publication Korrespondent, along with a host of other publications, to a blacklist of “media and organizations who distribute and defend or support Jewish racism, Judo-Nazism and Jewish organized crime in Ukraine.” The Kyiv Post, MAUP’s Web site explains, is owned by Jed Sunden, “an American Zionist who has persistently worked together with other Jewish media to corrupt public morals and Ukraine as a whole.”
MAUP, through its monthly magazine Personnel, regularly trumpets the dangers Zionism poses to global stability and to Ukraine. The last such meeting, held June 3, was called “Dialogue of Civilizations: Zionism as the Biggest Threat to Contemporary Civilization.” Attendees included, among others, white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke and Levko Lukyanenko, a Rada deputy and a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
In the past, President Yushchenko, along with Borys Tarasiuk, currently the foreign minister, and Viktor Pynzenyk, currently the finance minister, have served on MAUP’s board of trustees.
The government’s current implicit support for – and once explicit participation in – MAUP is more than simply unfortunate: it could impede Ukraine’s hopes for integration with the West. There, politicians associated with anti-Zionism and the outright racism that normally lurks behind it are rightly relegated to the political fringe. David Duke, who has visited MAUP more than once, is a good example of that fringe.
We can’t figure out why the government tolerates such people in its ranks at the expense of its own credibility, even to the point of denying facts. During the scandal concerning Justice Minister Roman Zvarych’s higher education, Yushchenko defended his minister, and even asked the press to lay off. “He [Zvarych] is a professional, an honest man,” Yushchenko said on May 13, despite evidence that Zvarych had lied on his resume. “Please leave him alone and let him do his job.” National Defense and Security Council Secretary Petro Poroshenko chimed in too, accusing the press of being part of a conspiracy. “All this talk about Zvarych’s education began after he started closing down tax fraud schemes. The people who launched the campaign [against Zvarych] are the same ones who opposed Yushchenko in 2001 and 2002,” he said on May 15. Even before this, in early March, the government wrote an open letter in which the press was charged with “deliberate discrediting of the new authorities.” Tymoshenko, Zvarych and Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, to name a few, all signed the letter.
This, then, is what we have: a government that refuses to disassociate itself from an organization that considers David Duke an authority on international politics, but that doesn’t hesitate to lash out at the press – an important part of a functioning democracy – for doing its job.
Perhaps Yushchenko, Zvarych and company really believe that the press is part of some anti-Ukraine, Zionist conspiracy. Maybe they really think the media are out to get them, and that’s why they maintain connections to MAUP – they’re part of an alliance against the “Zionist” press.
Please. If Ukraine wants itself to be taken seriously as a democracy, or even as a state, its leaders need to sack the liars, charlatans and anti-Semites still holding office. Maybe then the press will have less reason to hound them.
