If you’re a Western diplomat working in Ukraine, be warned.
Critical statements about Ukraine, even delivered in an official capacity, can result in personal retaliation from the Foreign Ministry.
Such sharp reactions have been all too common recently, particularly against foreigners who dared to criticize the Oct. 28 parliamentary elections.
When top international observer Audrey Glover said after the election that “democratic progress appears to have reversed in Ukraine” and Walburga Habsburg Douglas, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe parliamentary delegation head, chimed in with “one should not have to visit a prison to hear from leading political figures,” the ministry shot back with its own statement on Nov. 1.
The Foreign Ministry alleged that the officials were letting their personal feelings affect their professional judgment.
“Taking into account the statements of other observers, it becomes clear that the statements by Douglas and Glover are their personal thoughts – groundless and emotional, and not the result of observations of all members of the delegation,” the ministry said. “We don’t understand why they refer to the visit to (imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia) Tymoshenko in a (statement on the) democracy of the elections,” said Oleh Voloshyn, the ministry’s director of information policy.
Glover, the head of the election observation mission of the OSCE’s election watchdog Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, told the Kyiv Post that the mission fully supports her statements.
“Just see the preliminary statement,” she suggested, adding that her personal feelings about accusations of the ministry “don’t matter.”
Oleksandr Sushko, research director at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, said that the ministry’s statement is nothing more than a “manipulation.”
“It’s clear the written conclusion of the OSCE mission didn’t contradict the statements of the observers, which were only clarifying the written document,” he said.
Olga Shumylo-Tapiola, a visiting Carnegie Europe scholar in Brussels, said she could not even imagine a Western diplomat making such a statement about a highly reputable international organization.
She said Ukraine’s undiplomatic statements are more regrettable considering the nation will preside over the OSCE next year, the very organization whose officials are being attacked.
“I don’t think it helps the image of Ukraine, which is already bad enough in the West,” Shumylo-Tapiola added.
Sushko says these outrageous comments by Ukraine’s officials come as a result of pressure. “I don’t think it’s an improvisation of the foreign ministry or its individual officials,” he said.
The ministry has in the past made numerous statements that raised eyebrows or caused indignation in the West. On Oct. 31, it slammed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who backed the OSCE criticism, saying that the “election constituted a step backward for Ukrainian democracy.”
“We are sorry that U.S. Secretary Clinton tries to connect the political disagreements she has with Ukrainian authorities regarding ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s case and assessments of elections in Ukraine,” the ministry shot back in a statement, edifying that it was “fundamentally wrong” that Clinton didn’t mention any positive dynamics of cooperation between the two states.
When the U.S. Senate approved a Sept. 22 resolution on Ukraine, calling on the release of political prisoners and the introduction of sanctions against those responsible, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry questioned the procedure for approval of this legal act, causing much indignation on Capitol Hill.
Former European Union Ambassador to Ukraine Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira also got a fair share of criticism and even insults from the ministry. He gave several interviews right before leaving his office in mid-summer, criticizing President Viktor Yanukovych for reverting to “vertical power” in Ukraine.
The ministry replied that since Teixeira was serving his last days in office, his views on the political situation should not be taken into account.
“By and large, at the moment Mr. Teixeira is no longer the ambassador of the European Union in Ukraine, so his thoughts rather should excite the Republic of Cape Verde (the diplomat’s next posting) than citizens and authorities in Ukraine,” the ministry’s Voloshyn then said.
The ministry also had a public spat with former French Ambassador Jacques Faure, who sharply criticized the authorities for jailing Tymoshenko.
In September 2011, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry made a false statement that France called off their ambassador because of those statements.
“I’m sorry that this kind of false and misleading information has been made up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and spread in the media,” Faure then said.
Sushko claims Ukraine’s diplomats are starting to resemble their Russian counterparts, “who always use rather brutal language in cases when somebody accuses Russia of violation of human rights.”
But Voloshyn, the ministry’s spokesman, rejected this criticism.
“The reaction of Russian authorities to the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was the following: the resolution is biased and so we are not going to take it into account. Our position is different,” he said. “And unlike the Russian MFA, we don’t judge elections in the U.S.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected].
