Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will stay under arrest. Yesterday Kyiv Pechersk District Court Judge Rodion Kirieiev first refused to sa-tisfy the application of the defendant’s defense attorneys to revoke pre-trial detention and then, likewise, left unsatisfied the petitions of public figures and churches which had also demanded releasing Tymoshenko from custody. After this, witnesses for the prosecution, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, continued testifying.
The Tymoshenko trial has become a test of sorts for both the government and the opposition. Incidentally, the government is “failing this test” so far, especially after the detention of its chief opponent. Nobody, except for the odious Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has supported this step in Russia. Even the Russian government has announced that the 2009 gas contracts were concluded without any violations, quite in compliance with the two countries’ national legislations. And only a completely apolitical person could have suggested that the West would not voice a protest. Even earlier, the EU and the US had been repeatedly expressing concern over the freedom of expression and persecution of the opposition in Ukraine. So it was not difficult to foresee their reaction. What did Viktor Yanukovych and his team count on?
The government claims that prosecuting oppositionists is nothing but fighting corruption. But why is this struggle being fought against the opposition exclusively? Why, for example, is the government taking no active measures against the company Livelli which has embezzled three to five percent of the state budget through some dubious deals on the energy resources market? Besides, the world organizations that measure the level of corruption in various countries have only been reducing Ukraine’s rating.
After the arrest of Tymoshenko, the opposition has in turn formed the Committee of Resistance to Dictatorship. All the nine parliamentary opposition parties have signed the committee’s statement. But, by all accounts, the opposition camp is to blame itself for what is now happening with it. It is the result of a non-reformed, corrupt, and clan-oligarchic system established during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma.
There is still no reaction from the president, either. This means the government has come into a blind alley. It is following the way of its predecessors: to make use of, instead of reforming, the judicial system. The Tymoshenko trial is a brilliant illustration of this. Ordinary people are finding it more and more difficult to distinguish between the shares of law and po-litics in this trial. This results from the fact that, to defeat their political opponents and further enrich themselves, Ukrainian politicians have often been betraying national interests. Over the past few years, almost every new office has been going to Moscow to negotiate the gas problem, and every time it had to concede something. As a result, we have expensive gas, an unreformed gas transportation system, a prolongation of treaty on the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a tarnished international image, etc. When people see all this, they conclude that the Tymoshenko trial is a way to settle scores among the politicians. They can see again that nobody, as usual, is thinking about them.
