The forms of the protest need to be changed. Our protest must be persistent
and focused. It will be persistent due to highly frequent and massive
participation and it will be focused if protest activities are concentrated on
the pressure points of the existing regime.
The power of President Viktor Yanukovych is based
on the following three pillars:
·
the regime gets money from corruption and loyal businesses;
·
it is able to tightly control law enforcement agencies; and
·
it is backed by some voters in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
We have to address these three primary issues.
Part 1: Money
Goal: Disrupt the financial stability of the regime.
Tasks include:
1. Stop the theft
First of all, it requires comprehensive control over budget expenditures.
Public procurement must be constantly inspected and verified. Requests for
purchase-related documents and, if necessary, complaints to the law-enforcement
agencies should become a large-scale phenomena. Participants and sponsors of
corruption schemes should feel public pressure.
2.
Block stolen assets
Yanukovych, his sons and their close allies (known as “the Family”) use
corrupt schemes to acquire huge billions of dollars of economic assets and then
legalize the assets through international financial institutions. Their cash is
transferred to European and American banks. International standards of
Financial Action Task Force constitute a legal framework for blocking such
financial assets. Thus, information about corruption schemes accumulated at
website http://yanukovich.info/ should be disseminated among European politicians, journalists and
the general public. International communities of Ukrainians should organize
pickets at the bank headquarters.
3.
Cut profits
The campaign is targeted at businesses, which are close to the existing
regime and participate in the execution of shady budget transactions. The list
of activities includes boycotts; protests at the headquarters and offices in
Ukraine and abroad; information campaigns to inflict reputational and financial
losses.
Part 2: Law enforcement agencies
Goal: Shake their loyalty to Yanukovych
Tasks:
1.
Fill the information
gap
Police officers should get to know unbiased information about work and
welfare standards of their colleagues in the European Uion. This campaign
should be spread all over Ukraine. The information has to be delivered to each
officer. Activists should cite the text of the officer’s oath near the police
offices and remind patrolling officers of their rights and duties.
2.
Personalize
responsibility
We need to identify all police officers who attacked peaceful protests,
conducted illegal arrests, organized attacks and violence, and framed cases.
Their neighbours, friends, and relatives should know about their involvement in
crime. The probability of becoming a social outcast must be an important
element of officers’ personal choice. The project “Don’t be brute” www.skoty.info and other similar initiatives will help us with this issue.
3.
Punish the guilty
The campaign should aim at punishing all of those who committed a crime. It
will be successful due to large-scale legal activities, public pressure, and
appeals to embassies of the EU countries and the US. The guilty will be put
to the lustration list.
Part 3: Eastern and southern Ukraine
Goal: Reduce the approval rate for Yanukovych
Tasks:
1.
Tell the truth
A large number of people in the Eastern and Southern Ukraine are badly
informed about the real situation in the country. They are not aware of the
scale of the theft and the corresponding role of “the Family”. They do not know
that, amid the deep economic crisis in the country, assets of the President’s
son rose several thousand percent. Campaign “Tell the truth” will disseminate
unbiased facts to the general public and ask people to share the information.
People from the East and the South need to understand that there are no
rational arguments to vote for Yanukovych again.
2. Create demand for changes
The changes are much more than to create disapproval of Yanukovych. People
should demand clear goals, transparent mechanisms to reach them, and
opportunities to join the change. Open universities, visits of Euromaidan
activists to other regions, communication with various community groups, and
support for viable initiatives will help do the work.
Democratic Alliance will carry on all the
described activities. If you share our goals and have your own ideas,
please let us know. We can do more together! We are looking for like-minded
persons!
Detailed plans for the campaigns will be created by the end of January. We
invite all interested people to the meetings – community leaders, opinion
leaders and activists – who will not only create the plan, but also execute it.
The events are open to the public. The discussion focus on Jan. 8 will be on money; on Jan. 9, law enforcement agencies; and on Jan. 10, eastern and southern Ukraine. The meetings will be held from 7p.m. to 9 p.m. For more information,
contact the Democratic Alliance via email at [email protected] or go to the FaceBook official page.
Vasyl Gatsko is the
executive director of Democratic Alliance, a political party formed in 2010
based on Christian democratic values. The party regards corruption as
the main enemy of Ukraine.
