ORANGE DYKUN

Greetings Friends,

I am gonna write this fast, as I don't have much time, and so I apologize in advance for the typos and mispellings that will go along with this email. . .

I am in L'viv right now. The Ukrainian elections are this weekend, this Sunday, and things are not looking good here. Violence has already erupted twice this past week:

1) Following an opposition rally for Viktor Jushchenko in Kyiv (that had about 100,000 or so in attendance), about 100 to 150 or so shaveheads attacked rally-goers; 7 or so were hospitalized with severe injuries. Shaveheads, btw, are different from skinheads; they are people who, many have told me, are hired thugs that usually hired or bribed with money and booze. . .

2) When the opposition candidate, Viktor Jushchenko and his supporters tried to enter a meeting of the electoral commission (which I think was discussing whether to give Ukrainians living in Russia the right to vote), police barred Jushchenko's entrance to the meeting. (If I got it right, I think the Jushchenko team had wanted to, at the meeting, press the issue of why these Ukrainians living abroad in Russia, who are likely "to vote" for the presidential adminstration's candidate, are being discussed, while the difficulties faced thus far by Ukrainians living abroad in WESTERN countries, who will most likely vote for the opposition, is not on the agenda?) Violence erupted between Jushchenko supporters and the police (and of course, state television portrayed Jushchenko supporters as hooligans).

State media portrayed the aforementioned opposition rally of 100,000 or so as a small affair, with few in attendance; the only independent news station in Ukraine showed detailed coverage, but over the years this channel has had its operating license chipped away so that it now only broadcasts to 30% of the country, reaching mostly those who already have few illusions. . .

Also, yesterday was (conveniently) the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Kyiv from the Germans; so, the President used it as an opportunity to call into Kyiv huge numbers of soldiers for the event. But you see the election is this Sunday, and the soldiers will be garrisoned in and around Kyiv on the pretext of protecting the city from terrorism by opposition groups, etc., on Sunday (you see, a number of opposition groups have supposedly been planning terrorist attacks. . .this according to one report that bombs were found in the offices of one student group, Pora!, which claims, btw, has made its own public declaration that they are victim of police infiltration and that the police planted the bombs and money allegedly discovered).

The Kuchma-Janukovych regime would like to try and prevent anything like what happened last year in he Republic of Georgia from happening here in Ukraine (you see, the incumbent Eduard Shevardnadze falsified the election results, and when he was proclaimed president again, the streets of Tbilisi filled with protestors who eventually caused him to step down and basically admit that he had stolen the election. . .). The soldiers are probably meant to keep people off the streets if Janukovych steals the election this Sunday.

And indications are that the government is doing all it can to prevent people from even making it to the capital city. Supposedly, on the day of the aforementioned opposition rally, trains coming to the capital from western Ukraine were basically empty, while people in western Ukraine were being told that tickets were sold out. I am in Lviv right now, as I wanted to go to the capital this weekend, too, but have been told that there are no tickets. I have no idea if I am being lied to or not, but I will do my part from here in L'viv to march and demonstrate for free elections. Also, supposedly buses to the rally were being stopped outside of Kyiv, people taken off, their documents looked at, etc. . . . Stalling and harassment tactics. Etc.

I have attached here a letter written by Oksana Zabuzhko, one of contemporary Ukraine's best known literary writers and essayists. It is quite over the top (she equates Janukovych with Hitler, or equates last week's violence with the Knight of the Long Knives, which is nothing but hyperbole), but the substance of the matter is still there and quite true. . .

And then some jokes for you.

Last month, Viktor Janukovych the SQ candidate who wants to turn Ukraine into Russia was campaigning in the town of Ivano-Frankivsk when a protestor threw an egg that hit him square in the chest. Janukovych is a rather big fellow (quite tall and fat, but looks like he might have had some muscle in his youth), and this big fellow was so injured or disturbed by the egg that he fell over backward with his hand to his forehead like he was fainting. Well, this incident has provided some substance for an entire economy of fantastic jokes and mockery. The following are jokes from a popular talk show broadcast on a popular Ternopil radio station:

The Ukrainian government anounced today that given the unusual strength of eggs grown in Ukraine, the American government has asked for the immediate start of shipments of Ukrainian egges to help with the war effort in Iraq.

The Pakistani government, having discovered that India is now arming itself with Ukrainian eggs, has sent specialists to research our chicken-farming methods; the Ukrainian government has anounced its willingness to cooperate with Pakistan in its effort to build its own poultry-weapons program.

The government initially said that Yanukovych had been hit in the chest by "a dull, heavy object;" hence the next joke:

Why didn't they find a dull, heavy object at the place of the crime?

Because he was carried away by bodyguards.

Then a joke told by Julija Tymoshenko last month at a rally in Ternopil:

Janukovych was at the barber's; the barber asked him three times, whether it was true that he was imprisoned twice during Soviet times. Twice Janukovych answered, "No, it's not true." the third time he said, "Why do you keep asking me this question? I told you already twice that I'm innocent; it was a mistake of justice!"

"Well, I don't care, really" said the barber, "But every time that I ask you this question, your hair rises, and its easier for me to cut. . ."

So to my friends in Kyiv who have been expecting me there. . .I will keep trying to get tickets! Call me whenever you can!

Stefan

Subject: The tinderbox that is Ukraine

**********

Kiev, October 24 2004

Dear friends,

I'm writing you this from the country, now haunted with the gory prospect of being forcefully turned, in a week, into one of the most terrible thugocratic dictatorships that Europe has witnessed since Hitler and Stalin. You may find this an exaggeration, yet it's not. It's usually so human, to refuse to believe the worst - until it's too late. Besides, from my recent conversations with my friends and journalists from EU, I know how little information can be found in the European media on the situation in Ukraine - and, as a result, how little understanding there is of what is really at stake here this fall.

Last night the first blood was spilled on the Kiev pavement. The autocratic post-Soviet regime, which since the late 1990s has been smothering the budding Ukrainian democracy, and is by now wholeheartedly hated by the vast majority of population (from 67% to 85%, according to the polls!), has given us its final proof, that there'll be NO - however heavily falsified -
"free elections" on October, 31. There'll be a WAR - an open war, launched against the people of Ukraine by the handful of gangsters now at power, whose only goal is to stay at power after the 31st - at ANY price.

Until last night they've been using the "cold-war" methods (to skip the case of an attempted poisoning of the oppositional candidate, Victor Yushchenko, whose chances to win the elections in an honest game are undeniable). There's been a disgusting and overwhelming campaign of lies in the media (most of them, with very few exceptions, controlled by the power), there've been all the dirty, illegal tricks used (payments, threats, repressions etc.), as well as cheating with the voting lists (with, say, tens of thousands of the dead included on them, etc). Nothing of these, though, proved efficient enough to guarantee next Sunday the smooth and peaceful victory to the "candidate of the power" - the present-day Prime Minister
(appointed by the president), a former (?) criminal, back in his youth twice convicted for robbery (no kidding!).

Yesterday, the grand "orange" manifestation (orange being the colour of the oppositional candidate) of some 150000-200000 people filled the square in front of the Central Election Committee, under the slogan "For honest and transparent elections". It's been a warm, tranquil sunny day (do you know how beautiful is Kiev in the fall?), and the 3-million city was all celebration - of joy, and hope, and solidarity. It's been a long time since I've seen so many happy, smiling faces in the streets - in fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet then, in 1991, as the past 13 years have proved, our celebration was definitely premature. With no change of the political elite, with just very small burgeons of civil society, with -well, why don't I put it plainly - no REAL revolution, Ukraine, after a while, started sliding back into the dark shadow of Sovietization. It's only now, that the dragon of Soviet totalitarianism - in the meantime considerably shrunken, losing one part of his body after another (Eastern Europe - the Baltics - then, last fall, Georgia...), all rotten up to the marrow of his bones (its true - criminal - skeleton now fully exposed!) -
is REALLY agonizing. And the convulsions of the dragon could be terrible -
isn't the case of Russia conspicuous enough?

Vladimir Putin, who has so quickly turned his country back into a concentration camp, fully browbeaten with the fear of terrorism, now serves as the major support for the Ukrainian thugs. Small wonder, as criminals and the KGB officers used to belong together since good old Gulag times. The whole presidential campaign of our "candidate of the power", Victor Yanukovich, is a brainchild of Moscow professionals. Politically and intellectually, Kiev now more and more looks like the city under Russian occupation.And what exactly have they plotted to ensure "the succession of power" in Ukraine, has become visible last night.

About 23.00, after the singing "orange" crowd in front of the Central Election Committee dispersed, and only some 150 people - among them women, and senior citizens - stayed to wait for the results of the session
(which was held inside) to be announced (on the agenda was an attempt to falsify some 2 million voices, due to the machinations with the voting lists!) -
the dragon has bared his teeth for the first time. Some 50 black-leathered men appeared out of the darkness, and attacked people, who were waiting on the park benches, with clubs and knives. There was no police around (!), but three of the attackers - when the parlamentarians and the bodyguards ran out of the building - were caught and handicuffed. According to their IDs, they all appeared to be disguised policemen - of the specially trained "killers'
detachments".

Yes, there've been rumours circulating before - of some "special detachments" arriving from all over the country and concentrating around the city. Of some strange, and highly suspicious manoeuvres noted by the city-dwellers in some areas. Now, next morning after the "night of the long knives" (as a result of which, 11 peaceful demonstrators were taken to the hospital, some of them seriously wounded), there's no doubt left: the war has been announced. The gangsters at power aren't going to leave in any case. They are going to fight - most probably, after the voting-booths will be closed.

Could any, however "specially trained", groups of murderers REALLY work against hundreds of thousands of people? (For people ARE going to go into the streets on the election night, and Ukrainian internet is now boiling with the discussions on how and where to meet, how to protect oneself against the attacks, etc.). Well, maybe they couldn't. And Ukrainian army will hardly agree to turn its guns against its own people, either. But on October, 28 - three days before the elections - there'll be a military parade (!) in Kiev (nothing like this was ever held before on this date!). And Russian president Vladimir Putin is coming to Kiev - allegedly, to take part in the parade (?). And to stay in Kiev for 5 (?) days more. Again, there're rumours - oh, these rumours! - that he'll be bodygarded by some bayonets. More precisely - with two divisions being particularly famous of their operations in the Caucases...

Maybe Ukraine has only one week left. One last week of the electrifying autumn of free political discussions in the cafes and clubs, of gatherings, manifestations, and - well, of hope. For, despite everything, there's an extremely strong, and growing hope, I even daresay, an upsurging belief, that the Ukrainian part of the dragon will be killed next Sunday with the free will of the people. Today the anchorman on the last Ukrainian free TV channel yet unclosed (Channel 5) was smiling the same way people were yesterday in the streets. (For quite a while persecuted, now sued, Channel 5 is under the threat of being closed tomorrow night - but the anchorman was smiling like a winner.) Now covering no more than 30% of the country's territory, Channel 5 was the only one which gave a full report on the events of the last night. Characteristically, none of the beaten witnesses sounded "victimized" - they all talked indignantly, but righteously: that is, like people aware of their rights, and ready to protect them.

It's a totally irrational, yet overwhelming feeling: that "we", the people, are stronger than "them", the corrupted power. And that it's "them", not "us", who is scared.

On the night of the elections I'll be in the streets, too. I don't know what is going to happen there. That is, what forces will be turned against us, and what will be the final result. Yet, even if the worst happens, and the Putin's bayonets help to turn my country, for God-knows-how-long, into a criminal-presided reservation of the degraded Stalinist type, we'll be in the streets - if only to be able to say, that THIS IS NOT OUR CHOICE.

Knowing how easily (and, more than once, eagerly!) does Western press buy the "made-in-Russia" political myths on the current Ukrainian situation
(on Ukraine being allegedly "split" into East and West, "pro-Russian" and "pro-Western", Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking parts, each of them allegedly delegating its own candidate for the presidency), I just wanted to let you know how the things look and feel here in the reality. By spreading the truth further, you'll make your own contribution into killing the dragon. For, as we all know from this old guy Orwell (WHO on earth has ever been so careless to have claimed him outdated?) - what the dragon needs most badly for its survival, is precisely the fake, artificially constructed mental picture. And - needless to say that - the agony of the dragon should by no means be lightheartedly taken as a local process only...

It's not a farewell letter - it's a letter of hope.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us this week!

With warmest regards,

Oksana Zabuzhko