Over the course of three months, the protests grew into a popular uprising that led to the oustter of President Viktor Yanukovych. The movement demanded a better life and a government free of corruption and oligarchs that have impoverished the Ukrainian people.
Yanukovych’s administration reacted harshly. According to prosecutors, they hunted down activists, distributed firearms to hired thugs, trampled on civil liberties and violated countless constitutional laws in vain attempts to crush the Maidan tent city. Events came to a bloody climax on Feb. 20, after nearly 100 civilians were killed by law enforcers, mostly by sniper fire. The victims are called the Heavenly Hundred. Prosecutors’ official version of events states that only 77 civilians and 13 police officers were killed.
Nobody has been convicted for the massacres. According to a series of press briefings by prosecutor Serhiy Horbatiuk, no one has been convicted of any of the 2,000 crimes committed from November 2013 to February 2014. “More than 270 suspects have been held criminally responsible,” Horbatiuk said vaguely.
We understand that the authorities have had a tough time investigating the Maidan crimes. Key evidence, such as the firearms used, has never been recovered, and official documents were destroyed. Many of the riot police who allegedly killed protesters, especially the ones who gave orders, have fled to Russian-occupied Crimea, Donbas or abroad. Others refuse to cooperate. Some investigators are surely sabotaging the process, while judges who sanctioned illegal arrests are still working.
Clearly, the investigations are a colossal failure.
President Petro Poroshenko, through his appointment of two incompetent or corrupt prosecutors general – Vitaly Yarema and Viktor Shokin – has shown he isn’t interested in serving justice. He hasn’t learned the lessons of his tainted predecessors, that by not confronting its past, including solving high-profile crimes, the country cannot make progress.
By ignoring murder, graft and nepotism, Poroshenko is firmly on the path to leaving a legacy similar to his predecessor. This is tragically disappointing, more so because the president seems to be oblivious to how badly his popularity is sinking at home and abroad.
