reassured that any decision to join the alliance shall be ratified by a referendum. This means that Ukraine's accession is unlikely to happen any time soon. At the same time, it is not entirely impossible either. The deal with Gazprom may become a more complicated issue. We don't know what Tymoshenko means when she says that she wants to revise the agreement. But we know that: a) Gazprom also wants to revise it, b) any revision will be a highly complex issue reaching far beyond the bilateral agenda, and c) the debate over the Ukrainian theft of Russian gas distracts attention from the real problem in supplying Europe - Russia's ability to deliver the supplies regardless of transit issues. It is obvious that prices will not go down as long as Russian can sell gas at higher rates to Western Europe. The solution is neither to sell the local distribution network to Gazprom nor to keep it under state control. A solution can only be found by increasing the energy efficiency of Ukrainian industries and liberalizing the country's gas sector. This is a lengthy and highly unpopular way. Considering the populist mood of the Ukrainian government and the pressure from the opposition, it would be fair to assume that the government will delay this modernization, a move that will not benefit Ukraine's own government or its relationship with Russia. [2] Anthony T. Salvia, Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs during the Reagan Administration: Ukrainian membership in NATO would be bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine and bad for NATO. First of all, it would signal a fundamental shift in the organization's mission, one far more profound than its recent practice of engaging in out-of-theater operations. What was created by the architects of Atlantic solidarity as a mechanism for keeping the Americans in, the Germans down and the Soviets out, would be reduced to its anti-Russian orientation - a deliberate strike against Moscow's most essential interests, something NATO, even at the height of the Cold War, managed successfully to avoid. It is a sad and complex tale how the Russians - communism's principal victims and the people whom Ronald Reagan sought to liberate - came to be singled out for harsher treatment than was ever accorded their erstwhile Soviet overlords. We have remarked in this space before that Washington is incapable of conceiving of relations with Moscow within any framework other than satellite or adversary. That's too bad, because Russia is the United States' natural partner in such vital matters as energy security, the war on terror, and the clear challenged posed by the rise of radical Islam and China. A major strategic opportunity is being lost as those in power and those aspiring to power pursue ideologically motivated pipe dreams that have precious little to do with U.S. national interest. The Afghan war has not yet been won, let alone the Iraqi one. The United States is only barely avoiding crises in Iran and North Korea. Masses of Mexicans are crossing our long, open border with untold consequences for the future of the United States, including the prospect of the country becoming a bigger version of Yugoslavia. Now, some elements within the administration appear bent on extending the U.S. nuclear umbrella over a state - Ukraine - that is ridden with divisions of every kind, corruption, political instability, and tense relations with Moscow. This is not the place to review how "democracy, free enterprise and human rights" came to replace "peace, progress and socialism" as the mantra and rallying cry of a new earthly utopia. Suffice it to say that the United States is in need of a thorough reappraisal of its foreign policy in order to bring it in line with new world realities. The cumulative impact of ill-advised foreign wars gone badly awry, immigration policy, and the approaching election cycle may provoke such a review. A further catalyst could be the mounting of a sophisticated pro-Russian lobbying effort in Washington. Implicit in U.S.-Russia partnership is the idea of the validity of national states, the harmonization of interests, and the security of the Northern Hemispheric countries of greater Europe in the face of common challenges. In short, an utterly different sort of foreign policy. [3] Yury Fedorov, Senior Researcher, Chatham House, London: Of course, the governmental crisis that continued in Ukraine for almost three months is not a normal attribute of mature democracies. But Ukraine is not a mature democracy; it is in the middle - or, perhaps, even in the very beginning - of a thorny transition from the decayed authoritarian regime of President Leonid Kuchma to a European-type democracy. Ukrainian elites are still learning to operate in the new "post-authoritarian" political environment. They have to overcome personal rivalries and antipathies, make difficult deals and compromises. All this makes political development in Ukraine today not easy, inevitably chaotic, but promising. The most encouraging fact is that all Ukrainian political forces agreed that their problems would be solved by political and legal means only. Quite probably, the recently formed Orange coalition will be short-lived and fragile. Yet, this is not worth dramatizing, because it does not really capture the big picture. Yulia Tymoshenko and her government will manage a particular set of the most pressing problems; after they do this, another government may come in to take their place and to deal with other problems, perhaps employing slightly different methods. Next time, the coalition may be led by Viktor Yanukovich and his Party of Regions while Tymoshenko will lead the opposition. And once again, it is important not to overdramatize this. It is a normal development for a maturing democratic system, especially in countries that are making their way out political and economic crises. Such political practices were typical of Italy in 1960-1970s and France in the days of the Fourth Republic. They make a political system much more flexible and thus more effective and stable than authoritarian regimes, which often look solid yet remain vulnerable because their highest ranks are paralyzed by a power struggle. Also, the actual strategic differences between the leading political forces in Ukraine are minimal; their conflicts, mutual accusations, hostile rhetoric, and controversies result rather from personal enmity than from fundamentally opposite approaches to the country's economic and political development. For Russia, the implication is that Ukraine's drive towards the West is based on strategic attitudes common to all important political forces, including the Party of Regions. In particular, the question is not whether Ukraine will be a member of NATO, but rather when it will happen. And this depends, at least partly, on Russia's policy. The stronger Moscow's pressure on Ukraine, the faster Kiev will move toward NATO. This is one of the more important lessons Russia should have learned from its unsuccessful attempts to prevent NATO's eastward expansion in the late 1990s. Finally, Gazprom may be raising gas prices for economic reasons only. Yet, in Ukraine, it is perceived as political maneuvering that hurts average citizens, including those living in the pro-Russian eastern regions and the Crimea. [4] Edward Lozansky, President, American University in Moscow: It looks like Ukraine is becoming, regrettably, a major geopolitical and economic battleground between the United States and Russia, with Europe nervously watching from the sidelines. There are two important issues on the table: Ukraine's fast-track entry to NATO and the price of Russian gas sold to Ukraine. To a neutral observer with no preferential agenda for either side, Russia's position looks more justified. All reliable opinion polls show that more than two-thirds of Ukrainians are against NATO membership, and the recent NATO protests in Crimea provide symbolic proof of that. As for the last year's gas agreement, which Prime Minister-in-waiting Yulia Tymoshenko now wants to cancel, it is probably not the best accord in the world. However, it was a pretty reasonable compromise, but no one but President Yushchenko claimed at the time of the signing that it was a very good deal - and he continues to make that claim now. Therefore, U.S. insistence on Ukraine's entry to NATO before the end of President George W. Bush's term in 2008, along with the recent pledge by Ambassador Taylor to support Ukraine in its dealing with Russia on gas issues, sound pretty dubious, to say the least. After all, the statements that continue to come from Ukraine declare, in effect, that "we were stealing Russian gas in the past, are stealing it now, and will steal it in the future". It is difficult to see how the promotion of a speedy NATO embrace of Ukraine, which is rejected not only by the pro-Russian southern and eastern regions but by the population at large, and the de facto U.S. encouragement of gas siphoning, can be packaged together with the freedom and democracy crusade. I am sure, however, that spin doctors can come up with the necessary justification language as long as substantial grants generously flow into certain NGO coffers. So what should the Russians do? First of all, they should learn from their disastrous PR handling of the New Year's "gas war." Had they started weekly briefings in Moscow, Washington and Brussels in March 2005, when Gazprom first approached Ukraine about renegotiating the gas pricing, and kept pounding the media with press releases and briefings about Ukraine avoiding the talks, the results could have been quite different. Gazprom can easily afford to hire a few U.S. and European PR firms who can do this job. The Kremlin already made the first step in this direction when it hired the U.S.-based global PR firm Ketchum to handle the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. At this point, it is too early to evaluate the results of Ketchum's work, but it is possible to guess that they have already helped Putin to checkmate the adversaries who have been trying to derail the summit and include some embarrassing items onto the agenda. Finally, by getting heavily involved in these two explosive issues in Ukraine - a country which is inextricably linked to Russia on every level - the United States is surely on track to make an enemy out of Russia and accelerate its edging toward China. Is this what we need? [5] Andrei Seregin, Senior Political Analyst, National Laboratory for Foreign Policy, Moscow: A further revision of the Russia-Ukraine gas-deal is almost inevitable, since it allows Tymoshenko to play the strongest card to encourage Western support. Since the new government is held hostage by the contradictions among its key players, the timing of a new "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine is still uncertain. I do not believe that Tymoshenko will unleash this nasty war of words just before the G8 summit. It's also close to impossible nowadays to see Kiev's full membership in NATO by the end of the year - my guess is that the upper limit of Ukrainian expectations for the forthcoming Riga summit is the Membership Action Plan for Ukraine. The Ukrainian premier is more likely to make up her mind to start a conflict with Moscow following both the G8 summit and a possible visit by President Bust. Although such a visit has been postponed, Ukraine is still on the White House's diplomatic shortlist. Still, the general Ukrainian foreign policy trend is quite clear. Tymoshenko won't resist the temptation of presenting the gas dispute as the centerpiece of Ukraine's foreign policy agenda. Fighting the "corrupt and non-transparent nature" of Russian energy supplies to Ukraine will help her appeal to the West, since last year's transaction is already under close investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. In the nearest future, the Orange coalition will surely have enough tensions from within. A recent decision to have a package confirmation vote on the positions of prime minister and speaker of the Rada simultaneously - a decision that many observers do not consider to be consistent with the country's constitution - reflects the depth of contradictions among the principal allies. Certainly the uniting discipline within the Party of Regions and the Communists is considerably higher than the ties between Our Ukraine, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko and the Socialists. The parties now in the opposition will clearly try to block the work of the Rada in the hope of new elections. So, under strong pressure both from within and outside the coalition, Tymoshenko will inevitably need to take a more populist stance, essentially biased against Russia. The choice of gas seems to be a win-win combination for her, since the deal is perceived as unfair by the Ukrainian establishment, expert community and the public. This attitude is widely shared by Ukraine's Western partners, particularly the United States. The big problem here concerns not only a revision of a contentious gas deal to get better margin or better pricing. Tymoshenko will no doubt seek a larger bargain, with notably higher stakes - presenting the West with a useful stranglehold on the Kremlin's gas elite. Tymoshenko may hold the strongest cards in the broader context of western rivalry with Russia over its new energy-fueled assertiveness on world stage. The United States won't pay her for Russian gas; instead, it will pay her for being a key element of the U.S. strategy of coping with Russian energy policy. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LINK: http://www.russiaprofile.org/experts_panel/2006/6/30/3991.wbp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== NOTE: Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you. ======================================================== 8. THE SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT DIALOGUE AND DEBATE: By Olesya Oleshko The Ukrainian Observer magazine, The Willard Group Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2006 After three months of sometimes open but mostly behind the curtain negotiations, what passes for political leadership in Ukraine appears ready to continue quarreling over even the smallest seats of power while larger issues go untended and unmitigated. As the Ukrainian Observer went to press, it was unclear whether the Orange Revolution would successfully morph itself into the Orange coalition - for a second time - and take on at least the appearance of being a government. In reality it seemed to matter little since the scenes played out in the parliament over recent days strongly suggest that no matter who wears the hats of prime minister and speaker of the parliament, there will be barricades around the speaker's rostrum - and general chaos for many months to come. With a president who sometimes seems hardly to exist and many other major political players spending great amounts of time grasping for power and positioning themselves for the next presidential race, one can hardly imagine any serious and stable use of presidential, administrative and parliamentary powers in the near future. The situation has degenerated to the point that it is possible-and likely-that the president will soon have the necessary legal grounds for dismissing the parliament, based on its failure to establish a working majority, and ordering new parliamentary elections. However, that seems to matter little since neither President Viktor Yushchenko nor any of the other major political players has any stomach for a chaotic - and expensive - second set of parliamentary elections this year. The June 22 press conference, announcing the establishment of the new Orange coalition, did little to dispel doubts about its stability when the parties to the coalition immediately after the press conference began expressing questions about exactly what was included in the package. As might have been expected, the Blue forces of the Party of the Regions took considerable umbrage at being denied any parliamentary committee chairs and resorted to one of the oldest legislative tools of Ukraine, by blocking the parliament speaker's rostrum with its small army of Blue deputies. Since almost every important committee chair had been ceded to control of the largest Orange faction, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), it was hard to see how they would be willing to give up their hard-won gains. As always, there was the customary, intensive backroom bargaining - but no tangible evidence that a mutually acceptable compromise was forthcoming. According to the coalition's founding principles the party that received the largest number of seats in the parliament would be entitled to nominate the prime minister, the second largest membership would nominate the speaker of the parliament and the third would be allowed to nominate a vice prime minister. From the beginning, this arrangement came under attack based on the premise that Our Ukraine, already with its titular head as president of the country, should not be allowed to also name the speaker of parliament. Tymoshenko agreed with the Socialists, that the speakership should go to the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), which in practical terms would have ensured that former speaker and SPU leader, Oleksandr Moroz, would be elected to a second, non-consecutive term as speaker. Our Ukraine balked at these notions and used strongly hints of a Grand Coalition with the Blue forces to beat down the BUTY-SPU move. When the final list apportioning power positions was announced, BYuT had been allotted the post of prime minister (obviously the plum position so greatly desired by faction head Tymoshenko) and would be allowed to name the ministers of the following ministries: Agro-Industrial Complex; Building and Architecture; Economics; Finance; Fuel and Energy; Coal Industry; Emergencies; Health; Culture & Tourism, as well as the head of the national energy giant - Naftogaz Ukrainy. Our Ukraine, the second coalition partner, would be allowed to name the speaker of the parliament (most likely Petro Poroshenko, but Anatoliy Kinakh and Yuriy Yekhanurov are said to be on the short list), the vice prime minister for administrative reform (which failed under Our Ukraine's Roman Bezsmertniy in 2005), plus the ministers of Labor and Social Policy; Industrial Policy; Family; Youth and Sports; and Internal Affairs. The Socialists would name the first vice speaker (expected to be Iosif Vinsky, the right hand of SPU leader Moroz) and the ministers of Environmental Protection; Education & Science; and Transport & Communications. In previous times, the sitting president had always been allowed to name all heads of the so-called force ministries - covering just about anyone in Ukraine legally empowered to carry a gun - but as part of the truncation of presidential powers, under constitutional reform, current and future presidents would name only the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense. Judging by the triumphal speech given by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, immediately after the signing of the coalition agreement, Tarasyuk clearly believes he will be retained in his current position. However, there is very wide consensus that Tarasyuk's removal will be one of the main demands by the Russians, before they are willing to enter meaningful negotiations on a new natural gas contract. Keeping Tarasyuk in his current position would be very unwise and ultimately too high a price to pay. One observer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Ukrainian Observer that "...if Tarasyuk stays as Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russians will feel nothing has changed." A former very high-level Kuchma administration official, highly regarded in both Moscow and Washington, is thought to be the most likely Tarasyuk replacement. Even if Regions suffers an immediate tactical loss with the approval of the Orange coalition agreement, the most fervent Orange partisans are skeptical as to the coalition's hold on power. Most analysts give the Tymoshenko government just a few months of life, although a few of the most optimistic believe it could last a year or longer. Taras Chornovil, a Regions faction leader, chose to be very specific in his views of Orange coalition longevity. "This circus show will be repeated in autumn, when the president will start telling everyone that everything is too bad in Ukraine," Chornovil said, referring to last September's events with the previous Tymoshenko government. In 2005, Tymoshenko was at the helm of the government for seven and one-half months. The smart political money is betting that her tenure this time might be even shorter. For Tymoshenko, the return to dealing with government problems will be like meeting a group of old friends. There has been little or no progress on many of the issues and problems that were paramount when Tymoshenko was initially ousted. GEOPOLITICAL POSITIONING Since the president, in collaboration with the foreign ministry, determines foreign policy, Ukraine's course toward European and Euro-Atlantic integration will remain unchanged, as agreed in the founding charter of the Orange coalition. The generally accepted premise that Ukraine would use a relatively easy NATO accession as a way station on the road to full European Union membership was severely dented and perhaps even permanently damaged by the violent and persistent anti-NATO protests in Crimea this past May. The enormity of the anti-NATO reaction pointed out an increasingly obvious fact, i.e. that talk in the halls of power about NATO accession had almost no support in the form of a seriously intensive, widespread and effective pro-NATO information campaign. Suddenly, the top levels of government in Kyiv, Brussels, London and Washington understood that they had not just dropped the ball, but they didn't even know where the ball was or how to play it. Whether or not this miscalculation can be overcome in the near future is very much in doubt. Russia, a geopolitical actor that cannot be ignored, is keen to see the first steps taken by the new government. Aggressive and provocative behavior of some Russian politicians is just the tip of the Russian iceberg, with even more ominous and dangerous rumblings below the surface. Presidents Yushchenko and Putin once described relations between Kyiv and Moscow as pragmatic, but this term was misunderstood by both Russian and Ukrainian political players. Moscow is waiting for a signal promising mutual benefits from economic cooperation. A point listed in the Orange coalition agreement could articulate one such signal. Notably, Ukraine's cooperation with the Common Economic Space - the Russia dominated economic bloc whose members include Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The neo-Orange coalition will insist on a free trade area, with the other conditions set by Russia negotiated on a case-by-case basis, based on Ukraine's national interests. ENERGY - TOPS ON EVERYONE'S PRIORITY LIST "The first 'must be done' is fighting the chaos in the energy system, and fighting the chaos in energy price making and prices for communal services," said Tymoshenko in detailing her priorities. Tymoshenko said her first move as prime minister would be reviewing the price paid by Ukraine for Russian natural gas. Tymoshenko's new government is fortunate to be getting launched in the summer, perhaps providing a less stressful re-entry period before fall brings intense political heat and a possible collision course with the Regions Party. Ukraine is believed to have adequate petrol to make it through the harvest season, but should the looming energy battle not get resolved before the beginning of the winter heating season in mid-October, a natural gas problem could quickly become a national and international disaster of major proportions, possibly even dwarfing the cutoffs of Russian natural gas to Europe last winter. Many observers believe that appointing an energy negotiator that is a Regions' stalwart would be a smart and prudent move. Moscow still has problems with Tymoshenko, hates Tarasyuk and hopes to have seen the last of the western Ukrainian nationalist who negotiated the last agreement. Russian Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin said that the gas agreements are the subject of a compromise between the two countries. "If Ms. Tymoshenko wants to review them, it will be necessary to have a mutual desire, including that of the Russian party," Zatulin said recently. Russian political expert Sergey Markov of the Institute for Political Research said he is sure that Tymoshenko's idea of reviewing natural gas prices could lead to a prolonged impasse on the issue, and could seriously affect gas supplies to Europe. SAYING THE RIGHT WORDS In the new Tymoshenko government (assuming it actually gets a narrow margin of victory in the parliament) certain words appear likely to be erased from the Tymoshenko lexicon. The word so oft-heard during the previous Tymoshenko government, "reprivatization," tops the list of words that all her coalition partners hope to hear less of this time round. While no one doubts that many suspicious privatizations - and some that were blatantly corrupt - occurred in the ten years prior to the Yushchenko presidency, the costs of righting old wrongs has already proven to be extremely divisive. Windfalls of the type that came with the reprivatization of the Kryvorizhstal steel mill are almost certainly a thing of the past. The list of problems requiring the government's intense attention is a very long and expensive one. With higher natural gas prices will come an inevitable drain on both public and private resources. This summer of discontent may soon be remembered with fondness and nostalgia. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/221/881 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index ] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 9. UKRAINE: 10 YEARS OF THE CONSTITUTION Adoption of Ukrainian Constitution on June 28, 1996 was pivotal event PRESENTATION: By Ambassador Roman Shpek in Brussels Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the European Union New Europe, Athens, Greece, Monday, July 3, 2006 Ambassador Roman Shpek, the head of the Mission of Ukraine to EU, told a debate in the European Parliament dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine that it's a very stirring moment for him personally because he was an immediate participant in these historic event that took place on the "constitutional night" in Ukrainian Parliament 10 years ago. "As a deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament at that time, I had the honour to put my signature under the agreed text of the first Constitution of the Independent Ukraine," Shpek said. "The process of creation of the modern Ukrainian state took place in difficult times of political, economic and social transformations. Modern history has no examples of such fast and complex transition from the rigid totalitarian system to a new democratic society with the open market economy. Therefore, Ukraine can not be compared with the other post-socialist European countries, which went throw the same transition from a much more favourable starting point," the ambassador said. Under the conditions of a drastic and total break down of the previous political system, state structure and way of life, adoption of the Ukrainian Constitution on June 28, 1996 was pivotal historical event. "This act was a final step in transforming Ukraine from the constituent part of former Soviet Union into an independent state with own political, financial and monetary systems, government structures, armed forces, cultural and educational institutions. The Constitution also laid the civil society organisations and the multi-party system, provided the basic tenets for the protection of rights of the national minorities," he said. At the same time, the realities of political and civil developments of Ukraine at the time of adoption of the Constitution significantly affected the content of the document, which has become a result of a political compromise. The draft of the Constitution as prepared by the working group of the Constitutional Commission had features of an integral and consistent legal document. However, the life made some corrections, Shpek said. "Today, looking at the complicated process of adoption of the EU Constitutional Treaty I can not help but make the same historical parallels. I remember very well the vortex of emotions, which reigned on that 'constitutional night' in the Session Hall of the Ukrainian parliament as well as the intensive "behind-the-scenes" work on separate articles of the document. Whereas the articles on human rights and civil liberties can serve as an example of clarity and accuracy, the imperfections of the constitutionally set mechanism of organisation of power continues to breed the conflicts between the legislative and executive branches," he said. "The Constitution of Ukraine created a legal base of our state. It embodies the greatest achievements of the Ukrainian and international constitutional theory and practice of constitutional development. It is also takes into account historical experience of Ukrainian nation: its national concept and mentality. The Ukrainian Constitution provides legal guaranties for democracy, economic independence and offers guidelines for Ukraine's action at the international stage," he said. "As a child of the 'art of the impossible' our Constitution calls for further development of a number of legal acts. First of all we talk about the Law on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. It is very important, especially in the light of the recent events around the creation of the parliamentary coalition, that we adopt a legal act, which delineates the status, rights and duties of the democratic opposition," Shpek said. In a historical perspective the outcomes of the March parliamentary elections will have a significant importance to Ukraine. It was the first time in 15 years since the former Soviet republic has had democratic parliamentary elections. "For the first time, as stated in our Constitution, creation of the parliamentary coalition has been carried out on the democratic basis. For the first time the forming of the government is carried out by the political forces which constitute a parliament majority. For the first time the same majority elaborated the coalition agreement, which defines the basic principles of the actions in domestic and foreign policy," the ambassador said. The creation of the "Orange coalition" gave the clear evidence of the 2004 Orange Revolution continuity. It means that the best-performing in the March election party Regions of Ukraine remains in opposition. The situation of having both the ruling and the opposition political forces in the parliament is usual for the countries with the long-standing historical and parliamentary traditions. As for Ukraine, we are just at the beginning of this process, Shpek said. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 10. NATO GETS COLD FEET ON 2008 ENLARGEMENT Second thoughts about opening door for Ukraine, Georgia, three Balkan states REUTERS, Brussels, Belgium, Monday July 3, 2006 BRUSSELS - NATO is having second thoughts about opening the door to membership for Ukraine, Georgia and three Balkan states at a summit slated for early 2008, alliance diplomats said on Monday. They cited a raft of concerns, including doubts over NATO's ability to digest new members after 2004's expansion, the alliance's unpopularity in some aspiring states and the failure of several entry hopefuls to implant democratic reforms. Even Washington, an advocate of Ukrainian and Georgian aspirations, has struck a more cautious tone of late, with one senior U.S. official noting the positive mood within NATO towards Ukraine's drive had "dissipated" in recent months. "There is a general decrease in enthusiasm in NATO for enlargement," said one senior alliance diplomat of a trend that mirrors the cooling over the past year in the European Union to taking in new members from the east. After NATO took in seven ex-communist states in 2004, the United States called last year for an "enlargement summit" in early 2008 to pave the way for more entrants. While no one in the alliance is so far ruling out that NATO leaders will use the meeting to welcome in at least one of the five countries waiting in line, there is growing talk in the alliance that 2008 may be too early. The euphoria of the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution" long gone, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko still has no government three months after March polls and has struggled to react to small but noisy anti-NATO protests in the Crimea peninsula this month sparked by U.S. preparations for war games. "The positive atmosphere at NATO (towards Ukraine)... has dissipated in the face of several factors," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs David Kramer told a conference in Washington in June. Kramer cited Ukrainian polls showing support for NATO at barely 18-20 percent, the Crimea protests, infighting within the "Orange" democratic camp and lagging economic reforms. ULTIMATE BORDERS NATO diplomats said it was increasingly likely Kiev would have to wait until a NATO summit in Latvia this November before being granted a "membership action plan", making entry in early 2008 -- or merely an invitation then -- an uphill task. Georgia's case is more complex, raising the question of whether NATO's borders should extend to the south Caucasus. "Georgia is European in civilisation terms. But is it European in strategic terms?" said one envoy. Tbilisi's disputes with Moscow over two rebel regions backed by Russia are a further obstacle and were one reason why Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli did not formally meet alliance ambassadors during a visit to NATO last month, envoys said. "There was no point -- we had nothing to offer him," said one, adding that Nogaideli had wanted assurances from NATO that preliminary talks on closer ties would be accelerated. Question marks are also growing over Croatia, Macedonia and Albania -- three eastern states left out of the 2004 expansion. Persistent corruption in Albania, violence in Macedonia ahead of Wednesday's elections and the slow pace of reform in Croatia are compounding doubts over their readiness. -30- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 11. NATO HOPES UKRAINE WILL CONTINUE ITS EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION AFTER FORMATION OF NEW CABINET Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 3, 2006 KYIV - NATO hopes that Ukraine will continue its policy aimed at integration with Europe and the Alliance after the new government is formed. Michel Duray, Director of NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, told this at the international conference concerning the transatlantic market of arms, political factors and economic expediency. As Duray noted in his speech, the talks that cooperation between Ukraine and NATO will destroy this country's defense industry are a myth. He said that at present there exists healthy competition among all NATO members, which is ok, and this competition existed before their accession to NATO. Duray noted that today Europe's attention is focused on Ukraine. 'We hope that Ukraine's next government will continue its Euro-Atlantic integration policy,' Duray said. He noted that NATO is ready to provide all types of assistance to Ukraine, though the final outcome depends only on Ukraine. Duray also said that today NATO and Russia are strategic partners and plan to develop cooperation in future. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the parliamentary coalition set up on June 22 pledges to make a decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO based on results of a national referendum. In mid-April Ukraine elaborated the Plan of Actions on NATO membership. Ukraine plans to begin implementation of the Plan of Actions on NATO membership in September. Ukraine hopes to become a NATO member in 2008. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://www.ukranews.com/eng/index_high.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== If you are receiving more than one copy of the AUR please contact us. ======================================================== 12. USA TRYING TO PREVENT CIS CONSOLIDATION AROUND RUSSIA Belapan news agency, Minsk, in Russian 1536 gmt 4 Jul 06 BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Tuesday, Jul 04, 2006 MINSK - "It is evident at present that the USA will make consistent efforts to break up the CIS along its political line," the chairman of the Standing Commission for International Affairs and National Security in the National Assembly's Council of the Republic [parliament's upper house], Mikalay Charhinets, said on 4 July, speaking at a workshop on topical issues of [Russian-Belarusian] union state construction in Silichy (Lahoysk District). The event was organized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia. "The West, above all the USA, have managed to entrench themselves in many republics over the 15 years since the USSR's collapse," Charhinets said. "On the other hand, the open aggressiveness of local 'westerners', which acquired the form of `coloured revolutions', has resulted in the appearance of resistance in some CIS states, becoming a turning point for the policies of the Russian Federation that is growing strong." He said the CIS territory "has actually become the scene of rivalry among major players represented by the USA, the EU, Russia and, to a lesser degree, by China, Turkey, Japan and some other countries". [Passage omitted: Charhinets says that some CIS countries have been pursuing the policies aimed at their integration to the EU and NATO.] At the same time, the West has been demonstrating its cautious attitude to union state construction and the implementation of the agreement on the creation of the Single Economic Space (SES) of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, Charhinets said. Charhinets believes that the EU's influence continues growing in the CIS western regions. "The EU uses the European outlook that is being advocated by Ukraine and Moldova to direct the policies of Kiev and Chisinau towards the channels necessary for the EU and to use them as a counterbalance to the Russian influence, among other things," he said. The growing US activities in the CIS are aimed, above all, at preventing the post-Soviet space from consolidating around Russia and impeding the integration processes within the framework of the CIS, the SES and the Eurasian Economic Community, the chairman of the international commission in the Belarusian parliament's upper house concluded. -30- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you. ======================================================== 13. FORMER ADVISER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA POSES ENERGY HAZARD TO G8 PARTNERS By Alex Nicholson, Associated Press Business Writer AP, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 MOSCOW - State dominance in the oil and gas sector means Russia is an energy hazard to its Group of Eight partners rather than a guarantor of secure supplies, a one-time economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. Andrei Illarionov, who served as Putin's envoy to previous meetings of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, warned that the Kremlin's growing role in the oil and gas sector runs counter to the theme of energy security Russia has selected as the focal point of the G-8 summit it is hosting next week. "Where you have state companies, security ends and danger arises," Illarionov, who resigned as Putin's adviser last year to protest what he called the government's backtracking on freedoms, told a news conference. "The model of a state monopoly is an energy hazard to the world. It presents the world with the threat that energy supplies can be broken off at any moment for political, not economic reasons." The rise of the state's role in the oil sector began with the transfer of the Yukos oil company's biggest production unit to state oil company Rosneft after its auction against a disputed multibillion-dollar back tax bill in 2004. Last year, the state increased its share of gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of the gas Europe consumes, to a controlling interest. Soon after that the company bought Russian oil major Sibneft from tycoon Roman Abramovich. Illarionov said Russia itself underscored the precariousness of energy supplies at the very start of its year as G-8 chairman. In an ugly New Year's price dispute with Ukraine, Russia switched off the gas to its ex-Soviet neighbor, temporarily disrupting flows to Europe and leading to panicked calls in the EU to diversify supplies. While Russia cast the dispute as a long-overdue move to market pricing, observers said the price increase had been bulldozed through to undermine Ukraine's Western-leaning government. As Putin prepares to host world leaders for the July 15-17 summit in St. Petersburg, Illarionov and other Kremlin opponents are organizing an alternative conference on July 11-12 called "Other Russia" aimed at uniting Russia's opposition and non-governmental organizations. Earlier in the week, Russia's current G-8 envoy, Igor Shuvalov, said the Kremlin would view the attendance of high-ranking foreign officials as "an unfriendly gesture." "I follow the statements made by Russian officials with amazement," Illarionov said of those comments Tuesday. While Russia's year as chairman of the G-8 should have been a "triumph" for Russia in which it demonstrated its commitment to developing democracy, Illarionov said, it had only served to show how much Russia had fallen behind. "Over the past four years in respect of ... political democracy, Russia today is much further from the other members of this club than it was in 2002," he said. -30- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 14. THE TENUOUS NATURE OF UKRAINE'S FUTURE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY By Ethan S. Burger, Esq., Scholar-in-Residence School of International Service, American University Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TRACCC) American University, Washington, D.C., June 2006 Now, Francis Fukayama has acknowledged that his "end of history" thesis was wrong. He had a good title for a book but a concept that bore little relationship with the succession of civilizations. In particular, he overlooked that throughout the course of human history nationalism and religion have shown themselves to be the most important factors driving international politics. The constituent components of the principal parties that made possible the "Orange Revolution" have finally recognized that it is easier to obtain political power than to exercise it. Political borders are not permanent - a fact understood in Kyiv (Kiev) and Moscow. How committed the Regions Party, led by unsuccessful presidential candidate Victor Yanukovych to Ukraine's existing borders is not a settled issue. Eastern and Southern Ukraine are largely ethnically Russian in composition. Russian history books make much of the connection between today's Russia and "Kievan Rus." At present is far from clear what percentage of this group sees its future with Russia, as opposed to Ukraine. This is a dynamic process. The attitude of the population in the region is likely to be fickle and will probably be influenced by economic and political conditions in Russia and Ukraine in the future. Demographers are trying to predict the year when Russians will constitute a minority of the Russian Federation's populations. Political scientists, intelligence officers, participants in the energy market, and risk analysts are contemplating the implications of the country having a Moslem majority. Incorporating Eastern Ukraine and Belarus into either the Russian Federation or some new entity can push Moscow's day of reckoning back. Russian governmental programs to encourage Russian families to have more children are not likely to achieve their goal, much less reverse the country's brain drain. The Ukrainian government desperately needs to convince ethnic Russians currently living in Ukraine that a country with close ties to the EU (and possibly even NATO), is better for its Russians. It will need to devote considerable resources to achieve this outcome. Whether it will succeed is impossible to predict. Consequently, the Orange Coalition must recognize that if it is to preserve the country within its current borders and pursue the policies it has announced it wants to follow, its members must put personalities and egos aside and cooperate. Moscow is almost certainly going to play the "energy card" if it suits its purposes. -30- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://www.american.edu/traccc ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 15. CRITICIZING RUSSIA WITH GOOD REASON OPINION: International Herald Tribune (IHT) Paris, France, Sunday, July 2, 2006 Russia is feeling set upon these days. Whether it's losing the takeover battle for the European steel giant Arcelor, or taking it on the chin from Vice President Dick Cheney, or bracing for all the lectures it will hear at the Group of 8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, the Russians are baring their rhetorical teeth in resentment. The latest retort was from Vladislav Surkov, a deputy chief of staff in the Kremlin, who told foreign reporters that Russia was tired of being treated as if it had lost the Cold War. After Aleksei Mordashov and his Severstal steel company lost out to Mittal in the fight for Arcelor, Russian officials and newspapers charged that the reason was a rampant Russophobia - a bias against Russia, its businesses and businessmen. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, no friend of President Vladimir Putin, has complained about Western meddling in Russian affairs. We can appreciate Russia's frustration at being lectured to by Cheney, and there was an indisputable element of Russophobia in the battle for Arcelor. But the fact is that the Europeans were even more crass in their attacks on Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel tycoon who finally gained the upper hand in the Arcelor saga by producing the better bottom line. And however hypocritical Cheney might be in lecturing anyone about human rights - especially just before heading off to court President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, hardly a paragon of civic virtue - that does not mean he was wrong. However irritating the Western sermons might be, the Russians should ask why it is that the Western world has turned so sharply critical. Russia is a proud nation, and it has every reason to be proud of what it has achieved over the past two decades. It rid itself of a totalitarian system, it released its colonies and dependencies and it overcame a terrifying economic near-collapse - and it did all this largely through its own resources. But Western countries are right to be uneasy about the steady expansion of the powers of the state under Putin, so that the Kremlin now effectively controls the major television networks, the Duma, the courts and the major industrial and energy enterprises. The Kremlin retorts that the oligarchs were not a "market economy," that the Duma was corrupt, the courts unreliable, the economy uncontrolled. There's a lot of truth to that, and it was incumbent on the government to regain control over the country and restore security to the people. Yet unless its efforts are coupled with a visible, constant and honest effort to instill the rule of law and to establish institutions of democratic rule, they look too much like an inexorable drive toward a new autocracy, and the West will say that. The memory of the Soviet Union is too fresh. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/02/opinion/edrussia.php ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 16. EUROPE NEEDS A SOFT-POWER APPROACH Europe and Russia are today poised to pull Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine in two different directions. OPINION: By Charles William Maynes, The St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, June 30, 2006, Issue #1182(48) In the decade that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe was concerned but not worried about the decline of Russia. The European Union did not at the time regard its great neighbor as a political or economic problem; Russia was retreating from empire, and as it grew weaker it appeared less threatening. Over the past five years, though, the Russian economy has begun to revive and Russia's government has made gains in policy coherence, if not always in directions to Europe's liking. Today, the question is whether Europe has the policy tools to deal with this new phenomenon. Europe has become the most successful peaceful power in history. It has rendered inconceivable the very idea of war in Western and Central Europe. In the Balkans, its strongest argument is that if the states of that region behave properly toward one another, they too can join the European Union. Europe cannot, of course, expand indefinitely, and each country must secure its own future. Nonetheless, Europe must recognize that its soft power is substantially reduced when dealing with any country that is barred from membership. It must therefore seek new sources of soft power. Where might the EU's soft power lie in the case of Russia? Europe should consider three key steps: First, it should develop some middle ground between membership and rejection. Europe and Russia are today poised to pull Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine in two different directions. When the Orange Revolution took place in Kiev, major figures in Europe talked publicly about Ukraine now being on "their side." Such an approach to the problems of Ukraine is disastrous. It is impossible to draw a new line between Russia and Ukraine without severe economic consequences for Ukraine, unless of course the European Union is willing to mount a major financial assistance program. Last winter's gas imbroglio also sheds light on this issue. Whatever the deficiencies of the Russian approach, and there were many, it was and is a delusion for Europeans to believe that any Russian government would subsidize through cheap energy Ukraine's drawing away from Russia to move closer to Europe. If Europe wanted Ukraine on its side, it would have to mount an aid program that would compensate Ukraine for the loss of an energy subsidy worth more than $1 billion per year. By the same token, some U.S. strategists are misguided if they believe that Russia would want to maintain its energy subsidy to Ukraine so as to ease Ukraine's entry to NATO. No government in the world would consent to such an arrangement, so why should we expect Russia to behave any differently? Finding a place for Russia in a larger European design could do much to alleviate the tension that is building up. One solution might be to design a special trading regime of wide-ranging cooperation with the specific aim of developing more organic ties between Europe and Russia. Could the EU and Russia cooperate on a major development in aircraft design? Could they work together on nuclear energy, now that it seems to be entering a new phase of development? What is needed is not so much a laundry list of objectives but a time-structured negotiation that would make progress possible. If more organic links between Europe and Russia could be encouraged, then, were Ukraine or Belarus to join the European Union in years to come, it would be far less traumatic for Russia than today. The West, for its part, should begin speaking up in favor of altering NATO practices so that any further expansion of the alliance seems less of a threat to Russia. When the Baltic states joined NATO, U.S. jets were soon flying along the Russian border only a few kilometers from St. Petersburg. There was no security reason at all for this provocative forward movement of American power. Today, 95 percent of the still enormous nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States are dedicated to the destruction of each other. It is as if the Cold War had never ended. [1] The Europeans should press the United States and Russia to enter into serious discussions about substantial further reductions in their nuclear arsenals, so that they no longer pose a threat either to one another or to Europe. They should press the Americans and the Russians to enter into negotiations that would lead to a pledge of no first use of nuclear weapons in Europe. Such a stance would be soft power with an edge. After all, who has a greater stake in the reduction of continental arsenals than Europe? [2] Second, Europe should want to recognize more openly than in the past its shared interest with the United States in Russia's democratic development. Several years ago, I suggested to the former head of a European aid program that U.S.-European cooperation made sense when giving assistance to Russia, but received the answer that cooperation was impossible since America was the enemy because its real goal in helping Russia was to gain market share there. That was a remarkably shortsighted view of the stakes involved in Russia's political and economic evolution. Although Europe will of course want to fashion its own assistance programs, internal EU regulations in any case now make it very difficult for Europe to cooperate with fellow democratic countries in supporting civil society in Russia. Yet, in the difficult period through which Russian civil society is passing, a common approach, at times involving a measure of co-funding, could yield benefits. Together, we could show much-needed solidarity with the struggling civil society community in Russia. The aim would be to find a common dialogue to encourage partnerships between civil society in Europe and America on the one hand and in Russia on the other. [3] Third, Europe should develop a more audible policy voice on Russian issues. Many individual EU countries have special interests peculiar to their own circumstances that cause them to hesitate to address Russia's larger political issues. Not every European country has the same degree of interest in these issues, and this lack of shared concern enables Russian officials to discount the importance of individual European voices and attribute allegedly anti-Russian feelings to criticisms from individual European states. A serious European policy could effectively short-circuit this tactic. In developing more tools to deal with an emerging Russia, the stakes for Europe are enormous. What Europe has accomplished over the past 50 years should be the envy of the rest of the world, but much of that progress could be jeopardized if, as the Ukrainian government recently warned with respect to European efforts to disengage from some of its neighbors, we end up creating new devils to the east through policies of isolation or neglect. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles William Maynes ( bmaynes@eurasia.org) is president of the Eurasia Foundation, Washington, D.C. The entire article appeared in the magazine Europe's World: http://www.europesworld.org/PDFs/Issue3/EW3_1.2_Maynes_A_soft_power_tool_kit.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sptimesrussia.com/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=18071 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 17. UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CLERIC SLAMS "GODLESS" WEST OVER NATO, EU AT ROUND-TABLE MEETING IN MOSCOW Says NATO is hostile to Russia and to entire orthodox civilization Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian 0948 gmt 4 Jul 06 BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 KIEV - The metropolitan of Odessa and Izmail of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (of the Moscow Patriarchy), Agafangel, has expressed his protest against Ukraine's joining NATO and the EU and has also demanded that the Russian language be given the status of a state language. Interfax-Ukraine news agency reports that Agafangel said this in Moscow at a round-table meeting. "Now there is a lot of talk about Ukraine's European choice, about Ukraine's accession to NATO and the EU. The rulers of Ukraine are trying to persuade us that this will in no way harm our friendly relations with Russia. But it is absolutely clear that NATO is a body that is hostile to Russia and to the entire orthodox civilization," metropolitan Agafangel said. According to metropolitan Agafangel, Ukraine's striving for Europe is "also extremely baneful". "This is another attempt to implement the centuries-old intention of the Protestant and Catholic, masonic and godless West to divert Ukraine from unity with the world's centre of the orthodox religion - Moscow - and to pull Ukraine into the sphere of western false values, to make it a part of the new world order," metropolitan Agafangel said. [Passage omitted: metropolitan Agafangel demands that the Russian language be granted the status of a state language, blames West for a split between Serbia and Montenegro.] -30- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== You are welcome to send us names for the AUR distribution list. ======================================================== 18. IFJ RAISES ALARM OVER WESTERN ATTACKS ON WHISTLEBLOWERS AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM U.S., Great Britain & Denmark intimidate and stifle independent journalism International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday, July 04, 2006 The International Federation of Journalists said today it is alarmed by mounting attacks on media and whistleblowers by Western governments trying to hide potentially illegal or damaging actions and statements. "It is unacceptable to see countries like the United States, Great Britain, and Denmark trying to intimidate and stifle independent journalism," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary, "while others, like Germany and the Netherlands, are caught out snooping on media and tapping the telephones of journalists." The IFJ says that a global crackdown on investigative journalism led by countries that are supposed to be models of democracy is repressive and is depriving people of their basic rights – "most importantly the right of citizens to know what their government is doing." There have been numerous attacks on media in the US and Europe in recent months, with governments often defending their actions in the name of protecting public safety or "fighting the war on terrorism." The latest case involves the New York Times, which has faced a barrage of heavy criticism from President George Bush and other Republican officials and pundits for its detailed expose of US security services monitoring hundreds of thousands of international bank transactions. Some Republican lawmakers say criminal charges should be brought against the reporters who broke the story. In the UK, it was revealed at the weekend that the government is planning a new crackdown to strengthen official secrecy laws to prevent whistleblowers from revealing information about government policy. Officials with access to sensitive information will no longer be able to claim they act in the public interest by exposing wrongdoing or unlawful acts by the government. The government has been embarrassed by a spate of leaks revealing concerns about the legality of the US-led invasion of Iraq, including concerns allegedly expressed by Tony Blair about American tactics and revelations to media of a classified memo containing comments President Bush made about bombing broadcaster al-Jazeera. The government has prohibited other media from reporting on the memo. And in Denmark Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen of the daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende, a Danish daily, face two years in prison at their trial later this year in an unprecedented trial because they reported in 2004 that before joining the Iraq invasion, the Danish government was told by military intelligence there was no firm evidence of banned weapons in Iraq. They are charged with "publishing information illegally obtained by a third party" under the Criminal Code. The Danish whistleblower, a former intelligence officer, was convicted and jailed for four months last year. These actions, coupled with the news that journalists in the Netherlands have had had their communications tapped by security services and that in Germany spies were planted in media to stop leaks to the press, are raising concerns that there is a concerted effort across the Western world to try to stifle voices of dissent within government and to prevent journalists from exposing wrongdoing. "When governments bully their journalists, censor the media and persecute whistleblowers, they seriously damage the watchdog role of journalism," said White. "In turbulent times we need more informed, professional and accurate reporting about the work of government, not gags and intimidation." The IFJ believes that the credibility of western governments as torch-bearers for democracy and press freedom is being seriously undermined by these latest actions. "The United States and Europe need to lead by example," said White. "The enemies of press freedom and open government are the only winners when journalists are put under pressure in this way." -30- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For further information contact the IFJ: +32 2 235 2200, http://www.ifj.org The IFJ represents over 500,000 journalists in more than 110 countries. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [return to index ] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 19. FORMER DEPUTY GOVERNOR SENTENCED FOR FALSIFYING RESULTS OF 2004 MUKACHEVE MAYORAL ELECTION Eight others receive sentences for rigging elections and accepting bribes Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 4, 2006 KYIV - A district court in Mukacheve, Zakarpattia region, sentenced a former deputy governor of the Zakarpattia region to five years in jail, with one year suspended, on June 30 for falsifying the results of the Mukacheve mayoral elections for that took place on April 18, 2004. The press service of the Prosecutor-General's Office announced this to Ukrainian News. 'The sentence is the logical result of the investigation that the Prosecutor-General's Office of Ukraine conducted into the criminal case that was launched in connection with the events of April 18, 2004, connected with the election of the mayor of Mukacheve,' the press service said. The press service did not name the former deputy governor. According to the press service, courts have also sentenced eight heads of polling-station electoral commissions to various jail terms for rigging elections and accepting bribes. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor-General's Office says it is completing its investigations against the people accused of organizing and ordering these crimes. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Mukacheve mayoral elections took place on April 18, 2004. According to the results of an exit poll conducted on the voting day by the Democratic Initiatives fund, the Socis center, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the Razumkov center of economic and political studies, and the Committee of Voters, Viktor Baloha won 62.4% of the votes while Ernest Nuser won 29.99%. On April 19, the electoral commission's Chairman Yurii Peresta announced that the Zakarpattia regional council's deputy head Ernest Nuser won the Mukacheve mayoral elections and awarded him the winner's certificate. The Our Ukraine coalition of political parties said that the elections were falsified. The Social Democratic Party (united) said that no violations were committed in the course of the Mukacheve mayoral elections. A Mukacheve district court reinstated Vasyl Petiovka as the mayor of Mukacheve on December 23, 2004, and declared the results of the April 18 mayoral elections invalid. -30- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== 20. COLD WAR & BLIND ANTI-AMERICANISM Joseph Stalin would have greatly appreciated your piece on Cold War II LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR: By Mykola Ryabchuk Addressed to Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar, Norway Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #724, Article 20 Washington, D.C., Wednesday, July 5, 2006 RE: Article entitled: COLD WAR II OPINION: Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar, SCOOP Independent News Wellington & Zuckland, New Zealand, Friday, 30 June 2006 Published in Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #721, Article 19 Washington, D.C., Sunday, July 2, 2006 Sir, I believe Joseph Stalin would have greatly appreciated your piece on Cold War II. He used to call the authors like you "helpful idiots". Sometimes he was absolutely right. Mr Putin and FSB would probably also enjoy your "analysis" (and spare some money from their PR-fund). The reference to the staunch Sovietophile Guardian is especially impressive. Gleb Pavlovsky as an authority might be next. Fortunately, there some wise people in the West - not necessarily "neocons". You may find their responses to the guardians and suchlikes below. I have little to add. With best wishes, Mykola Riabchuk, a journalist ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail contact: ryabchuk@iatp.kiev.ua ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== If you are receiving more than one copy of the AUR please contact us. Please contact us if you no longer wish to receive the AUR. You are welcome to send us names for the AUR distribution list. If you are missing some issues of the AUR please let us know. ======================================================== "ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" A Free, Not-For-Profit, Independent, Public Service Newsletter With major support from The Bleyzer Foundation Articles are Distributed For Information, Research, Education Academic, Discussion and Personal Purposes Only Additional readers are welcome. ======================================================== SigmaBleyzer/The Bleyzer Foundation Economic Reports "SigmaBleyzer - Where Opportunities Emerge" The SigmaBleyzer Emerging Markets Private Equity Investment Group and The Bleyzer Foundation offers a comprehensive collection of documents, reports and presentations published by its business units and organizations. All publications are grouped by categories: Marketing; Economic Country Reports; Presentations; Ukrainian Equity Guide; Monthly Macroeconomic Situation Reports (Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine). LINK: http://www.sigmableyzer.com/index.php?action=publications You can be on an e-mail distribution list to receive automatically, on a monthly basis, any or all of the Macroeconomic Situation Reports (Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine) by sending an e-mail to mwilliams@SigmaBleyzer.com. "UKRAINE - A COUNTRY OF NEW OPPORTUNITIES" ======================================================== UKRAINE INFORMATION WEBSITE: http://www.ArtUkraine.com ======================================================== "WELCOME TO UKRAINE"- "NARODNE MYSTETSTVO" (Folk Art) and ContempoARTukraine MAGAZINES For information on how to subscribe to the "Welcome to Ukraine" magazine in English, Ukrainian Folk Art magazine "Narodne Mystetstvo" in Ukrainian, or ContempoARTukraine in English please send an e-mail to ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net. Complete information can be found at the following website: http://www.artukraine.com/availbooks/index.htm . ======================================================== ACTION UKRAINE PROGRAM - SPONSORS Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Holodomor Art and Graphics Collection & Exhibitions "Working to Secure & Enhance Ukraine's Democratic Future" 1. THE BLEYZER FOUNDATION, Dr. Edilberto Segura, Chairman; Victor Gekker, Executive Director, Kyiv, Ukraine; Washington, D.C., http://www.bleyzerfoundation.com. Additional supporting sponsors for the Action Ukraine Program are: 2. UKRAINIAN FEDERATION OF AMERICA (UFA), Zenia Chernyk, Chairperson; Vera M. Andryczyk, President; Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania 3. KIEV-ATLANTIC GROUP , David and Tamara Sweere, Daniel Sweere, Kyiv and Myronivka, Ukraine, 380 44 298 7275 in Kyiv, kau@ukrnet.net 4. ESTRON CORPORATION, Grain Export Terminal Facility & Oilseed Crushing Plant, Ilvichevsk, Ukraine 5. Law firm UKRAINIAN LEGAL GROUP , Irina Paliashvili, President; Kiev and Washington, general@rulg.com, www.rulg.com. 6. BAHRIANY FOUNDATION, INC., Dr. Anatol Lysyj, Chairman, Minneapolis, Minnesota 7. VOLIA SOFTWARE, Software to Fit Your Business, Source your IT work in Ukraine. Contact: Yuriy Sivitsky, Vice President, Marketing, Kyiv, Ukraine, yuriy.sivitsky@softline.kiev.ua; Volia Software website: http://www.volia-software.com/ or Bill Hunter, CEO Volia Software, Houston, TX 77024; bill.hunter@volia-software.com . 8. ODUM- Association of American Youth of Ukrainian Descent, Minnesota Chapter, Natalia Yarr, Chairperson 9. UKRAINE-U.S. BUSINESS COUNCIL, Washington, D.C., Dr. Susanne Lotarski, President/CEO; E. Morgan Williams, SigmaBleyzer, Chairman, Executive Committee, Board of Directors; John Stephens, Cape Point Capital, Secretary/Treasurer 10. UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE USA, South Brown Brook, New Jersey, http://www.uocofusa.org 11. UKRAINIAN AMERICAN COORDINATING COUNCIL (UACC), Ihor Gawdiak, President, Washington, D.C., New York, New York 12. U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION (USUF), Nadia Komarnyckyj McConnell, President; John Kun, Vice President/COO; Vera Andruskiw, CPP Wash Project Director, Washington, D.C.; Markian Bilynskyj, VP/Director of Field Operations; Marta Kolomayets, CPP Kyiv Project Director, Kyiv, Ukraine. Web: http://www.USUkraine.org 13. WJ GROUP of Ag Companies, Kyiv, Ukraine, David Holpert, Chief Financial Officer, Chicago, IL; http://www.wjgrain.com/en/links/index.html 14. EUGENIA SAKEVYCH DALLAS, Author, "One Woman, Five Lives, Five Countries," 'Her life's journey begins with the 1932-1933 genocidal famine in Ukraine.' Hollywood, CA, www.eugeniadallas.com. 15. ALEX AND HELEN WOSKOB, College Station, Pennsylvania 16. SWIFT FOUNDATION, San Luis Obispo, California 17. TRAVEL TO UKRAINE website, http://www.TravelToUkraine.org , A program of the U.S-Ukraine Foundation, Washington, D.C. ======================================================== TO BE ON OR OFF THE FREE AUR DISTRIBUTION LIST If you would like to read the ACTION UKRAINE REPORT- AUR, around five times a week, please send your name, country of residence, and e-mail contact information to morganw@patriot.net. Information about your occupation and your interest in Ukraine is also appreciated. If you do not wish to read the ACTION UKRAINE REPORT please contact us immediately by e-mail to morganw@patriot.net . If you are receiving more than one copy please let us know so this can be corrected. SPAM BLOCKERS ARE A REAL PROBLEM If you do not receive a copy of the AUR it is probably because of a SPAM BLOCKER maintained by your server or by yourself on your computer. Spam blockers are set in very arbitrary ways and block out e-mails because of words found in many news stories. Spam blockers sometimes reject the AUR for other arbitrary reasons we have not been able to identify. If you do not receive some of the AUR numbers please let us know and we will send you the missing issues. ========================================================PUBLISHER AND EDITOR - AUR Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Director, Government Affairs Washington Office, SigmaBleyzer Emerging Markets Private Equity Investment Group P.O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013, Tel: 202 437 4707 Mobile in Kyiv: 8 050 689 2874 mwilliams@SigmaBleyzer.com; www.SigmaBleyzer.com ======================================================== Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. ======================================================== return to index [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service] ======================================================== |
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
AUR#724 Jul 5 One-Hundred One Days, Still No New Government In Ukraine; Party Of Regions Blocks Parliament; NATO Gets Cold Feet; Falsifying Mayoral Election
