aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- Re: [aaus-list] list of names

[Taras Kuzio <tkuzio@sympatico.ca>]

No legal action against Communist and post-communist crimes is not a better
alternative....


If so, look at the mess this is causing in Poland.
> 
> This is just one link in reference to Poland:
> The Polish Witch-Hunt
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20331
> 
> Justice is great, lustration isn't.
> 


UKRAINE¹S ELITES REMAIN ABOVE THE LAW

By Taras Kuzio

Monday, July 30, 2007
Eurasian Daily Monitor

Ukraine¹s orange elites are facing a growing scandal surrounding Yuriy
Lutsenko, head of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People¹s Self Defense
bloc (NUNS). Lutsenko allegedly lobbied on behalf of Ukrainian New
Telecommunications (UNTC) when he was interior minister. Lutsenko¹s wife is
UNTC¹s financial director, and the company was established in 2005 by
members of Lutsenko¹s extended family from Rivne oblast. Lutsenko allegedly
supported instructions to shift Interior Ministry cell phone contracts to
UNTC.

The Lutsenko scandal suggests that Ukraine¹s ruling elites remain above the
law.

Since Ukraine became an independent state in 1992, only three senior
Ukrainian officials have been charged and sentenced, two in Germany (Viktor
Zherdytskyy and Ihor Didenko) and one in the United States (Pavlo
Lazarenko). No senior Ukrainian officials have ever been charged inside
Ukraine, in part because they possess parliamentary immunity.

In a June 20 address to the country, President Viktor Yushchenko called upon
parliament to revoke its right to immunity as a step toward ³overcoming
parliamentary corruption.² He claimed that Ukraine¹s parliament was the
world¹s most corrupt, a factor that negatively influenced the national
interest and rule of law.

Yushchenko called for separating business and politics, saying, ³People in
big business should be separate from the political life of the country,² due
to potential conflicts of interest.

Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc have both stated their readiness
to voluntarily forfeit their immunity. NUNS is collecting signatures to hold
a referendum on ending immunity, claiming that corrupt businessmen run for
parliament to hide from the law.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych criticized these calls for action and
accused the president of ³populism.² He also pointed out that calls to
revoke parliamentary immunity are regularly heard during election campaigns
but quietly forgotten afterward.

As media restrictions have eased, the press has leveled accusations of abuse
of office and corruption against the president¹s son and other orange
leaders. Consequently, the orange camp has adopted a two-pronged standard
response of denying the media¹s right to make such investigations and
claiming that the accusations are part of a political conspiracy.

NUNS member Volodymyr Stretovych, head of the parliamentary committee to
combat organized crime, has claimed that the latest allegations against
Lutsenko are an orchestrated conspiracy against ³one of the most popular
leaders of the democratic camp.² According to him, the accusations against
Lutsenko are the criminal world¹s response to the prospect of losing
parliamentary immunity.

However, ending parliamentary immunity is unlikely to remove Ukrainian
elites¹ legal privileges for several reasons. First, Ukraine inherited this
political culture of elites being above the law from the Soviet era. Second,
there is also a close link, particularly evident among the orange national
democratic camp, between elites and the preservation of Ukrainian statehood.
Yushchenko and his allies who went on to establish Our Ukraine opposed
efforts to impeach former president Leonid Kuchma over the murder of
journalist Georgy Gongadze, as they believe that the president represents
the state and any undermining of his position would thereby undermine the
Ukrainian state.

Third, the elites enjoy a strong degree of mutual solidarity. When
corruption accusations were made against Yushchenko¹s allies in September
2005 he agreed to launch an investigation, but he outlined its
pre-determined conclusion by publicly declaring their innocence.

Two examples demonstrate the difficulty of breaking with the culture of
elite immunity.

First, in 2005, Yushchenko bestowed Gongadze with the ³Hero of Ukraine²
title as he ³gave his young life for our freedom and independence.² But then
eighteen months later a presidential decree awarded a state medal to former
prosecutor Mykhailo Potebenko, who reportedly covered up Kuchma¹s
involvement in Gongadze¹s murder.

Second, Prime Minister Yanukovych has a criminal record. Yanukovych served
two prison terms: in 1967-70 for theft and robbery and in 1970-1972 for the
³infliction of bodily injuries of medium seriousness.² There were reports
that a Donetsk oblast court had allegedly annulled his two convictions in
1978, but the relevant documents were found to be forgeries executed when
Yanukovych first became prime minister after 2002.

Yushchenko has defended his nomination of Yanukovych as prime minister in
August 2006, claiming he had little alternative. However, Article 12 of
Ukraine¹s 1993 law on State Service clearly states that persons with a
criminal record cannot be appointed or voted into a government post. This
seemingly would eliminate Yanukovych¹s eligibility to be prime minister or
president. Polls in 2004 found that 60-69% of Ukrainians believed that a
former felon should not be president.

The Lutsenko corruption scandal will tarnish the orange camp going into the
September 30 parliamentary elections. Lutsenko is close to Yushchenko, who
is depending on him to improve the pro-presidential camp¹s results in the
2006 elections, when it obtained only 14% of the vote.

Based on similar cases, no charges are likely to be laid against Lutsenko,
and the culture of elite protection will not change even if parliamentary
immunity is removed.

(Ukrayinska pravda, June 30, July 11, 19, 26-27, 2007; May 26, June 3, 2004,
president.gov.ua, June 20; Zerkalo nedeli, September 3, 2004; Vidomosti
Verkhovnoii Rady, no. 52, 1993)

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On 7/30/07 12:35 PM, "Max Pyziur" <pyz@brama.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Max Pyziur wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, stephen velychenko wrote:
>> 
>>> Useful list published by communists of key neo-soviet, pro-russian,
>>> anti-ukrainian personages in Ukraine whom  communists have called
>>> "creative intellectuals."
>>> 
>>> http://www.kpu.net.ua/obratschenie-predstavitelej-tvorcheskoj-intelligentsii
>>> -ukraini-k-partijam-pravitelstvennoj-koalitsii/
>> 
>> Would this be characterized as lustration?
>> 
>> If so, look at the mess this is causing in Poland.
> 
> This is just one link in reference to Poland:
> The Polish Witch-Hunt
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20331
> 
> Justice is great, lustration isn't.
> 
> 
>> 
>> Max Pyziur
>> pyz@brama.com
> [recycle]