The most probable
explanation of what had triggered the violent clashes is Yanukovych’s
continuous dismissal of the protesters’ demands, rather modest initially, and his
brutal crackdown of the protest – from cruel dispersals of peaceful rallies, to
the passage of Stalinist laws, to the use of paid goons to attack protesters
and intimidate citizens with the clear connivance of the police. Furthermore, the
inability of the opposition troika – Arseniy Yatseniuk, Vitali Klitschko and
Oleh Tyahnybok – to feel public sentiment, to respond to the gravity of the
situation, and to appoint one leader responsible for coordinating the protest
and acting as a guarantor for expected defectors from the Yanukovych’s camp led
a crowd to leave the main square and move towards the parliament building where
clashes with riot police erupted along the way. The failure of the European
Union and the U.S. to introduce effective sanctions against Ukrainian officials
responsible for the violent dispersal of a mostly student rally on Nov. 30 and
the ineffectiveness of their condemnation and warnings has also added to
popular frustration.
However, to understand
the eruption of violence one must realize that the Ukrainian police have long
lost their legitimacy, and are passionately hated by many for their corruption
and brutality. It is well documented by human rights organizations and
international monitoring bodies that, on average, twenty to forty persons,
young and old, die in police stations every year in Ukraine. Further, illegal
use of force is commonplace. Police brutality and impunity from investigation
and prosecution have become routine. Outbreaks of public rage and protest
against the police are regular in Ukraine. Last
year the rape of a woman by two police officers led to a riot and the
ransacking of a police station by an angry crowd. The Ukrainian police are
notoriously ineffective at combating crime and surveys show that it is often unreported
due to lack of public confidence in the law-enforcement agencies and from fear
of becoming a victim of police misconduct. These conditions lead to people
joining the police so that they can exhort bribes rather than serve the public.
Many are prepared to torture citizens since a culture of abuse characterizes
the Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies. The police are hated and feared. The
law in Ukraine is a means of oppression, not a regulator of social relations.
The rule by law versus the rule of law means that the judicial system is the
least trusted public institution in Ukraine. Surveys by Transparency
International illustrate this year after year. This explains why the unrest in
Kyiv is not unrestrained, and Molotov cocktails have been targeting the police
cordons; there is practically no looting. Women, including the famous Kyiv
babushkas, have been seen filling bottles for Molotov cocktails and splitting
cobble stones to be thrown at the police. It is both men and women, young and
old, who pack sacks with snow and stones to reconstruct damaged
barricades. Whilst it is very probable
that the violence was started by impatient youth, it is clear that people, who
in normal life work in offices and run small businesses, recently found
themselves engaged in full-scale violence.
The violence continued
because Yanukovych’s response was to escalate the conflict. He is well aware
that images of policemen on fire and a violent mob throwing cobble stones lend
legitimacy to a crackdown on the protest. His prime minister continued to
incite popular rage by making slanderous and provocative statements. The police
illegally used water cannons in freezing temperatures, threw stones back at the
protesters, and stripped naked captured protesters, humiliated and beat them
up. The videos of such degrading treatment went viral on the Internet. The
police attacked a field hospital while volunteer doctors were performing
surgery on wounded protesters. The doctors were shot with rubber bullets and
equipment was destroyed and stolen, the Red Cross flag was removed by riot
police. Many journalists had to take off their bright ‘Press’ vests as it
appeared that police snipers were targeting their faces and cameras with their
bullets; already more than forty had to seek medical treatment.
Witnessing such
conduct by the police recalls numerous past incidents of police brutality and underlines
their impunity, which enrages many people, while some act in response. Images
of Nazi atrocities, including the stripping naked of captured people in
freezing temperatures are vivid in the Ukrainian public memory. Many people see
too many resemblances between the Nazi Gestapo and the modern Ukrainian police.
This, for some, justifies any methods of resistance to what they see as cruel
guards of the illegitimate, outrageously corrupt, and increasingly repressive
government. Following the killing of protesters and a government campaign of
intimidation, whereby protesters in different cities are beaten, kidnapped, and
tortured by the police and thugs for hire (titushki),
the wounded are kidnapped from hospitals, ordinary protesters en masse are
charged with the organization of mass disturbances (facing a fifteen-year
sentence), people in traditionally pro-Yanukovych regions have started protests
by taking over streets and blocking government buildings. While many in those
regions are skeptical about Ukraine’s European integration, distrust the opposition,
and feel uneasy about Ukrainian nationalism, their frustration and indignation
with the state’s violence, epitomized by the conduct of the police, emboldens
them to join the demonstrations, which are no longer confined to Kyiv or
traditionally pro-Western regions. This momentum is very likely to encourage
new cities to join the protest as it has become a broad platform for accumulated
grievances. Regardless of the recent “concessions,” such as the prime minister’s
resignation and cancellation of the so-called “dictatorship laws,” the failure
to engage positively in a political resolution to the crisis, including an
agreement to a constitutional reform and snap elections, let alone further
attempts to crush the protest with force, could lead to a full-scale uprising
and insurgency war. This is not an implausible scenario but a reference to the
events of 1945-1950s when western Ukraine came under the rule of Stalin.
Anton Symkovych is a MacCormick Visiting Fellow
at the Edinburgh School of Law in the United Kingdom, and is a senior lecturer
at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine.
