Heorhy POCHEPTSOV, professor:
“We have just witnessed another round of the cassette scandal caused by a new move of the opposition: Mykola Melnychenko’s Radio Liberty interview, reprinted in the newspapers Tovarysh and Dzerkalo tyzhnia, which supplies a new set of details. Incidentally, the following key question still remains unanswered: why was the all clear given to disclose the initial information given precisely at that time in November? There seemed to be no external reasons, for the next parliamentary and presidential elections were quite far-off. In the last presidential elections, two possible authors of this information operation, Ukraine’s two big strategic partners, overtly supported the current president. So what caused them to change their views? One of the new moves is also the repeated setting-up of tent towns all over Ukraine. Moreover, the authorities have disclosed a Melnychenko-Gongadze link (application for a Czech visa in November), which qualitatively changes the overall picture being foisted on us.
“Throughout the post-Soviet period, Ukraine has been living in a situation such that one component of the political process was clearly marked as one outside the norm. We’ve been living in three kinds of situations: we’ve had either a premier portrayed as bad, a bad parliament, or a bad president. The current crisis situation has obviously included all the three assessments simultaneously, which in fact characterizes the crisis. Earlier, these factors used to give way to one another: for example, a bad premier was replaced by a new good one (until he then turned “bad” — Ed.). The crisis is breaking down the whole existing system of trust: the common people find themselves under stress, from which they try to escape with the help of a leader. It is the leader, whom our system of values empowers to help solve problems faced by the public. In addition, these functions of a leader stem from purely biological characteristics. Even among monkeys the leader shows the direction to go, offers protection, and puts the horde in order.
“This is the political plane. But what do we have on the economic plane? I think that this was assessed by People’s Deputy Viktor Suslov much more accurately than by the official optimistic version. Mr. Suslov thinks the improvement of economic figures, not of real living standards, rests on two factors. On the one hand, it was done by inflation, which automatically increased the results of our work. On the other hand, it was achieved by the theft of natural gas that nobody pays for. Industrial output cannot rise without the increased consumption of electricity, which has taken place this year. A new stage of the economic slump further complicates the state’s survivability. Now the state leers carnivorously at those who failed to share their incomes with it yesterday. The state has no choice, but those who can lose their economic foundations do have a kind of choice. This simultaneously provokes serious economic discontent in the bulk of the population who cannot eat these fine figures of economic growth.
“On the foreign-policy plane, the situation is still more desperate. Not only do we have former Premier Pavlo Lazarenko in jail: the rest of the political beau monde is in an ambiguous situation. It is unclear whether it is a beau monde at all. But nothing is more terrible for the beau monde than the loss of its legitimacy, because those in it have nothing but the chairs they sit in. Businesspeople own factories and ships, while politicians have chairs and government telephones. Cutting off the phones would eliminate half the politicians, but if you remove the chairs, there will be nobody at all.
“If certain changes occur, somebody needs them. Now there is a hectic campaign to push forward Viktor Yushchenko as the leader, perhaps even against his will. A number of small steps shows this. For example, both the premier and the president graced with their presence the New Year festivities on Independence Square. But, for some reason, some of our television channels and incidentally Moscow’s NTV, mentioned only the premier on January 1. In other words, we are being shown the model of a good premier surrounded by other bad political players.
“Nothing new happens under the sun: everything has already existed and been implemented by the same scenarios. What first crosses your mind when you look at the way our scandal is developing? Yugoslavia of the year 2000, where Slobodan Milosevic, who had endured two wars, an economic blockade, and all kinds of confrontations, was kicked out of the arena through an entirely peaceful operation conducted, nonetheless, according to all rules of the military art. The whole situation was repeatedly modified by uniformed and non-uniformed experts, with various scientific experiments conducted.
Heorhy POCHEPTSOV, professor:
“We have just witnessed another round of the cassette scandal caused by a new move of the opposition: Mykola Melnychenko’s Radio Liberty interview, reprinted in the newspapers Tovarysh and Dzerkalo tyzhnia, which supplies a new set of details. Incidentally, the following key question still remains unanswered: why was the all clear given to disclose the initial information given precisely at that time in November? There seemed to be no external reasons, for the next parliamentary and presidential elections were quite far-off. In the last presidential elections, two possible authors of this information operation, Ukraine’s two big strategic partners, overtly supported the current president. So what caused them to change their views? One of the new moves is also the repeated setting-up of tent towns all over Ukraine. Moreover, the authorities have disclosed a Melnychenko-Gongadze link (application for a Czech visa in November), which qualitatively changes the overall picture being foisted on us.
“Throughout the post-Soviet period, Ukraine has been living in a situation such that one component of the political process was clearly marked as one outside the norm. We’ve been living in three kinds of situations: we’ve had either a premier portrayed as bad, a bad parliament, or a bad president. The current crisis situation has obviously included all the three assessments simultaneously, which in fact characterizes the crisis. Earlier, these factors used to give way to one another: for example, a bad premier was replaced by a new good one (until he then turned “bad” — Ed.). The crisis is breaking down the whole existing system of trust: the common people find themselves under stress, from which they try to escape with the help of a leader. It is the leader, whom our system of values empowers to help solve problems faced by the public. In addition, these functions of a leader stem from purely biological characteristics. Even among monkeys the leader shows the direction to go, offers protection, and puts the horde in order.
“This is the political plane. But what do we have on the economic plane? I think that this was assessed by People’s Deputy Viktor Suslov much more accurately than by the official optimistic version. Mr. Suslov thinks the improvement of economic figures, not of real living standards, rests on two factors. On the one hand, it was done by inflation, which automatically increased the results of our work. On the other hand, it was achieved by the theft of natural gas that nobody pays for. Industrial output cannot rise without the increased consumption of electricity, which has taken place this year. A new stage of the economic slump further complicates the state’s survivability. Now the state leers carnivorously at those who failed to share their incomes with it yesterday. The state has no choice, but those who can lose their economic foundations do have a kind of choice. This simultaneously provokes serious economic discontent in the bulk of the population who cannot eat these fine figures of economic growth.
“On the foreign-policy plane, the situation is still more desperate. Not only do we have former Premier Pavlo Lazarenko in jail: the rest of the political beau monde is in an ambiguous situation. It is unclear whether it is a beau monde at all. But nothing is more terrible for the beau monde than the loss of its legitimacy, because those in it have nothing but the chairs they sit in. Businesspeople own factories and ships, while politicians have chairs and government telephones. Cutting off the phones would eliminate half the politicians, but if you remove the chairs, there will be nobody at all.
“If certain changes occur, somebody needs them. Now there is a hectic campaign to push forward Viktor Yushchenko as the leader, perhaps even against his will. A number of small steps shows this. For example, both the premier and the president graced with their presence the New Year festivities on Independence Square. But, for some reason, some of our television channels and incidentally Moscow’s NTV, mentioned only the premier on January 1. In other words, we are being shown the model of a good premier surrounded by other bad political players.
“Nothing new happens under the sun: everything has already existed and been implemented by the same scenarios. What first crosses your mind when you look at the way our scandal is developing? Yugoslavia of the year 2000, where Slobodan Milosevic, who had endured two wars, an economic blockade, and all kinds of confrontations, was kicked out of the arena through an entirely peaceful operation conducted, nonetheless, according to all rules of the military art. The whole situation was repeatedly modified by uniformed and non-uniformed experts, with various scientific experiments conducted.
“Yugoslavia showed it is possible in principle to bring down a leader by means of information (in this case election) technologies conducted from outside the country. Let us list some of the major items of the past Yugoslav campaign, now being openly discussed in the US. 1. Congress officially appropriated $41 million to this end. Unofficial amounts will never be known, with Belgrade sources mentioning $500 million. 2. The election campaign was carried out on the basis of serious research, which tested all the slogans and speeches of the opposition. 3. Since Yugoslavia kept Western consultants at bay, opposition militants were trained (among other things, to conduct nonviolent protest actions) in Hungary. 4. Vojislav Kostunica was hand-picked as the main object of promotion because he not only enjoyed the best public opinion poll results but was also an anti-American leader in the eyes of the public. 5. The main slogan of the campaign was “Gotov je” (“He’s finished”) interestingly enough, does not mention Milosevic. 6. 14,000 observers were trained to forestall vote fraud. Each observer was paid $5 when $30 was the average pay in Yugoslavia.
“Let us now consider a table showing the similarities with the situation now evolving in Ukraine:
“Let us add to this that the protesters are being paid, which UT 1showed in a documentary. Incidentally, this was the first time that UT- 1 set the pace in coverage of this situation. The problem of paid protests has long existed in all the CIS countries. St. Petersburg firms already have a clear list of prices and services. This was caused by the unwillingness of people to take to the streets, as they did during perestroika. But the idea of demonstrating in support of or protest against something lives on, and this is how it is implemented. While earlier we knew about Petersburg options, now we also do about those of Kyiv. All this is part of nonviolent protest actions. In the case of Yugoslavia, young people were trained by a US retired colonel who twice saw service in Vietnam.
“This resulted in a powerful protest campaign in Yugoslavia aimed at forcing the authorities to retreat. First, Belgrade garbagemen went on strike. A week later the city was suffocating in the stench. When the protesters began to set garbage cans on fire, fire engine water jets scattered the garbage on the streets still more. Secondly, retail stores and drugstores also went on strike, with some of them only working until midday. Thirdly, taxi drivers struck, which immediately changed the situation in the city because municipal transport was idle. Fourthly, people began to put up barricades cutting off the streets and exit roads. All this, naturally, radically changed the rhythm of life and required an appropriate reaction. So the authorities gave in under the pressure of these protest actions because such government instruments as the army and police were intended primarily to handle violent unrest.
“If we look at the history of Yugoslav developments, we will see that one of the goals was to dismember the country into a number of separate states, which was done successfully. Ukraine is also being fed the idea of a federal state, which could bring unpredictable consequences. For even Samuel Huntington’s famous map showing the borders of civilizations divides Ukraine into western and eastern parts, to which the scholar assigns to different types. This makes federalization doubly dangerous. Such obvious present differences can be used in future political games.
“In every instance, Ukraine takes a stand in a new context. This is much more difficult than working in a usual situation. American theoreticians single out technical decisions and those concerning adaptation. While technical decisions are known from the outset, those concerning adaptation require a certain amount of reflection. We are today facing a new dilemma of this kind which has no preset methods of finding a solution. It is beyond doubt that the certain cracks have appeared in the system of trust in the authorities. We are observing now an important trend: the more details we get about the cassette scandal, about what exactly was overheard, the more authentic the scandal will seem. For details are always more convincing than vague words. In reply, the authorities try to remain clear, although they are supposed to show a different behavior.
“Today, Ukraine is receiving foreign advice about how to solve its problems. However, it would be good if this chorus of strategic partners did not drown out Ukraine’s own voice. The just reproaches from abroad will always be offset by the statement that these are our internal affairs. In any case, what we are facing is not a technical problem, as the authorities try to portray it, but one of adaptation that has touched upon human values. Thus it can only be solved in untraditional ways, the last thing we know very well.
“One of the factors that stirred up the cassette scandal could be Ukraine’s tilt toward Russia, some signs of which appeared last summer and fall. For this reason certain specific political forces could have decided to put Ukraine to the place they think it deserves. The more so that Yugoslavia has demonstrated the potential of today’s information technologies.
“What could serve as a way out of this situation? Whether or not the tapes are authentic recedes into the background as long as the population is prepared to believe them. What is the truth should be presented as the truth. The authorities must admit the truth, no matter how bitter, and take certain punishment for it. When Bill Clinton repented, America forgave him. When Hitler allowed telling Germans the truth about Stalingrad battle casualties, this boosted trust in the authorities. The truth is always stronger than any kind of interpretation. In this case, the problem will be solved without resorting to foreign technologies.”
Mykhailo POHREBYNSKY, political scientist:
“It is obvious there are no facts confirming the link between the cassette scandal and the legal action against Yuliya Tymoshenko. The point is the lines of political connections are so complex that it is difficult to say there is no political connection at all. Yet, one must take into account that Ms. Tymoshenko is a political figure who, well before her latest statements, clearly pronounced her opposition to the President and apparently pro-presidential factions. And as an obviously anti-presidential scandal burst into flame in the past months, we can say there is a political, but not legal, connection. There is also a version that the scandal was provoked by financial groups dissatisfied with the progress of reforms, but I see no confirmation of this version. I don’t think this hyped version has any serious grounds, because the scandal obviously required powerful resources and there is not a single group capable of doing so. Besides, even if we admit that a certain group could do this, there is no sense in such actions because this cannot strengthen the position of that group. Nor can we suppose that some small oligarchs want to supersede the big ones because the former just don’t have the required financial resources. All I know, speaking about resources and those who possess them, is that the strings of this show cannot be pulled from the top offices of a foreign country. Moreover, I do not think, for various reasons, that it is possible because I mean a limited number of specific states. Yet I do admit that some rather influential states, groups of the political, military, police, or security elite interested in a change of regime in Ukraine, might have taken part in the development of this scandal at various stages. And if the scandal is being masterminded from somewhere outside Ukraine, then our abilities are quite limited. However, if information about this reaches the top offices of this country, we can hope they will make the decisions dictated by the common sense. For, in my opinion, Major Melnychenko is only handing over some information, and if he ceases to receive it, the scandal will come to an end. But in this case the leadership of a certain country should make a decision to put an end to this. It is important that the political situation should be stabilized by those groups of the Ukrainian political elite, which are not involved in the conflict or do not take a radical stand in it. Such a group could do its best to forestall mindless unconstitutional actions and make it clear that none of the parties, including the presidential one, is absolutely right and that there is a well-balanced position that would make it possible to solve this conflict.”
