You're reading: European visitors defend NATO air strikes

Two visits by high-ranking European officials in the space of a week demonstrated how tangled Ukraine's hopes of integrating with the European Union have become with the issue of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia.

The head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who came to Ukraine with the aim of nudging Ukraine toward observance of European human-rights standards, instead ended up in a confrontation with enraged leftist parliamentarians on April 8 over the Kosovo issue.

And a hurried April 13 visit by four top EU foreign-affairs officials, apparently to discuss Ukraine's role in a potential Kosovo peace deal, was also used to back up PACE's message on human rights and democratization.

Lord Russell-Johnston, who was elected PACE president in January, came to Ukraine to discuss with government officials the country's failure to fulfill promises it made when it joined the Council of Europe in 1995.

In January PACE voted to warn Ukraine that its CE membership would be suspended in June if the country does not make 'substantial progress' toward satisfying certain conditions, most of which involve democratic reforms. The CE is also concerned Ukraine will execute recently convicted mass-murderer Anatoly Onopriyenko despite its promise to abolish the death penalty.

Suspension from the CE would sound the death knell for Ukraine's bid for associate-member status with the European Union, which would involve an improved trade regime.

But NATO's ongoing air strikes in Yugoslavia overshadowed these issues and dominated the response of Ukrainian officials and journalists to Russell-Johnston's four-day visit.

At an April 9 news conference, Russell-Johnston said he was impressed by the 'lively and vigorous' behavior of government ministers and parliament deputies he had met with.

The most vigorous response he got was when most of the left-wing factions noisily walked out of parliament on April 8 after his defense of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia. Russell-Johnston blamed Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's aggression toward Kosovo for NATO's attacks.

Right-leaning deputies more politely thanked Russell-Johnston for his comments, calling them an encouragement for Ukraine to proceed with free-market reform and uphold European values and democratic principles, Interfax reported. Right-wing factions asked him to send Council of Europe election monitors to Ukraine to prevent abuse during the presidential race this fall.

Oleksandr Kupchishin, the council's representative in Ukraine, emphasized to the newspaper Den that Russell-Johnston's visit was not connected with the Kosovo crisis. At the press conference, Russell-Johnston tried to steer clear of Balkan questions and limit discussion to relations between Ukraine and the council.

'Very considerable progress has been made, and clear intent has been shown' toward fulfilling Council of Europe commitments, Russell-Johnston said.

He later clarified that 'considerable progress' was not the 'substantial progress' that the council has demanded if Ukraine is to retain its membership. He said he could make no guarantee that the CE Parliamentary Assembly would not vote to suspend Ukraine's membership in its June session.

Later, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who led the high-level EU delegation in Kyiv on the morning of April 13, said at a news conference at Boryspil airport that Ukraine must make progress on democratization if it wants to improve its status with the EU.

Fischer also said he hoped NATO would be able to persuade the Yugoslav side soon to accept a peace plan, but gave no hint of how Ukraine could be involved.

'It should be acceptable for all the sides, and we hope to reach a decision in the next several days,' he said without elaborating, according to The Associated Press.

The next day, in Bonn, Fischer's ministry released a concrete proposal: NATO would suspend bombing for 24 hours once Yugoslavia begins withdrawing troops from Kosovo and indefinitely suspend bombing when the pullout was completed, after which a heavily armed, U.N.-authorized military force wound enter Kosovo as peacekeepers.

Neither Fischer nor the text of the proposal said how Ukraine would be involved, but it seemed likely that Ukraine and Russia were being asked to sell the deal to Yugoslavia and provide troops for the U.N. force.

Ukraine unsuccessfully tried to mediate in the Kosovo conflict soon after NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia in order to persuade Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to let NATO forces into Kosovo and stop the continuing clashes between Serb troops and ethnic Albanians.

Ukraine's foreign minister, Borys Tarasyuk, who met with the three visiting ministers earlier on April 13, said the country was working on new peacemaking proposals.

'If the present efforts bring no positive result, Ukraine will be ready to continue its peacemaking mission,' Tarasyuk said.

The other members of the delegation were Finnish Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen, Austrian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and acting EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Hans van den Broek.

Kuchma's foreign-affairs adviser, Volodymyr Ohryzko, acknowledged after the visit that Ukraine's relations with the EU were not developing 'as rapidly as we'd like [them] to.'

However, he said Ukraine would not abandon its associate-membership bid and would again raise the question at the upcoming Ukraine-EU summit in July.

When it joined the Council of Europe four years ago, Ukraine promised to pass legislation on judicial and prison reform, human rights, and the abolition of capital punishment. It also promised to refrain from non-democratic practices, such as intimidating the press and manipulating elections.

A moratorium has been in place on executions since mid-1997, but courts continue to hand down death sentences. Recently Ukrainian officials have been calling for an exception to be made over convicted killer Anatoly Onopriyenko, who was sentenced to death for 52 murders carried out in 1989 and the mid-1990s.

Russell-Johnston indicated that the council would not make an exception even for Onopriyenko's 'terrifying' crimes, saying it was clear that capital punishment was not a deterrent.

'When Ukraine joined [the Council of Europe], it made an agreement to abolish capital punishment, and I think it is entirely reasonable to expect that agreement to be fulfilled,' Russell-Johnston said. 'We've made [the abolition of capital punishment] a symbol of the civilized application of justice – justice rather than revenge.'

Russell-Johnston said his visit, during which he met with several ministers and President Leonid Kuchma, was not long enough for him time to try to resolve the conflicts between the CE and Ukraine that are being investigated by the CE's rapporteurs. He said he would support Ukraine's imminent membership in the CE social development fund, a financial arm of the CE that gives loans to member states for social purposes.

The fund could provide financial aid for accommodation of Tatars in Crimea, Russell-Johnson said. He also said he would encourage other member nations to chip in to pay for replacing the crumbling sarcophagus around the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1987.