Sunday, November 27, 2005
SENT NOV. 30, 2004, or DAY 9 of OR
UKRAINE'S ORANGE REVOLUTION
Note: At this point during the OR, I had not written to my list-serve in about 5 days, as I had been traveling about, looking in on OR events in various parts of Western Ukraine, and was hoping to get to Kyiv. I was back in Ternopil for a day, then headed to Ivano-Frankivsk, and then was off to Lviv, after which I planned to go to Kyiv, making a stop along the way.
I had really wanted to document what was happening in the rest of the country; that is, I had come to feel that OR events from around the country were not getting the credit nor attention that they deserved, and I was planning after the weekend to nonetheless head to Kyiv. Well, I did make it to Zhytomyr when I got really sick, and so I hurried back to Pidhajtsi where I laid in bed for two or three days with flu. So I did not get to Kyiv until the end of the OR, which is something that I regret in soo many ways. However, once there I saw and experienced enough of the real thing, and b-t-w, I did end up spending some nights in the tent camp later on, during the weeks from the end of the mass demonstrations to Yushchenko's inauguration. Thus I focused some of my writing to my list-serve and the articles I tried to publish on what was happening outside of Kyiv, while also reporting on the major events in the capital. The Orange Revolution did not happen only in Kyiv, but in towns and cities and villages all throughout Ukraine. I have been, and will continue to be, posting photos of OR events in locales outside of Kyiv on my main blog here. . .
Now to what I wrote from Pidhajtsi on this day a year ago after I had started feeling a bit better:
Things have been really shaken up in Ukraine since I have last been able to write to you all. Below is an article I have prepared once again to send to newspapers, followed by a round-up of news. There is a lot of news from today that I just don't have time to write about, but today has been a big day in Ukraine, with protestors trying to storm into the parliament. Read more below. (And oh, I have become more patient with Jushchenko's tactics, if not whole-heartedly embracing what he's trying to do. . .see more below):
Ukraine’s Orange Revolution:
It’s being called an Orange Revolution. In towns and cities throughout Ukraine, millions of people are wearing orange—scarves and hats, jackets and sweaters, arm and headbands, socks and mittens. Cars have orange ribbons tied to their antennas. Over the central Independence Square in the capital city of Kyiv an orange flag flies under the blue-and-yellow national flag. Orange represents forces allied with Viktor Jushchenko, the banker and economist cum presidential hopeful cum leader of a national uprising against corruption and oligarchic rule that began November 21.
A second round of presidential elections occurred on November 21 that like the first round, has been widely condemned as unfair by both the OSCE and US, both of which had previously declared the campaign season leading up to the elections as rife with violations of protocols of free and fair election campaigns. Nonetheless, authorities in Ukraine are proving desperate to steal the election for Viktor Janukovych. Janukovych is the best guarantee for the survival of their regime of corrupt oligarchs with a stranglehold on Ukraine’s government and economy that has, throughout the past 13 years of independence, kept most people in this resource-rich nation of 48 million people hovering in poverty.
Our Ukraine, the party of Viktor Jushchenko, has compiled a list of 11,000 election-day violations. However as a national uprising is taking place, the issue of the legitimacy of the election has become beside the point. The actions of authorities, not only today but throughout the past thirteen years, have pushed the clear majority in Ukraine to demand one thing today: from streets throughout the country, millions of people wearing orange are shouting “Jushchenko is President!” The real question today concerns the legitimacy of the ruling oligarchy itself.
Jushchenko promises to reform Ukraine’s economy and to initiate wide-ranging social programs to help the people of this nation rise out of poverty. He promises to reform Ukraine’s unequal power structure and to redistribute Ukraine’s wealth, while at the same time he promises cultural sensitivity and to work towards a civic and plural sense of Ukrainian identity, which means inculcating a sense of civic nationalism that includes all of Ukraine’s diverse peoples and languages. Viktor Janukovych, while challenging Jushchenko’s claims to being a populist with little more than name-calling and highly contestable assertions about Ukraine’s economic progress while he has been prime minister, has mostly attempted to split Russian from Ukrainian voters by playing on ethnic Russian fears about the status of the Russian language in Ukraine and of Ukraine drifting out of reach of Russian influence. Janukovych’s brand of populism is divide and rule.
Authorities are trying to save themselves by posing as the legitimate power, obedient to and guarantor of the law, while claiming that Viktor Jushchenko, along with the two other main leaders of the opposition, Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz and Julija Tymoshenko, leader of a parliamentary opposition bloc named after her, is attempting a coup. This is the view of the situation in Ukraine promoted by the Kremlin, but few others buy it—especially not in Ukraine, where a shadow government and society has begun to form. Already, numerous cities have passed resolutions rejecting the legitimacy of the elections and declaring loyalty to Jushchenko, and demonstrators in other cities, such as Chernihiv, have gathered in front of city and state government buildings to demand adoption of similar resolutions. Also, activists in the city of Kirovohrad held a public trial for the city and state officials that participated in the falsification of the election, while in towns large and small crowds are gathering before state administration buildings to demand that officials come out and explain themselves.
In the capital Kyiv, where an estimated 1 million have arrived from all over the country, a support network for those coming from afar has been established. Kyivans are opening their homes to demonstrators, while various groups and organizations have erected food and first-aid tents throughout the city. A general fund has been established to which people throughout the country and the Ukrainian diaspora abroad have been donating to help pay costs of getting people to the capital and for their support while they are there. A new flag has appeared at pro-Jushchenko rallies throughout the country as well, one displaying the word “Solidarity” written in orange letters on a white background.
In reaction to this building pressure, authorities last week first attempted to lure Jushchenko into a compromise. Janukovych appeared twice on TV to state his “willingness” to compromise with the opposition, but there were rumors that authorities were willing only to negotiate on a power-sharing government with Janukovych as President and Jushchenko as PM. The opposition repeatedly stated in response that it would negotiate only a turn over of power to the man who most consider already to have won the election. It seemed that at this point, authorities had only two options left: either the hope that the energy of demonstrations would dissipate, leaving Jushchenko and the opposition in a weakened position whereby they would have to accept authorities’ overtures for a power-sharing government; or the use of violence in an attempt to outright suppress the ongoing national uprising.
However, as the weekend began, it became apparent that energy was not dissipating. On Thursday a caravan of twenty or more cars and two buses was seen leaving the west Ukrainian city of Ternopil with signs proclaiming “To Kyiv for Ukraine!” The movement toward the capital continued so that by Saturday night, it was reported that more people had packed onto Kyiv’s central Independence Square than before, topping 200,000 while numbers of people throughout the city continued to grow. In this context, Moroz and Tymoshenko, the more radical of the opposition’s guiding triumvirate, stepped up their calls for radical action with the suggestion that the opposition may begin to erect barricades to seize control of all roads and rails to and from the capital.
By Friday however, both the government and Jushchenko had become more open to negotiation for a compromise. First of all, ongoing standoffs between pro-Jushchenko supporters and special police units—who are suspected to have been flown in from Russia, as police units throughout Ukraine have been declaring their loyalty to the Orange Revolution—almost broke into open confrontation in a number of cities across Ukraine on Friday. In the city of Chernihiv, police struck demonstrators with truncheons and fired shots into the air as demonstrators attempted to storm state buildings. The threat of escalating violence was becoming a reality, making Jushchenko concerned to prevent bloodshed. On the side of authorities, the increasing pressure from the streets and the fact that numerous European heads of state arrived to urge Kuchma to cooperate with the opposition had by Friday forced authorities to negotiate more than just a power-showering government. The result was the start of negotiations on Friday for a third election with guarantees of equal access to the media and total fairness.
Ukrainian authorities are proving more stubborn than authorities were last year in the Republic of Georgia. In fact, the closest precedent for the behavior of Ukrainian authorities at this point is that of Nicholae Ceaucescu’s stubborn hold on power that led to widespread bloodshed in Romania in 1989. Jushchenko seems very eager to prevent this from happening, while still pushing for the government’s capitulation to his eventually becoming president. Over the weekend and into Monday, things have been shaken up in Ukraine’s government. At first, the Janukovych camp seemed emboldened by Jushchenko’s sitting at the negotiating table, taking it as a sign of weakness. Parliament was more full with pro-Janukovych deputies than it has been since November 21. Then Janukovych's home state of Donetsk declared its desire for a state-wide referendum on autonomy, while the state of Kharkiv outirght declared its autonomy and refusal to pay taxes to the government, in actions rumored to have been supported if not secretly ordered by Kuchma.
However on Saturday the parliament nonetheless passed a resolution denouncing the elections and declaring the start of negotiations on political reform. None of this is binding without Kuchma's signature, who in a shocking declaration Monday announced that the election was indeed falsified. Also Monday the fall out over the Kharkiv and Donetsk declarations was great. Serhij Tyhypko, head of Janukovych's campaign resigned from both that position as well as his position as National Bank chief. Volodymyr Lytvyn, the speaker of parliament who supported Janukovych in the election, denounced the seperatist moves and the fact that the prime minister, Viktor Janukovych, supports them. Janukovych is fast loosing support: he was caught stating while he thought he was off-camera that as president, "I will deport all western Ukrainians on foot to Siberia." In reaction to this, former President Leonid Kravchuk, a staunch Janukovych supporter until yesterday, said that "we don't need another Josip Visarionovych," refering to Joseph Stalin, who allegedly had desired to deport all Ukrainians to Siberia.
Thus it appears that so far, Jushchenko's tactics are working. Jushchenko addressed his supporters from Kyiv's Independence Square on Monday night, stating that although Janukovych and Kuchma are still dragging their feet in the negotiations, they had been deeply shaken over the weekend. Jushchenko urged further restraint: "We are winning," he said, especially since the parliament was to begin debate Tuesday on a vote of no confidence in the government of Viktor Jushchenko.
However, on Tuesday as the parlaiment failed to begin debate on the no-confidence vote, pro-Jushchenko supporters broke through gates and attempted to storm the parliamentary chamber. Jushchenko has been reluctant to outright endorse such actions, but has repeatedly stated that if authorities fail to make real progress toward meeting opposition demands, the opposition will have to resort to more radical action. This reflects the desire of fellow opposition leader Julija Tymoshenko, who has frequently addressed the crowds in Kyiv stating that although she backs Jushchenko's attempts at negotiations, she does not trust authorities and believes that the time will come when radical action may be necessary. "Be ready, and be on your guard," she said to opposition supporters, refering to the increasing likelihood that authorities may start provocations to provide the excuse for a crackdown. Thus both Jushchenko and Tymoshenko have asked people to remain in Kyiv and be patient for now. Furthermore, Jushchenko has said that, “any conflict begun in the streets must be resolved in negotiations with authorities.” Only time will tell which one of their tactics will take precedent—but no doubt, the Orange Revolution is for the moment benefiting from them the leadership of both personalities.
Thus, against all stereotypes of an East-West divide and disunity between Russian and Ukrainian speaking voters, the vast majority of Ukrainians are proving more united in their fight against a corrupt regime of ruling oligarchs than anyone would have expected. Certainly the authorities never imagined they would face such widespread and unified rebellion, especially as they have worked hard with a high degree of success to keep the East-West divide alive and Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers alienated from each other these past thirteen years. In actual fact, however, Janukovych did not perform as well as authorities expected during the election in those parts of the country considered his stronghold, where significant minorities support Jushchenko. Thus while support for Jushchenko in generally pro-Janukovych regions is significant, support for Janukovych in pro-Jushchenko regions is negligible. The simple fact of the matter is that somewhere between at least 60% but very possibly up to 75% of Ukrainians want Jushchenko as President, and they want to see, as Jushchenko has said again and again during the campaign season, that “Bandits (i.e., the oligarchs) will sit in jail.”
NEWS BLURBS that I have been compiling since last Thursday, and I don't have much from today written yet, but there is a ton to write about from just today, let alone since last Th.:
Oleksandr Moroz, speaking in parliament Tuesday, said, “Isn’t it obvious that falsification took place? The government is sick, its gangrenous, and there is nothing left to do other than cut it off.” The parliament today is to debate a no-confidence vote in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Janukovych over the matter of the use of administrative resources on his behalf and the role of his government in falsifying the vote.
Kuchma on Monday admitted that the elections were falsified, but said that his government had nothing to do with it.
One of Janukovych’s spokespeople declared that while no "administrative resources" were used on Janukovych's behalf, many were used in western Ukraine.
On Thursday, there was a standoff in Ternopil when word spread that the road to Kyiv was blockaded. A crowd marched to the state administration buildings to demand an explanation.
Thursday night there was a large mass held on Ternnopil’s central Theater Square, cite of the week’s demonstrations, to cater to the spiritual needs of people in struggle.
On Friday, the highway between Kyiv and the town just outside the capital where Viktor Jushchenko has been spending the nights was blocked by a semi-trailor that was deliberately parked crossing the highway.
In the state parliament in Donetsk, deputies discussed declaring Donetsk an autonomous republic.
In Dnipropetrovsk on Friday were reports of a tense standoff between pro-Janukovych and pro-Jushchenko supporters.
In a village outside of Kyiv, Jushchenko supporters blocked the passage of a train full of Janukovych supporters on its way to the capital. The media arrived and showed interesting scenes of tense confrontations between camps.
Nonetheless on Friday, a pro-Janukovyh rally started outside of Kyiv's Central Train Station. About 5-7,000 Janukovych supporters, mostly men and mostly miners from the Donbas (the states of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk), Janukovych’s heartland have gathered in front of the central train station in Kyiv (interesting to note that Janukovych has had to rely so heavily on people from Donbas, while Jushchenko is drawing huge masses of supporters from all over Ukraine). Janukovych addressed the crowd, and in his usually crude manner, called Jushchenko a trypach (one who says a lot, does a little, but in a term that I have been told is rather crude-sounding) who was trying to fool “my people,” Janukovych said, and who was fomenting disorder for the sake of his own power. He also called Jushchenko some other nasty names.
Also, Viktor Janukovych has been caught saying while he thought cameras were off that as President, he’d deport on foot all western Ukrainians to Siberia.
Reports on Friday of provocations: at the standoff in front of buildings of the presidential administration there apparently were men shouting to demonstrators, “Hey guys, come on, forget all this—we’ve got lots of vodka, let’s go get drunk. . .” Sounds kind of funny, but this is real. Never underestimate east Slavic love for vodka. . .
Officials are suspected of burning incriminating documents—special police outside of presidential administration buildings seen carrying out boxes of documents and burning them.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine had previously declared that no one can declare a winner in the presidential election until it has made its own judgment on the fairness and legitimacy of the election. However, the government’s newspaper (i.e., the newspaper of the presidential administration, The Government Courier) had intended to declare Janukovych winner, and had printed its papers for distribution. They were prevented from doing so by Jushchenko supporters who broke-in to their press and seized the papers.
An army officer in Ternopil made a declaration, “We took an oath to defend the
people, and that’s what we will do,” implying sympathy for the Orange Revolution.
Russian special police (Spets-nas) are suspected in Uzhhorod. There has been a tense standoff in front of state administration buildings, and one person there declared, “This is foreign occupation.”
There are reports of police using fire hoses on demonstrators in city of Sumy.
Reports of 100 police heading to L’viv on Friday to support and protect pro-Jushchenko demonstrators.
Friday, President Leonid Kuchma was visited by EU’s Javier Solana, Poland’s Kwasniewski, and the Lithuanian President (who’s name I forgot). Also, Lech Walesa is in Ukraine to be a mediator between the opposition (proJu forces) and the governmen (proJa forces)t.
Polish students wearing orange are demonstrating in solidarity with the Ukrainian movement. And I have seen plenty of Polish students at demonstrations already, especially in Lviv and Ternopil.
Janukovych’s campaign office claims to be telling its people to stay off the streets in general with the notion that they are legitimate and don’t need to resort to street tactics—most likely this is a propagandistic attempt to explain to pro-Janukovych supporters why Jushchenko has so many and Janukovych so few in the capital.
Also Friday, two members of the Central Electoral Commission announced that they rescind their signatures certifying results of the election. Rumors are spreading in grassroots information channels that the head of the CEC was slightly beaten and otherwise threatened that he must cooperate and declare the election for Janukovych.
Saturday: students from the Kyiv Music Conservatory spent the afternoon “entertaining” the special police guarding the buildings of the presidential administration with Ukrainian traditional and pop songs. Said one student, “We just wanted to raise their spirits.”
It was reported that on Saturday night, more people than ever had packed onto Independence Square.
Saturday night cadets of the police academy came to the Independence Square to announce their support for the Orange Revolution and the Ukrainian people despite threats that they would be expelled if they did so. The crowd of 200,000 or more responded by chanting “Molodtsi! Molodtsi!” a difficult to translate phrase; its kind of like saying to someone “At-a-Boy!” or “Job Well Done!” Ukrainians and Russians say it all the time as a compliment (Molodtsi is plural, Molodets is the singular).
Following the students, a police captain also made a similar declaration, and the crown chanted “Molodets! Molodets!”
And then the pinnacle of police anti-government protests occurred on Sunday night. The Major-General of all of Ukraine’s police forces appeared on Independence Square and declared that “the police are with the people,” and expressed his joy that finally, “the time has come that we can say ‘No’ to this regime.” He also announced the establishment of a hotline to which people could call-in any suspicious activity by authorities, especially as regarding possible provocations. And he ended by starting up a chant, “Militsija za Narodu (Police are for the People)!” which was picked up by the crowd that had boisterously been applauding his announcement.
A New Propaganda Campaign: on Inter, one of Ukraine’s nationwide TV channels, they are showing screens with the slogans “We Have Understood One Another,” “We are All Fellow Citizens,” etc., all written in orange and blue-and-white letters (the colors of Jushchenko and Janukovych respectively) while showing, interspersed, photos of Jushchenko and Janukovych, and pro-Jushchenko and pro-Janukovych rallies. Also, in its reporting of the daily news, Inter has been portraying the ongoing pro-Janukovych rally outside the train station in Kyiv as though it were the same in seize as the pro-Jushchenko rally on Independence Square through mostly close-up camera shots that make the rally of 5,000 look the equal of a rally of 150,000 and more.
Here’s a run-down of the all-Ukrainian channels (channels broadcast throughout Ukraine; for each major town has its own channels as well):
1) 1+1 = State television
2) Pershyj Natsionalnyj (First National) = State TV, but completely under influence of an oligarch
3) Inter = which is owned, most people say, by Viktor Medvedchuk, an oligarch and politician, head of the presidential administration
4) ICTV = Viktor Pinchuk, oligarch and also, son-in-law of President Kuchma
5) Novyj Kannel (New Channel) = neutral?
6) STB (not sure what the letters stand for) = oligarchic channel
And then there is the opposition Channel 5 which is broadcast in a few regions of Western Ukraine and which is otherwise available only via satellite. Just as in the US, independent, opposition channels have the problem of money and of the oligarchy’s stranglehold on licensing and broadcasting at the national level. Since the start of the Orange Revolution, the local Ternopil Channel 4 has been transmitting Channel 5’s coverage of events, and we can get Channel 4 in Pidhajtsi.
One of Channel 5’s main anchorman likes to sign off with the phrase, “Kokhajtysja! (Love each other!)” which is a much more sincere statement, when contrasted with Inter’s “We understand each other.” The three main anchormen on Channel 5 are refugees from State TV 1+1, and one can tell they are thrilled to be speaking the truth, such as, “No matter—the word travels faster than the image.”
Viktor Jushchenko, while addressing the crowd of supporters Friday night to inform them of the start of dialogue with authorities, said that Viktor Janukovych had proposed that he would remove “his people from Kyiv,” if Jushchenko promised to remove his, to which Jushchenko said he replied, “Viktor Fedorovych, you only have 5,000 people here.” (Janukovych’s full name is Viktor Fedorovych Janukovych, while he is Viktor Andrijevych Jushchenko).
Natalija Vitrenko, leader of the so-called Progressive Socialist Part of Ukraine that is closely allied with the Communist Party has made an interesting comment. When asked, “To your mind, how will the problem of unemployment in [western] Ukraine be solved?” she answered, “By dressing people, putting shoes on them, feeding them, and off to Chechnya with them.”
Is the State TV Channel 1+1 turning against the government? Watching Ternopil Channel 4, which has been transmitting on its channel coverage of events in Ukraine from the opposition Channel 5, I saw on Friday evening a speaker addressing the crowd of 150,000 or more on the central Independence Square in Kyiv, who claimed that journalists and directors at the state television channel promised to report only the truth from now on. If so, in light of the new disinformation campaign of the channel Inter outlined above, this would be a highly significant moment. Channel 1+1, like the other oligarch owned channels, is an all-Ukrainian channel, reaching nearly every household. During the anti-Soviet rebellion of the Baltic Republics in 1991, bloodshed broke out in Vilnius when the anti-Soviet opposition seized control of the State media and Soviet paraptroopers attacked, killing 14. A crucial turning point in the revolution that led to the collapse of the Slobodan Milosevic regime in the rump-Yugoslavia came when state television went off the air to return to airwaves with anti-Milosevic messages. And a similar moment was crucial in the Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia last year. Will the state Channel 1+1 turn against Kuchma, Janukovych, the bandit government of oligarchs and join forces with the Orange Revolution?
Why November in Eastern Europe? The Berlin Wall fell in early November, the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia collapsed in November, Georgia’s Rose Revolution happened in November. . .does it have something to do with Scorpio energies afoot?
Julija Tymoshenko, addressing Sunday night the crowd on Kyiv’s Independence Square stated that rumors are that Janukovych has complained to Kuchma about the negotiations. Thus she said, “We need to stay on guard,” and said that if the authorities do not cooperate, the opposition needs to erect barricades, seize control of road and rails to and from capital, and raise hell!
On Saturday, in Moscow, fifteen people were seen walking around the Ukrainian Embassy, eating oranges and drinking Fanta.
And finally, Ukraine is suffering from a serious lack of orange material, and oranges are nowhere to be bought in the country today. Therefore, the EU—where a number of national parliaments have members displaying oranges on their desks and wearing orange in a display of solidarity with the Ukrainian movement—has begun organizing shipments of oranges and orange-colored items to Ukraine. A convoy suspected to be carrying such products has been seen crossing from Germany to Poland earlier today on its way to Ukraine, and already one semi-truck full of oranges and other orange items has been stopped at the border and harassed by border guards eager to obtain orange materials for themselves and their family.
OK, I’m just kidding, most of this isn’t true, all except for the display of solidarity in Germany’s parliament, and the fact that there reall is, not surprisingly, a shortage now of orange shirts, sweaters, hats, scarves, even tape in Ukraine, while what remains is of course much overpriced. I should like to be wearing an orange scarf about, but you snooze you loose. But there are oranges still available in Ukraine: today pro-Jushchenko deputies arrived early to the parliament and placed oranges on the desks of pro-Janukovych deputies, many of whom threw their oranges at the pro-Jushchenko deputies as they arrived.
Note: At this point during the OR, I had not written to my list-serve in about 5 days, as I had been traveling about, looking in on OR events in various parts of Western Ukraine, and was hoping to get to Kyiv. I was back in Ternopil for a day, then headed to Ivano-Frankivsk, and then was off to Lviv, after which I planned to go to Kyiv, making a stop along the way.
I had really wanted to document what was happening in the rest of the country; that is, I had come to feel that OR events from around the country were not getting the credit nor attention that they deserved, and I was planning after the weekend to nonetheless head to Kyiv. Well, I did make it to Zhytomyr when I got really sick, and so I hurried back to Pidhajtsi where I laid in bed for two or three days with flu. So I did not get to Kyiv until the end of the OR, which is something that I regret in soo many ways. However, once there I saw and experienced enough of the real thing, and b-t-w, I did end up spending some nights in the tent camp later on, during the weeks from the end of the mass demonstrations to Yushchenko's inauguration. Thus I focused some of my writing to my list-serve and the articles I tried to publish on what was happening outside of Kyiv, while also reporting on the major events in the capital. The Orange Revolution did not happen only in Kyiv, but in towns and cities and villages all throughout Ukraine. I have been, and will continue to be, posting photos of OR events in locales outside of Kyiv on my main blog here. . .
Now to what I wrote from Pidhajtsi on this day a year ago after I had started feeling a bit better:
Things have been really shaken up in Ukraine since I have last been able to write to you all. Below is an article I have prepared once again to send to newspapers, followed by a round-up of news. There is a lot of news from today that I just don't have time to write about, but today has been a big day in Ukraine, with protestors trying to storm into the parliament. Read more below. (And oh, I have become more patient with Jushchenko's tactics, if not whole-heartedly embracing what he's trying to do. . .see more below):
Ukraine’s Orange Revolution:
It’s being called an Orange Revolution. In towns and cities throughout Ukraine, millions of people are wearing orange—scarves and hats, jackets and sweaters, arm and headbands, socks and mittens. Cars have orange ribbons tied to their antennas. Over the central Independence Square in the capital city of Kyiv an orange flag flies under the blue-and-yellow national flag. Orange represents forces allied with Viktor Jushchenko, the banker and economist cum presidential hopeful cum leader of a national uprising against corruption and oligarchic rule that began November 21.
A second round of presidential elections occurred on November 21 that like the first round, has been widely condemned as unfair by both the OSCE and US, both of which had previously declared the campaign season leading up to the elections as rife with violations of protocols of free and fair election campaigns. Nonetheless, authorities in Ukraine are proving desperate to steal the election for Viktor Janukovych. Janukovych is the best guarantee for the survival of their regime of corrupt oligarchs with a stranglehold on Ukraine’s government and economy that has, throughout the past 13 years of independence, kept most people in this resource-rich nation of 48 million people hovering in poverty.
Our Ukraine, the party of Viktor Jushchenko, has compiled a list of 11,000 election-day violations. However as a national uprising is taking place, the issue of the legitimacy of the election has become beside the point. The actions of authorities, not only today but throughout the past thirteen years, have pushed the clear majority in Ukraine to demand one thing today: from streets throughout the country, millions of people wearing orange are shouting “Jushchenko is President!” The real question today concerns the legitimacy of the ruling oligarchy itself.
Jushchenko promises to reform Ukraine’s economy and to initiate wide-ranging social programs to help the people of this nation rise out of poverty. He promises to reform Ukraine’s unequal power structure and to redistribute Ukraine’s wealth, while at the same time he promises cultural sensitivity and to work towards a civic and plural sense of Ukrainian identity, which means inculcating a sense of civic nationalism that includes all of Ukraine’s diverse peoples and languages. Viktor Janukovych, while challenging Jushchenko’s claims to being a populist with little more than name-calling and highly contestable assertions about Ukraine’s economic progress while he has been prime minister, has mostly attempted to split Russian from Ukrainian voters by playing on ethnic Russian fears about the status of the Russian language in Ukraine and of Ukraine drifting out of reach of Russian influence. Janukovych’s brand of populism is divide and rule.
Authorities are trying to save themselves by posing as the legitimate power, obedient to and guarantor of the law, while claiming that Viktor Jushchenko, along with the two other main leaders of the opposition, Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz and Julija Tymoshenko, leader of a parliamentary opposition bloc named after her, is attempting a coup. This is the view of the situation in Ukraine promoted by the Kremlin, but few others buy it—especially not in Ukraine, where a shadow government and society has begun to form. Already, numerous cities have passed resolutions rejecting the legitimacy of the elections and declaring loyalty to Jushchenko, and demonstrators in other cities, such as Chernihiv, have gathered in front of city and state government buildings to demand adoption of similar resolutions. Also, activists in the city of Kirovohrad held a public trial for the city and state officials that participated in the falsification of the election, while in towns large and small crowds are gathering before state administration buildings to demand that officials come out and explain themselves.
In the capital Kyiv, where an estimated 1 million have arrived from all over the country, a support network for those coming from afar has been established. Kyivans are opening their homes to demonstrators, while various groups and organizations have erected food and first-aid tents throughout the city. A general fund has been established to which people throughout the country and the Ukrainian diaspora abroad have been donating to help pay costs of getting people to the capital and for their support while they are there. A new flag has appeared at pro-Jushchenko rallies throughout the country as well, one displaying the word “Solidarity” written in orange letters on a white background.
In reaction to this building pressure, authorities last week first attempted to lure Jushchenko into a compromise. Janukovych appeared twice on TV to state his “willingness” to compromise with the opposition, but there were rumors that authorities were willing only to negotiate on a power-sharing government with Janukovych as President and Jushchenko as PM. The opposition repeatedly stated in response that it would negotiate only a turn over of power to the man who most consider already to have won the election. It seemed that at this point, authorities had only two options left: either the hope that the energy of demonstrations would dissipate, leaving Jushchenko and the opposition in a weakened position whereby they would have to accept authorities’ overtures for a power-sharing government; or the use of violence in an attempt to outright suppress the ongoing national uprising.
However, as the weekend began, it became apparent that energy was not dissipating. On Thursday a caravan of twenty or more cars and two buses was seen leaving the west Ukrainian city of Ternopil with signs proclaiming “To Kyiv for Ukraine!” The movement toward the capital continued so that by Saturday night, it was reported that more people had packed onto Kyiv’s central Independence Square than before, topping 200,000 while numbers of people throughout the city continued to grow. In this context, Moroz and Tymoshenko, the more radical of the opposition’s guiding triumvirate, stepped up their calls for radical action with the suggestion that the opposition may begin to erect barricades to seize control of all roads and rails to and from the capital.
By Friday however, both the government and Jushchenko had become more open to negotiation for a compromise. First of all, ongoing standoffs between pro-Jushchenko supporters and special police units—who are suspected to have been flown in from Russia, as police units throughout Ukraine have been declaring their loyalty to the Orange Revolution—almost broke into open confrontation in a number of cities across Ukraine on Friday. In the city of Chernihiv, police struck demonstrators with truncheons and fired shots into the air as demonstrators attempted to storm state buildings. The threat of escalating violence was becoming a reality, making Jushchenko concerned to prevent bloodshed. On the side of authorities, the increasing pressure from the streets and the fact that numerous European heads of state arrived to urge Kuchma to cooperate with the opposition had by Friday forced authorities to negotiate more than just a power-showering government. The result was the start of negotiations on Friday for a third election with guarantees of equal access to the media and total fairness.
Ukrainian authorities are proving more stubborn than authorities were last year in the Republic of Georgia. In fact, the closest precedent for the behavior of Ukrainian authorities at this point is that of Nicholae Ceaucescu’s stubborn hold on power that led to widespread bloodshed in Romania in 1989. Jushchenko seems very eager to prevent this from happening, while still pushing for the government’s capitulation to his eventually becoming president. Over the weekend and into Monday, things have been shaken up in Ukraine’s government. At first, the Janukovych camp seemed emboldened by Jushchenko’s sitting at the negotiating table, taking it as a sign of weakness. Parliament was more full with pro-Janukovych deputies than it has been since November 21. Then Janukovych's home state of Donetsk declared its desire for a state-wide referendum on autonomy, while the state of Kharkiv outirght declared its autonomy and refusal to pay taxes to the government, in actions rumored to have been supported if not secretly ordered by Kuchma.
However on Saturday the parliament nonetheless passed a resolution denouncing the elections and declaring the start of negotiations on political reform. None of this is binding without Kuchma's signature, who in a shocking declaration Monday announced that the election was indeed falsified. Also Monday the fall out over the Kharkiv and Donetsk declarations was great. Serhij Tyhypko, head of Janukovych's campaign resigned from both that position as well as his position as National Bank chief. Volodymyr Lytvyn, the speaker of parliament who supported Janukovych in the election, denounced the seperatist moves and the fact that the prime minister, Viktor Janukovych, supports them. Janukovych is fast loosing support: he was caught stating while he thought he was off-camera that as president, "I will deport all western Ukrainians on foot to Siberia." In reaction to this, former President Leonid Kravchuk, a staunch Janukovych supporter until yesterday, said that "we don't need another Josip Visarionovych," refering to Joseph Stalin, who allegedly had desired to deport all Ukrainians to Siberia.
Thus it appears that so far, Jushchenko's tactics are working. Jushchenko addressed his supporters from Kyiv's Independence Square on Monday night, stating that although Janukovych and Kuchma are still dragging their feet in the negotiations, they had been deeply shaken over the weekend. Jushchenko urged further restraint: "We are winning," he said, especially since the parliament was to begin debate Tuesday on a vote of no confidence in the government of Viktor Jushchenko.
However, on Tuesday as the parlaiment failed to begin debate on the no-confidence vote, pro-Jushchenko supporters broke through gates and attempted to storm the parliamentary chamber. Jushchenko has been reluctant to outright endorse such actions, but has repeatedly stated that if authorities fail to make real progress toward meeting opposition demands, the opposition will have to resort to more radical action. This reflects the desire of fellow opposition leader Julija Tymoshenko, who has frequently addressed the crowds in Kyiv stating that although she backs Jushchenko's attempts at negotiations, she does not trust authorities and believes that the time will come when radical action may be necessary. "Be ready, and be on your guard," she said to opposition supporters, refering to the increasing likelihood that authorities may start provocations to provide the excuse for a crackdown. Thus both Jushchenko and Tymoshenko have asked people to remain in Kyiv and be patient for now. Furthermore, Jushchenko has said that, “any conflict begun in the streets must be resolved in negotiations with authorities.” Only time will tell which one of their tactics will take precedent—but no doubt, the Orange Revolution is for the moment benefiting from them the leadership of both personalities.
Thus, against all stereotypes of an East-West divide and disunity between Russian and Ukrainian speaking voters, the vast majority of Ukrainians are proving more united in their fight against a corrupt regime of ruling oligarchs than anyone would have expected. Certainly the authorities never imagined they would face such widespread and unified rebellion, especially as they have worked hard with a high degree of success to keep the East-West divide alive and Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers alienated from each other these past thirteen years. In actual fact, however, Janukovych did not perform as well as authorities expected during the election in those parts of the country considered his stronghold, where significant minorities support Jushchenko. Thus while support for Jushchenko in generally pro-Janukovych regions is significant, support for Janukovych in pro-Jushchenko regions is negligible. The simple fact of the matter is that somewhere between at least 60% but very possibly up to 75% of Ukrainians want Jushchenko as President, and they want to see, as Jushchenko has said again and again during the campaign season, that “Bandits (i.e., the oligarchs) will sit in jail.”
NEWS BLURBS that I have been compiling since last Thursday, and I don't have much from today written yet, but there is a ton to write about from just today, let alone since last Th.:
Oleksandr Moroz, speaking in parliament Tuesday, said, “Isn’t it obvious that falsification took place? The government is sick, its gangrenous, and there is nothing left to do other than cut it off.” The parliament today is to debate a no-confidence vote in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Janukovych over the matter of the use of administrative resources on his behalf and the role of his government in falsifying the vote.
Kuchma on Monday admitted that the elections were falsified, but said that his government had nothing to do with it.
One of Janukovych’s spokespeople declared that while no "administrative resources" were used on Janukovych's behalf, many were used in western Ukraine.
On Thursday, there was a standoff in Ternopil when word spread that the road to Kyiv was blockaded. A crowd marched to the state administration buildings to demand an explanation.
Thursday night there was a large mass held on Ternnopil’s central Theater Square, cite of the week’s demonstrations, to cater to the spiritual needs of people in struggle.
On Friday, the highway between Kyiv and the town just outside the capital where Viktor Jushchenko has been spending the nights was blocked by a semi-trailor that was deliberately parked crossing the highway.
In the state parliament in Donetsk, deputies discussed declaring Donetsk an autonomous republic.
In Dnipropetrovsk on Friday were reports of a tense standoff between pro-Janukovych and pro-Jushchenko supporters.
In a village outside of Kyiv, Jushchenko supporters blocked the passage of a train full of Janukovych supporters on its way to the capital. The media arrived and showed interesting scenes of tense confrontations between camps.
Nonetheless on Friday, a pro-Janukovyh rally started outside of Kyiv's Central Train Station. About 5-7,000 Janukovych supporters, mostly men and mostly miners from the Donbas (the states of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk), Janukovych’s heartland have gathered in front of the central train station in Kyiv (interesting to note that Janukovych has had to rely so heavily on people from Donbas, while Jushchenko is drawing huge masses of supporters from all over Ukraine). Janukovych addressed the crowd, and in his usually crude manner, called Jushchenko a trypach (one who says a lot, does a little, but in a term that I have been told is rather crude-sounding) who was trying to fool “my people,” Janukovych said, and who was fomenting disorder for the sake of his own power. He also called Jushchenko some other nasty names.
Also, Viktor Janukovych has been caught saying while he thought cameras were off that as President, he’d deport on foot all western Ukrainians to Siberia.
Reports on Friday of provocations: at the standoff in front of buildings of the presidential administration there apparently were men shouting to demonstrators, “Hey guys, come on, forget all this—we’ve got lots of vodka, let’s go get drunk. . .” Sounds kind of funny, but this is real. Never underestimate east Slavic love for vodka. . .
Officials are suspected of burning incriminating documents—special police outside of presidential administration buildings seen carrying out boxes of documents and burning them.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine had previously declared that no one can declare a winner in the presidential election until it has made its own judgment on the fairness and legitimacy of the election. However, the government’s newspaper (i.e., the newspaper of the presidential administration, The Government Courier) had intended to declare Janukovych winner, and had printed its papers for distribution. They were prevented from doing so by Jushchenko supporters who broke-in to their press and seized the papers.
An army officer in Ternopil made a declaration, “We took an oath to defend the
people, and that’s what we will do,” implying sympathy for the Orange Revolution.
Russian special police (Spets-nas) are suspected in Uzhhorod. There has been a tense standoff in front of state administration buildings, and one person there declared, “This is foreign occupation.”
There are reports of police using fire hoses on demonstrators in city of Sumy.
Reports of 100 police heading to L’viv on Friday to support and protect pro-Jushchenko demonstrators.
Friday, President Leonid Kuchma was visited by EU’s Javier Solana, Poland’s Kwasniewski, and the Lithuanian President (who’s name I forgot). Also, Lech Walesa is in Ukraine to be a mediator between the opposition (proJu forces) and the governmen (proJa forces)t.
Polish students wearing orange are demonstrating in solidarity with the Ukrainian movement. And I have seen plenty of Polish students at demonstrations already, especially in Lviv and Ternopil.
Janukovych’s campaign office claims to be telling its people to stay off the streets in general with the notion that they are legitimate and don’t need to resort to street tactics—most likely this is a propagandistic attempt to explain to pro-Janukovych supporters why Jushchenko has so many and Janukovych so few in the capital.
Also Friday, two members of the Central Electoral Commission announced that they rescind their signatures certifying results of the election. Rumors are spreading in grassroots information channels that the head of the CEC was slightly beaten and otherwise threatened that he must cooperate and declare the election for Janukovych.
Saturday: students from the Kyiv Music Conservatory spent the afternoon “entertaining” the special police guarding the buildings of the presidential administration with Ukrainian traditional and pop songs. Said one student, “We just wanted to raise their spirits.”
It was reported that on Saturday night, more people than ever had packed onto Independence Square.
Saturday night cadets of the police academy came to the Independence Square to announce their support for the Orange Revolution and the Ukrainian people despite threats that they would be expelled if they did so. The crowd of 200,000 or more responded by chanting “Molodtsi! Molodtsi!” a difficult to translate phrase; its kind of like saying to someone “At-a-Boy!” or “Job Well Done!” Ukrainians and Russians say it all the time as a compliment (Molodtsi is plural, Molodets is the singular).
Following the students, a police captain also made a similar declaration, and the crown chanted “Molodets! Molodets!”
And then the pinnacle of police anti-government protests occurred on Sunday night. The Major-General of all of Ukraine’s police forces appeared on Independence Square and declared that “the police are with the people,” and expressed his joy that finally, “the time has come that we can say ‘No’ to this regime.” He also announced the establishment of a hotline to which people could call-in any suspicious activity by authorities, especially as regarding possible provocations. And he ended by starting up a chant, “Militsija za Narodu (Police are for the People)!” which was picked up by the crowd that had boisterously been applauding his announcement.
A New Propaganda Campaign: on Inter, one of Ukraine’s nationwide TV channels, they are showing screens with the slogans “We Have Understood One Another,” “We are All Fellow Citizens,” etc., all written in orange and blue-and-white letters (the colors of Jushchenko and Janukovych respectively) while showing, interspersed, photos of Jushchenko and Janukovych, and pro-Jushchenko and pro-Janukovych rallies. Also, in its reporting of the daily news, Inter has been portraying the ongoing pro-Janukovych rally outside the train station in Kyiv as though it were the same in seize as the pro-Jushchenko rally on Independence Square through mostly close-up camera shots that make the rally of 5,000 look the equal of a rally of 150,000 and more.
Here’s a run-down of the all-Ukrainian channels (channels broadcast throughout Ukraine; for each major town has its own channels as well):
1) 1+1 = State television
2) Pershyj Natsionalnyj (First National) = State TV, but completely under influence of an oligarch
3) Inter = which is owned, most people say, by Viktor Medvedchuk, an oligarch and politician, head of the presidential administration
4) ICTV = Viktor Pinchuk, oligarch and also, son-in-law of President Kuchma
5) Novyj Kannel (New Channel) = neutral?
6) STB (not sure what the letters stand for) = oligarchic channel
And then there is the opposition Channel 5 which is broadcast in a few regions of Western Ukraine and which is otherwise available only via satellite. Just as in the US, independent, opposition channels have the problem of money and of the oligarchy’s stranglehold on licensing and broadcasting at the national level. Since the start of the Orange Revolution, the local Ternopil Channel 4 has been transmitting Channel 5’s coverage of events, and we can get Channel 4 in Pidhajtsi.
One of Channel 5’s main anchorman likes to sign off with the phrase, “Kokhajtysja! (Love each other!)” which is a much more sincere statement, when contrasted with Inter’s “We understand each other.” The three main anchormen on Channel 5 are refugees from State TV 1+1, and one can tell they are thrilled to be speaking the truth, such as, “No matter—the word travels faster than the image.”
Viktor Jushchenko, while addressing the crowd of supporters Friday night to inform them of the start of dialogue with authorities, said that Viktor Janukovych had proposed that he would remove “his people from Kyiv,” if Jushchenko promised to remove his, to which Jushchenko said he replied, “Viktor Fedorovych, you only have 5,000 people here.” (Janukovych’s full name is Viktor Fedorovych Janukovych, while he is Viktor Andrijevych Jushchenko).
Natalija Vitrenko, leader of the so-called Progressive Socialist Part of Ukraine that is closely allied with the Communist Party has made an interesting comment. When asked, “To your mind, how will the problem of unemployment in [western] Ukraine be solved?” she answered, “By dressing people, putting shoes on them, feeding them, and off to Chechnya with them.”
Is the State TV Channel 1+1 turning against the government? Watching Ternopil Channel 4, which has been transmitting on its channel coverage of events in Ukraine from the opposition Channel 5, I saw on Friday evening a speaker addressing the crowd of 150,000 or more on the central Independence Square in Kyiv, who claimed that journalists and directors at the state television channel promised to report only the truth from now on. If so, in light of the new disinformation campaign of the channel Inter outlined above, this would be a highly significant moment. Channel 1+1, like the other oligarch owned channels, is an all-Ukrainian channel, reaching nearly every household. During the anti-Soviet rebellion of the Baltic Republics in 1991, bloodshed broke out in Vilnius when the anti-Soviet opposition seized control of the State media and Soviet paraptroopers attacked, killing 14. A crucial turning point in the revolution that led to the collapse of the Slobodan Milosevic regime in the rump-Yugoslavia came when state television went off the air to return to airwaves with anti-Milosevic messages. And a similar moment was crucial in the Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia last year. Will the state Channel 1+1 turn against Kuchma, Janukovych, the bandit government of oligarchs and join forces with the Orange Revolution?
Why November in Eastern Europe? The Berlin Wall fell in early November, the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia collapsed in November, Georgia’s Rose Revolution happened in November. . .does it have something to do with Scorpio energies afoot?
Julija Tymoshenko, addressing Sunday night the crowd on Kyiv’s Independence Square stated that rumors are that Janukovych has complained to Kuchma about the negotiations. Thus she said, “We need to stay on guard,” and said that if the authorities do not cooperate, the opposition needs to erect barricades, seize control of road and rails to and from capital, and raise hell!
On Saturday, in Moscow, fifteen people were seen walking around the Ukrainian Embassy, eating oranges and drinking Fanta.
And finally, Ukraine is suffering from a serious lack of orange material, and oranges are nowhere to be bought in the country today. Therefore, the EU—where a number of national parliaments have members displaying oranges on their desks and wearing orange in a display of solidarity with the Ukrainian movement—has begun organizing shipments of oranges and orange-colored items to Ukraine. A convoy suspected to be carrying such products has been seen crossing from Germany to Poland earlier today on its way to Ukraine, and already one semi-truck full of oranges and other orange items has been stopped at the border and harassed by border guards eager to obtain orange materials for themselves and their family.
OK, I’m just kidding, most of this isn’t true, all except for the display of solidarity in Germany’s parliament, and the fact that there reall is, not surprisingly, a shortage now of orange shirts, sweaters, hats, scarves, even tape in Ukraine, while what remains is of course much overpriced. I should like to be wearing an orange scarf about, but you snooze you loose. But there are oranges still available in Ukraine: today pro-Jushchenko deputies arrived early to the parliament and placed oranges on the desks of pro-Janukovych deputies, many of whom threw their oranges at the pro-Jushchenko deputies as they arrived.
