Discontent with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – especially the violent crackdowns on EuroMaidan demonstrators – is spreading within the ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
By last count on Feb. 11, 115 current and former employees of the ministry expressed their support for the peaceful anti-government demonstrations.
Their signatures put them at odds with the official policy espoused by Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, who has dismissed the EuroMaidan protests as the work of extremists, anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers.
In response to the petition drive, the Foreign Ministry said on Feb. 11 that it would have no comment.
The first sign of discord within Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry over the government’s treatment of EuroMaidan protesters happened on Nov. 30.
After discovering that police used brutal force to clear Independence Square of mostly student protesters, then-General Consul to Turkey Bohdan Yaremenko wrote on his Facebook page: “This is how chasteners and invaders behave. This is how the Nazis behaved.”
A few days later, Kozhara told him to leave his post and recalled him to Kyiv.
A similar condemnation took place on the other diplomatic end on Jan. 23, a day after riot police used violent force, including the use of firearms, in clashes with protesters on Hrushevskoho Street on Jan. 19-Jan. 22. Three protesters died of gunshot wounds after a police attack.
Claude Radoux, Luxembourg’s honorary consul to Ukraine resigned, stating: “When snipers hunt down protesters, when people are being killed for their opinion, it is a dictatorship.”
Dissent scaled up on Feb. 4 with the appearance of an online petition by current and former members of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry through the blogging platform WordPress.com. As of Feb. 11, it has 115 signatories, 76 of whom are current members of the foreign service, including honorary consuls.
Yaremenko is signatory No. 76. Also signed on are Maksym Kononuchenko, consul to Finland, Iryna Lysenko, consul of the General Consulate in Munich, and Oresta Starak, first secretary of the Ukrainian embassy in the U.S., among others.
“We, Ukrainian diplomats…in a show of dignity, honor, and our civic position, express our solidarity with those who are (standing on) the squares across the nation struggling for a better future for Ukraine,” it begins.
It continues: “We support a peaceful resolution to the existing crisis, effective negotiations, the truthful informing of society, and are against force and persecution.”
It ends by expressing the desire to represent their homeland abroad “with pride.”
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
