Some will blame the Russians or the EU, or anybody but themselves.
Is anyone in Ukraine willing to share the blame, or in a broader sense take
responsibility for Ukraine’s course? Or
let Russia and Yanukovych make that decision.
The Ukrainians had a nascent democracy shortly after the 2004 Orange Revolution, and they blew it by electing crime boss as president in
2010. That’s the long and short of it, while the literati almost unanimously
were consoling themselves and all the losers that “the Orange Revolution is
irreversible.”
Intransigence of Yanukovych towards the requirements
projected by the EU was the obvious venue that undermined the prospects of an
agreement and dashed the expectations of those who believed such a deal is
possible. Yanukovych has successfully played the hocus-pocus of misleading
Ukrainians and much of the world community by repeatedly claiming that Ukraine
will fulfill all the requirements for the Association Agreement.
The EU, after numerous warnings and its extraordinary
efforts to change the mind of Yanukovych and release former Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko from prison, is expected to walk away from signing the
Association Agreement with Ukraine at this time.
Yanukovych and his government had no intention to
comply with what was expected, despite a flurry of last-minute hustle to draft
and re-draft the changes in laws on elections and prosecutorial powers. That
was actually the easy part, considering that this government is not in the
habit of honoring what’s printed on paper.
By the
way, the pre-existing laws, deficient as they could be, did not prevent honest
elections of Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma (twice), Viktor Yushchenko, and
Viktor Yanukovych for president. But that was then, before Yanukovych and the
Regions Party came to power.
It is possible that Yanukoych has been pretending to seek
association with the EU, but was actually looking for a stalemate, then blame
the EU for failure to come to an agreement, and use the breakdown as
justification for turning to Russia as a way to avert an impending collapse of
Ukraine’s economy.
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has already made a statement
blaming the EU for “placing one person, Yulia Tymoshenko, ahead of Ukraine’s
interests” (Nov. 9). But both Azarov and the EU know that suppression of
democratic freedoms in Ukraine requires Tymoshenko to be in jail to make
it work. It is not the concern for one person that washed away the deal.
Today no one seems to know the next step in this president’s
itinerary besides shuttling back and forth to Moscow. Who will stop that train?
Mythology has it that linking Ukraine into a Common Space with Russia is
something this president has been very hard trying to avoid. And what have the
Ukrainian people to say? Wait and see?
The wait and see attitude is how the Ukrainians are likely
to be railroaded into a new Soviet Union. The main objective for Yanukovych
seems to be a lifetime Ukraine presidency for himself, something to which the
Kremlin wouldn’t object, as long as Moscow maintains its hegemony.
The willingness of
the Ukrainian people to do what needs to be done to defend Ukraine’s
independence and secure a civil society is still a question mark. This
assessment should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the scene and the
recent history (going as far back as interested).
The problem the Ukrainians are having is a historic problem
beyond a quickie resolution. Its one aspect, the issue of leadership cannot be
overstated, and is briefly this: Prominent, capable leaders were singled out for physical destruction, by
assassination, with smear, on the Soviet Union’s time clock with the KGB agents
as killers outside the Soviet border. Regular KGB structure was used when
executions were part of mass arrests in Stalin’s Soviet Union, numbered in
millions of victims.
In that light, what is happening to Tymoshenko is not
unusual. She is undoubtedly the most capable Ukrainian leader in the current
generation. Although still alive, she has been removed from the scene.
Shamelessly, the people have failed to stand up for her in large numbers as
they should have after the 2010 election debacle that made Yanukovych president
despite his obvious background that predictably resulted in the fall of democracy
and abuse of the human rights.
Ukraine is going nowhere outside Russia’s sphere unless
Ukrainians learn from their own history and begin to apply the lessons of such
epochal disasters as was the man-made Holodomor under the Soviet regime. Unfortunately,
there is little evidence of such learning and drawing conclusions at this time.
Without absorbing these lessons and without understanding
that they have been rolled again as recently as in the last three years, there
is not much of a chance they will be able to take responsibility for what’s
going on in their country.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
