Fast forward to Aug. 5 and catch the published interpretation of that week’s event: “The arrest of Tymoshenko changes everything.” Everything?
Has the people’s patience snapped following her arrest? Beyond the most pernicious aspect of this crime — it is a crime against the Ukrainian people — what else has changed, besides some perceptions among a few remaining diehards?
Meanwhile it is worthwhile, if not imperative, to stress what has not changed. For starters, the coterie surrounding President Viktor Yanukovych has not changed, nor has he. Make no mistake, it is not just the persona of the president who is authorizing the feldzug (campaign) against democratic Ukraine, nay, against the Ukrainian content of the country.
People with flame of a reactionary mission are running the show. No one should be exhilarated by the token gestures from the West suggesting that Yanukovych is becoming “increasingly internationally isolated” with the arrest of Tymoshenko. Even if there were a degree of substance in such a notion, it would not deter the ruling caste, apparently having calculated a low probability of consequences harmful to itself. Clearly, they see Tymoshenko’s oratory as the larger menace. This tradeoff, from their vintage, is not as silly as it may appear to some Westerners.
The pro-presidential Party of Regions’ agenda is to tighten the noose around the remaining opposition. Sanctions from the European Union? Who is kidding whom? From the USA? That country is in the midst of its own tremors.
”Tymoshenko is a side issue in EU’s Ukrainian policy,” wrote Amanda Paul of the European Policy Center in Brussels, in a letter in the Financial Times on July 21. Two weeks before Tymoshenko’s arrest, was it not interpreted as a carte blanche for Yanukovych?
Other things haven’t changed. Where is the democratic leadership? Oh, yes, there is a new committee, formed from a slew of parties. The list is similar to the same fantasy island we have seen a year ago, that called itself a coordinating committee.
An almost unique figure in Ukraine’s landscape in the last 10 years, Tymoshenko, the one true revolutionary, came out of ex-President Leonid Kuchma’s jail to inspire the crowds at Maidan in 2004 [during the Orange Revolution that overturned a presidential election rigged for Yanukovych]. She is different from others. That’s what makes her insufferable to the authoritarian regime.
At this moment, no one is rushing to the barricades other than Tymoshenko party associates, older women coming to demonstrate at the courthouse, and a small tent camp on the grass. But this is also the time to think how not to repeat the mistakes of a revolution’s aftermath. Wouldn’t this be a better world if the bandits were in jail right after freedom was restored in 2005?
At this moment, no one is rushing to the barricades other than Tymoshenko party associates, older women coming to demonstrate at the courthouse, and a small tent camp on the grass. But this is also the time to think how not to repeat the mistakes of a revolution’s aftermath. Wouldn’t this be a better world if the bandits were in jail right after freedom was restored in 2005?
Recall the vituperations and the energy of criticism from national democratic compatriots, directed at Prime Minister Tymoshenko in 2008 – 2009 over minor matters. Her transgressions were trivial in comparison with what was to transpire after the 2010 election and which was entirely predictable if Yanukovych took the reins. This goes to certify the immaturity and political simplicity of the leading lights, let alone the masses. This too must change. Should I also mention the amazing antics of diaspora’s nervous Nellies?
Recently a suggestion was made in Kyiv that heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko lead the fight against dictatorship on behalf of Tymoshenko. A decent man, he made it known he is on the way from Austria for her defense. The ingenuity of the suggestion could be debated, but no public reaction was noticed.
What kind of reaction would signify something? Let think tanks figure it. At this point in time, a letter comes to mind written by Boris Berezovsky, a wealthy Russian refugee in London, who in 2004 had sided with the Orange Revolution in a more-than-casual way, and apparently had placed his trust and hope in the Ukrainians’ spirit of freedom. He was to be disappointed.
His letter was published in Ukrainska Pravda and in the Kyiv Post on Feb. 21, 2010. Berezovsky was shocked by Yanukovych’s win, and he blasted specifically those Ukrainians who voted for Yanukovych: “I cannot figure it out how many mega-liters of slave blood are flowing in the veins of each one of you, to be able to believe in this douche bag in the age of the Internet. But do remember in your mind-boiling dive that, while your chief Cossack is a crime boss, you will be living on the margins, not in Ukraine.”
It should be fairly obvious that the rules of normal political engagement between the ruling party and the opposition no longer apply in Ukraine. It would not be surprising if the resistance comes up with a revised and more convincing methodology. The ruling clique has already resorted to repression and burned the bridges. It is de facto provoking a response in kind, consciously or not.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
