Five days after demonstrations started all over Ukraine, prompted by the government's rejection of a political and free trade deal with the European Union, the nation's president came out with a non-committal statement. Meanwhile, while the imprisoned leader of the opposition went on a hunger strike -- her third since her criminal conviction more than two years ago.
While President Viktor Yanukovych in his lukewarm
statement said he was not going to do anything to harm his nation and asked for understanding, imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said she decided to go on hunger strike to demand concrete
action from the president.
“As a sign of unity, I announce an
indefinite strike with the demand for Yanukovych to sign the association agreement,” she said in her public address, which was
read from the stage on European square by Tymoshenko’s leader of
defense team Serhiy Vlasenko.
In the meantime, in his address,
released through the president’s official site, Yanukovych made no clear commitments
about further actions. His government on Nov. 21 reversed its own
decision in support for the signing of an association agreement with the EU, a deal that would have paved the way for eventual membership in the 28-nation bloc of democracies.
A number of European top officials,
including European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on Ukraine
said on Nov. 25 that the deal was still on the table for Ukraine to
take.
EU Commissioner for Enlargement and
Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fuule said that Ukraine’s government needs
to act, however. Speaking to journalists and diplomats in Kyiv via a
video link from Brussels, he said that taking another official
decision to continue preparations for signing the association agreement “would be a good start.”
But Yanukovych only promised
to explain his actions further, nothing else. He said he was planning
to give a lengthy interview to the Ukrainian TV channels shortly “to
answer all questions.”
He said “there is no alternative to
construction of society of European standards in
Ukraine” and
that European integration remains the nation’s goal.
“Nobody
will steal the dream about Ukraine of equal opportunities, about the
European Ukraine,” he said.
He also said that he had to tend to the
most vulnerable people in the society, as well – a reference to the
official mantra that many jobs will be lost as a result of loss of
trade with Russia in case of signing the association agreement.
“As a father cannot leave his family
without bread just the same I cannot leave people facing the problems
that may appear under the pressure that we experience; the production
will be stopped and millions of people will end up on the streets,”
he said.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
