From Feb. 1-4, a delegation calling itself the “Rapid Reaction Group” visited Washington, D.C. Wetraveled at our own expense.
Thepacked schedule includedclosed sessions with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,Ambassador-at-Large Melanne Verveer (and others at the Department of State), Vice President Joe Biden’s Eastern European advisor, several individual congressional offices and senior foreign policy advisers at the Atlantic Council. We also had public sessions: one in Congress in cooperation with the U.S.Helsinki Commission, atthe National Endowment for Democracy and at the National Press Club.
Summarized briefly, our delegation’skey points followed two basic themes and presented one request:
The first theme was that President Viktor Yanukovych’s government is cracking down on basic freedoms and methodically developing a repressive state model in the image of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which clearly contradicts the president’s stated aim of European integration and his representations to Western officials and journalists.
The delegation described the Yanukovych regime’s aggressive and selective use of its prosecutorial powers to pursue a self-serving and malicious political agenda, and how Ukraine’s judiciary is completely compromised with its judges being beholden to the president.
The absurd case against Former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko (jailed since December on charges of misspending small amounts of state money involving his driver) was specifically highlighted. The delegation described it as an egregious example of why the West must watch what the Yanukovych government is doing and not what it says.
Likewise, the delegation gave examples illustrating that freedoms of press, religion, and assembly also are being threatened behind disingenuous government denials and presidential statements to the contrary. Indeed, it is the style of the Party of Regions to use language that resonates with the West – and then to act in an opposite manner.
The delegation’s second theme concerned Ukraine’s civil society.
We pointed out that the strength and purpose of Ukraine’s civil society did not vanish as a result of the complete failure of the “Orange” governance team of ex-President Victor Yushchenko and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
While we could not point to mass demonstrations like that on the Maidan in 2004, when protesters overturned an election rigged for Yanukovych that year, we provided many examples ofmini-Maidans taking place throughout Ukraine. These demonstrations focus onspecific issues. We explained that the resulting gains show the continuing vitality of Ukraine’s civil society.
Many in Washington did know about the tax code protests in cities throughout Ukraine and that Yanukovych had been forced to compromise. But the Washington audiences took note of the delegation’s reports on the other widespread civil society campaigns relating to a new law on access to government records, the defeat ofan effort to make Russian the second official language of Ukraine and adraft law to limit public assembly.
The request of the delegation was that a Western dialogue with and about Ukraine’s civil society is at least as important as the often-delayed U.S.-Ukraine bilateral talks and needs to be comprehensive and sustained.
Unexpectedly, the delegation received “support” for its messages from the Yanukoyvch government itself. All of those with whom the delegation met foundquite extraordinary what the Party of Regions did in the Verkhovna Rada on the day the delegation flew to the United States. It was as if the president’s party actually wanted to help confirm the truth of the delegation’s claim about rampant corruption in Kyiv.
The story has already been widely reported that, despite the fact that I actually had my parliamentary voting card withme on the trip, my vote was recorded as supportinglegislation for postponing the next parliamentary elections.
What the Regions Party did was a significant step beyond the already open, notorious and flagrantly unconstitutional practice in the Rada of deputies leaving their voting cards with their faction whips or colleagues to cast a vote for them in their absence.
The ruling bloc somehow voted for me even though, to repeat,I hadmy voting card with me inthe United States! I displayed thiscard to audiencesat everymeeting. The case was made – by the criminal behavior of the Regions Party – that although Ukraine’s government might not be transparent, its systemic corruption is clear to everyone.
By their own action, the Party of Regions provided evidence against itself and in support of thegroup’s warnings to Washington that the Yanukovych government and its supporters in the Rada cannot be trusted.
Volodymyr Ariev is a people’s deputy in the Verkhovna Rada, part of the Our Ukraine People’s Self-Defense minority faction.
Other members of the Washington delegation from Ukraine included:
– Oleh Rybachuk, chairman and co-founder of the non-governmental organization ‘Centre UA’;
– Oles Doniy, a member of the Ukrainian parliament with the Our Ukraine faction;
– Andriy Shevchenko, a member of Ukrainian parliament with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko;
– Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Institute of World Policy;
– Olena Gromnytska, vice president of Glavred-Meida and chief editor of the magazine Profil;
– Mykola Kniazhytsky, journalist with TVi station;
– Kateryna Levchenko, president of the International Women’s Rights Center ‘La Strada-Ukraine’;
– Vitaly Portnikov,editor-in-chief of TVi since May;
– Svitlana Zalishchuk,co-founder of the non-governmental organization ‘Centre UA’.
