As both the year and the decade come to an end, nations and individuals naturally take stock of their progress, setbacks and their hopes for the future. For Ukraine, the high point of the decade clearly came during the 2004 Orange Revolution, when Ukrainians collectively found their voice and discovered their power to change the course of the nation’s history and to hold their leaders accountable.
This astounding achievement of unity and indomitable will was sullied by the betrayals and broken promises of political leaders. Regrettably, average Ukrainians have also not been able to band together again and influence their leaders as profoundly as during that glorious moment.
It takes a long view of history to see the good that has come during this decade. But, amid all the current and serious troubles, this nation arguably had its best decade in centuries. The nation is no longer divided territorially. Its people are no longer starving, no longer have to fend off attacks from foreign invaders and no longer serving Soviet or czarist masters. As badly as President Victor Yushchenko has performed, this is the first decade in which Ukraine can boast a string of elections that approach democratic standards. And, for at least the last half of the decade, this is the first time in which Ukrainians have not been stifled by an authoritarian government.
But this is not enough for a nation that can be so much more successful. Today, Ukraine is drifting along and in danger of getting swept away by dangerous currents. The nation remains unsure of itself and political freedoms are imperiled. More importantly, for most people, economic fairness and vitality remain elusive. This is also a nation of massive injustices and no person or institution to rectify them.
The decade started off with former President Leonid Kuchma beating a Communist Party candidate to win re-election and continue ruling as a despot, running the government and economy at his whim and at the whims of the favored oligarchs. The media, reflecting larger society, were fearful and servile.
But people who are given absolute power usually trip themselves up, sooner or later. The change for the better was born from terrible tragedy: The murder of outspoken journalist Georgiy Gongadze on Sept. 16, 2000. Allegations that high-level Kuchma officials ordered the murder were lent credibility by events that transpired: the conviction of three Interior Ministry police officers, the two-shots-to-the-head “suicide” of Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, the revelation – in November 2000 – of hundreds of hours of recordings of Kuchma. Considering the way the Kuchma regime operated, the events discussed on those tapes of former security guard Mykola Melnychenko were highly believable. It is a pity that the decade is ending without any convictions or exoneration for those implicated.
The “Ukraine without Kuchma” movement showed that civil society is alive and provided a segue into the 2002 parliamentary election and emergence of Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko and Oleksandr Moroz’s Socialist Party. All were forces of good at that time and paved the way for the Orange Revolution, which blocked attempts to steal the Nov. 21, 2004, presidential election by Moscow’s favored successor, Victor Yanukovych.
The power brokers were forced to back off and bow to the people’s wishes, but not entirely. They outmaneuvered a compliant Yushchenko and muddled the Constitution so badly that the nation still suffers from the ill-fated compromise that ended the peaceful street protests.
The country failed to translate its political successes into any meaningful progress in deregulation or diversification of the economy. The business environment remains hostile to investment. The public sector remains simultaneously bureaucratic and starved of necessary investments to improve infrastructure, energy efficiency and education. The country’s rich, made wealthy not by initiative but rather by grossly unfair acquisitions of Soviet assets – grew even richer. If they haven’t monopolized power and privatized the government to serve their selfish needs, they are perilously close to doing so.
A contender for quote of the year, if not decade, came from Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, the top European Union official in Ukraine, who offered a cogent analysis of Ukraine’s problems on Nov. 30: “Corruption, red tape, administrative obstacles of every kind. These are only things that serve the interests of those who today control the economy because they do not want competition. They are allergic to competition.”
And so that’s where Ukraine is at the end of the 21st century’s first decade, dogged by many of the same persistent problems. Anyone who attempts to introduce fairness, equity and justice into this nation will more than likely face powerful resistance from the entrenched interests that populate the list of the nation’s 50 richest citizens.
As tired and disillusioned as they are, Ukrainians have the strength, desire and resources to shape their own destiny in the new decade, one in which we hope that real changes for the better will finally take place for all 46 million citizens of this great nation.
