President Viktor Yanukovych agreed to look into the cases of 10 protesters who were arrested and still in custody after clashes with police during anti-government rallies that have lasted over three weeks, but indicated no other possible exit strategies for the current political gridlock.
Speaking to three of
his predecessors — Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and
Viktor Yushchenko — during a televised discussion in Kyiv,
Yanukovych insisted that both sides were at fault during the violent clashes between police
and peaceful demonstrators on Nov. 30 and Dec.1.
“On both sides, violations of law that took place on Maidan have to be
investigated, and those guilty have to be punished – on both
sides,” said Yanukovych.
The meeting was initiated by the three presidents as a way of
resolving the political stalemate, which was triggered by the
government’s rejection on Nov. 21 of a major deal with the European
Union. It was then aggravated by beatings of peaceful protesters and
the arrest of people who took part in the protests.
“I asked to find a
possibility where there are no grave violations to free a part of
people who did not commit grave crimes,” Yanukovych said. “I
think today this issue will be solved. I don’t know how many people
will be freed, but some will.”
There are at least
10 protesters who have been arrested for the clashes with police,
including a journalist from Dnipropetrovsk. Most of them were ordered jailed
for two months in pretrial detention.
Yanukovych said all of the police involved in the clashes have
been suspended from duty. But Iryna Herashchenko,
a lawmaker from Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR), says
that Col. Serhiy Kusiuk, who was involved in the violent dispersal of
EuroMaidan in the early hours of Nov. 30, was spotted on Dec. 9 when police were clearing barricades off the streets in the city
center.
“Our lawmakers saw
him on the night of Nov. 30, and yesterday he was running the show,
too,” says Herashchenko.
During the
conversation, Yanukovych insisted that on the night of Nov. 30
special police unit Berkut only attacked after people prevented
municipal workers from performing their duties of mounting a
Christmas Tree on Maidan Nezalezhnosti.
But Kravchuk said
that even under those circumstances in the “civilized world”
people are simply seized and taken in for investigation. “But
they’re not beaten, the law enforcers cannot beat people,” he said.
“If those who were
arrested were the ones who had been beaten, not those who took part
in the beatings, then people won’t understand it,” Kravchuk said.
He also said that the nature of EuroMaidan changed radically ever
since those beatings.
He said previously,
people were standing for their dream of European integration, but
after the Berkut attack, the rhetoric changed to anti-government. He
and other presidents hinted that a government resignation, along with
a return to the pro-European course, could become a way out of the
current political gridlock.
Yanukovych said that
his government remains committed to the European path, and will
continue negotiations to sign an association agreement.
“Most likely
tomorrow our delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister (Serhiy)
Arbuzov will leave for Europe to continue this job,” he said. But a
European
Commission spokesperson told Interfax-Ukraine news agency in Brussels
that they have no information about a Dec. 11 visit by a Ukrainian
delegation taking place.
Yanukovych also made
it clear that Ukraine wants to renegotiate some parts of the
association agreement, which took nearly a decade to negotiate before
being initialed in March 2012. He said that if signed as it is, the
deal will hurt Ukraine’s economy greatly, particularly the
agricultural and heavy machinery sector.
“We need to minimize the
risks for the economy,” he said.
Previously,
Yanukovych had said that the cost of modernizing Ukraine’s economy
would be €160
billion in the next decade, and complained that the EU failed to
support Ukraine financially –especially after Russia introduced
painful trade sanctions against Ukraine.
But Stefan Fuele,
EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, said on
Dec. 10 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg that Europe is ready
to commit financially.
“We stand ready to
help and support Ukraine on its modernization journey, including
through topping up IMF loans with macro-financial assistance; by
stepping up the European Union’s financial assistance programs to
help Ukraine implement the agreement, when it is signed, and helping
to bring on board other international partners,” he said.
Yanukovych’s three
predecessors said the European integration course should be restored
as soon as possible. “European integration became a consolidation
factor in Ukrainian society. This is a value this is worthy and it’s
worth fighting for,” said Yushshenko, Yanukovych’s predecessor.
Kravchuk also
suggested that the association agreement, which contains a broad free
trade agreement, should be separated into a political and economic
part. He said the political part should be signed as soon as
possible, and the economic part should be dealt with “within the
framework of an association.”
The three
ex-presidents also insisted that Yanukovych has to start a dialogue with opponents and civil society, who came out into the streets enmasse. “There is
no alternative. After a faceoff, after a war, there is first truce,”
and then a roundtable, said Yushchenko.
But Yanukovych showed no
signs that he would take their advice. He said he would like to “turn
this page as soon as possible” and return to regular life. He said
that blockage of government buildings is inadmissible and will not be
tolerated.
“I asked one White
House official, what would you do if the White House was blocked? He
said first of all we would not allow it, and if – God forbid – it
happened, we would unblock it in a matter of minutes,” he said.
Valeriy Chaliy, top expert
of the Razumkov Center, a think tank, said that participating in a roundtable discussion was Yanukovych’s attempt to buy time.
“(It is a) bluff,
this is just playing for time. And the repressive machine continues
to unfold even today and is unstoppable, he said. “We are losing a
democratic Ukraine.”
