Bohdan Khmelnytsky believed the Treaty of Pereiaslav to be the military and political union that would protect the Cossack state from neighbors’ attacks...
Leonid Kravchuk believed the Budapest Memorandum to be the guarantee of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and security.
Poroshenko believes the Minsk Agreements to be the path of peace and integrity of the state.
Our illusions and our credulity have turned into crushing defeats so many times, that we should reconsider at once. We thought that we were “cunning,” but somehow the others proved to be more cunning than we were.
Even now we try to outsmart them. For sure, I mean the Minsk 2 and the amendments to the Constitution. Just take a look at the draft proposed by the president and the speaker – it reminds us of the tale of Koschei the Deathless.
The new version of the Constitution includes Paragraph 18 of the Transitional Provisions, which states that “the peculiarities of the local government in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are defined by a separate law.”
And this “separate law” has Articles 2-9, rulings of which have absorbed the agreement of Minsk 2 (the amnesty to separatists, the “people’s militia,” the “linguistic self-determination” that makes the state language redundant even in government offices, the inability to appoint judges and attorneys without the “locals’ approval,” etc.).
And at the same time the “separate law” has “Final Provisions,” which “freeze” the notorious Articles 2-9 until the time an election is held in the “certain areas.”
Everything rests on a thin thread, on the “cunning tricks,” on the horrible (even in terms of legal formulation) wording of the Law “On the Special Order of Local Government in Certain Areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.” How, for example, should one understand the ruling about preventing “criminal and administrative prosecution, as well as punishment of participants of the events in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts”? Who are “the participants of the events”?! Did they mean the separatists or their victims?
Ah, they promise that there will be another law, which should explain us who was who...
And besides, we are told that the “special law” will be void in three years.
It is a complete self-deception. Moreover, in three years, the harm will have already been done with the far-reaching consequences of the “special law,” and Paragraph 18 of the Transitional Provisions to the Constitution will still remain valid...
The conclusion is: the adoption of Paragraph 18 of the Transitional Provisions to the Constitution of Ukraine opens the way for the legalization of “DPR” and “LPR” and to the federalization of Ukraine. We need to admit it honestly.
We will have a “state within a state,” governed by Russia. And the maintenance of that “state within a state,” of course, will be carried by Ukraine.
THE PICTURE BY YURII KOVAL. UNTITLED / Photo replica by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
Actually, this whole scenario is Russian. President Poroshenko gets very irritated when hearing that he is trying to adopt the amendments to the Constitution (in the part concerning Donbas) under the external pressure – but it is true! The pressure is applied by the aggressor country (!), as well as by the US and Europe. And we submit, like a rabbit crawling into the constrictor’s grip.
That happens because we led ourselves into a trap by Minsk 2, which, as we remember, has our agreement that the control over the border is transferred to Ukraine only after the elections in “certain areas” are held.
How to get out of all this now?
Adopting Paragraph 18 would be extremely dangerous. But we would not be allowed not to adopt it. There is only one thing left – to play for time. Time works for us. Actually, the Presidential Administration has finally realized it. But how long will we be able to stall it? Perhaps indeed the idea of a referendum in this sense is a saving one? Volodymyr Hroisman says that there are no reasons to hold a referendum, saying that the draft amendments to the Constitution are not about the “special status” of Donbas...
Hroisman is just playing with words. He should better once again read the Articles 2-9 of the “special law”: do they not define the “special status”? Is it so important under which words it is hidden?
A referendum, after all, can decide on that wily Paragraph 18: “Do you agree that the local government in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts should be defined by a separate law?” That is, not as in other oblasts.
This would be enough for citizens of Ukraine to understand everything and make a strategic choice. After all, they (we!) are not up to tricks. Our future is at stake. And the factor of mutual trust between the society and the government in such a situation is paramount. And so far the trust is lacking, and very much so. And that makes the authoritative adoption of the amendments to the Constitution even riskier. Or, maybe, we do want an inner political crisis?
Well, on judicial reform and decentralization (which are also included in the amendments) I have no particular objections.
However, some rulings still cause surprise and even alarm. First of all – the powers of prefects – who, it appears, are not to oversee compliance with the Constitution and laws on the local level (or to coordinate something), but to “exercise the executive authority”! And here we are again: don’t we encourage the duality in the system of local government, provoking a conflict between an elected official and a designated one?
Won’t such “decentralization” only bring more centralization?
I think it will.
Oh Lord, has the “hybrid consciousness” been adopted by our authorities as well?
