09/18/2002 | vj

World Briefing Europe: Ukraine: Protesters Detained

By Michael Wines (NYT)
18 September 2002
The New York Times
English
c. 2002 New York Times Company

The police detained 54 protesters in a sweep through a tent city set up outside the office of President Leonid D. Kuchma after a demonstration on Monday. Some 120 tents had been erected against government orders after the protest, which drew 20,000 people to downtown Kiev. Several thousand more protesters gathered yesterday and opposition leaders called for another protest next week. Mr. Kuchma, 64, has been snarled in scandal since recorded conversations seemed to link him to the kidnapping of a journalist in 1999; he strongly denies the charge. Michael Wines (NYT)



Popular Figure In Ukraine Has A Middle Way; Enigmatic Ex-Premier Pursues Compromise at a Tense Time

Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
976 words
18 September 2002

KIEV, Ukraine, Sept. 17 -- When he's not running parliament's biggest faction, Viktor Yushchenko harvests honey from beehives at home. It's a hazardous hobby. On election night last March, he showed up with a swollen face, the reward for irritating the bees.

From Yushchenko's viewpoint, politics in Ukraine often has a similar feeling. "A lot of stings," he says, "and mostly in my back."

If Yushchenko, 48, has become a target for all sides these days, it's both a testament to his political strength and a consequence of his refusal to firmly take sides. A reformist former prime minister, he has in the last year become the most popular leader in a country whose president has been tarred by scandal. The enigmatic Yushchenko flirts with both government and opposition, yet avoids committing himself to either.

On Monday, he joined socialist, communist and capitalist party leaders at a rally of more than 20,000 demonstrators who gathered in Kiev's main square to push for the ouster of President Leonid Kuchma. Today, Yushchenko went back to work negotiating a new parliamentary coalition with several pro-presidential parties, on the theory that there is no real mechanism to force Kuchma to resign.

"The square had good emotion and they understand what is happening in the country," he said of Monday's protesters. But as for removing the president, he said, "It's one thing to want, it's another to have the legal capability to achieve it."

The fence-straddling has exasperated all sides as they wait for Yushchenko to make up his mind: Does he want to make a deal with Kuchma and effectively set himself up as anointed heir in the 2004 presidential election, or does he want to lead a unified opposition and run against the Kuchma legacy?

"He signs everything that they give him," scoffed Viktor Pinchuk, a business tycoon, member of parliament and Kuchma's son-in-law. "At one point he signed papers that accused all the people who came out in the street of fascism; that was when he was prime minister. And today he's with the very same people signing papers against the president."

Western diplomats who admire Yushchenko fret that he may not be a tough enough political operator. Some supporters in the Supreme Council, as the parliament is known, have grown impatient with his constant attempts to broker compromise.

"Yushchenko's not with Kuchma," legislator Nikolai Polishuk said in trying to explain his leader. "Yushchenko's a diplomat and he's trying up to the last minute to solve everything in a parliamentary way." But looking at the crowd assembled Monday, Polishuk acknowledged that it meant "people don't believe in negotiations anymore."

The demonstrations across Ukraine were the largest here in years and energized the opposition to Kuchma. Today, Kuchma's government responded with a pre-dawn raid on a tent city set up around the presidential headquarters where 1,000 protesters had vowed to remain until he resigned. Armed with clubs, police in riot gear swept in around 4 a.m., breaking down tents, arresting dozens of protesters and beating some of them, according to the opposition.

Three of the four main leaders from the Monday rally -- socialist Oleksander Moroz, communist Petro Symonenko and former deputy prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- held another impromptu demonstration this evening, and promised more protests next Tuesday. Yushchenko did not attend, and aides said he would not participate next week, either.

Yushchenko, tall and relaxed, with gray creeping into his hair, showed up for an interview in his antique-filled office today wearing a very European outfit of brown corduroy pants and a tan turtleneck sweater. His is a bloodless form of politics, the rational approach of a former central banker not given to blazing rhetoric. While others on Monday denounced Kuchma as a dictator and criminal, Yushchenko told the crowd, "We want to have a real political dialogue."

He is an artist who likes to collect archaeological artifacts and Kazakh pipes, and has made the home he shares with his American wife a virtual museum of Ukrainian culture. In his office, he pulled from the shelf a bowl he had reassembled, and pronounced it thousands of years old.

During 16 months as Kuchma's prime minister, Yushchenko impressed foreign officials with his Western-style reforms and domestic constituents with his willingness to take on the business moguls who have amassed great wealth since Ukraine became independent after the Soviet collapse 11 years ago. His policies, however, offended enough power brokers that he was removed by parliament, with Kuchma's tacit assent, in April 2001.

After forming his own party, Our Ukraine, Yushchenko made a strong showing in the parliamentary elections in March, as the new party won the largest share of the vote. But Kuchma pressured enough smaller parties and unaligned legislators to maintain control of the 450-member parliament.

Yushchenko hopes he can reverse that in the next few days by forming a centrist coalition with two pro-Kuchma parties, and thus add 100 seats to the 110 he already controls. That would put him just shy of the 226 needed for an outright majority. If he succeeds, he said, others will fall into line.

Yushchenko made clear that he considers Kuchma a spent force, but prefers negotiation over radical protest. "There is no ideal scenario; each has its minuses and pluses," he said. "But the most important thing to understand is the authorities are not interested in forming a political majority. We need to create a political majority . . . to turn the political life back to parliament. That's the shortest path to political stability."

http://www.washingtonpost.com

Kuchma foes riled by raid on tent city
18 September 2002
Chicago Tribune
English

KIEV, UKRAINE -- Ukrainian opposition leaders denounced authorities Tuesday for dismantling a tent city of protesters and vowed to hound President Leonid Kuchma from office.

Riot police swooped in before dawn to remove the encampment set up near Kuchma's office late Monday after Ukraine's biggest pro-democracy, anti-Kuchma demonstration in post-Soviet times.

Opposition leaders said they would seek an emergency parliamentary session this week to discuss the explosive situation.