Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

The Tymoshenko faction legislator who hangs out at anti-Semitic academic conferences with David Duke should be disciplined by the prime minister

nt that occurred here in Kyiv on June 3.

That was the day on which David Duke, the former head of the Ku Klux Klan and a racist demagogue back in the U.S., showed up here to attend a pseudo-academic conference at the capital’s Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. The theme of the conference was “Dialogue of Civilizations: Zionism as the Biggest Threat to Contemporary Civilization.”

How charming. Reports indicate that the conference included calls for the deportation of Ukraine’s Jews. Official representatives of Middle East countries hostile to Israel were reportedly present at the event. So was Levko Lukyanenko, a Rada deputy from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

It’s sad enough that Palestinian and Syrian representatives should, in their peoples’ troubles, resort to consorting with the likes of Duke, who’s a pariah back in the States – one of the most repellent semi-celebrities extremist politics have lately vomited up. It’s even sadder and weirder that Lukyanenko should consort with him, or that a deputy in the Rada of the “new” Ukraine should feel comfortable at such a disgusting “conference” in the first place.

We call on Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to eject Lukyanenko from her Bloc immediately. There should be no room in her ranks for anyone who feels comfortable mucking about with Duke in an anti-Semitic cesspool like this event was.

To be honest, it’s hard to tell how persistent an ally of Tymoshenko or President Viktor Yushchenko has to be in his misbehavior before his leaders decide it’s worth disciplining him. Ukraine’s new leaders are, by our standards, a little too easygoing when it comes to punishing the nonsense perpetrated by their underlings.

A case in point is the controversy that still attends Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, whom Yushchenko refused to dismiss when it became apparent that Zvarych had not been entirely forthcoming about his resume. With his passivity during the Zvarych scandal, Yushchenko lost a chance to exercise leadership and indicate that the days of lying, fraudulent, cynical government are over in Ukraine.

Now it’s Tymoshenko’s turn to exercise leadership. There is no ambiguity on this matter: Lukyanenko willingly participated in a disgusting orgy of racism and hatred. In any other responsible country, he would already be a pariah. If Tymoshenko does not eject him from the Tymoshenko Bloc, observers will be free to draw their own conclusions about how far Ukraine really has come, and how different its new leaders are from the last pack. A country in which a politician is allowed to move with impunity from discussing Jewish evil with a fringe-right lunatic to taking his place at the table with the prime minister is one that doesn’t deserve to “join the West,” and never will. It’s a country that deserves derision.

For once, let’s have some disciplinary action from official Ukraine. Come on, Ms. Tymoshenko. Boot Lukyanenko out of your faction.