The well-known US expert Bruce Jackson is quite a frequent guest in Kyiv. For example, when Kyiv agreed to send troops to Iraq, Mr. Jackson said that Ukraine stood a good chance to develop relations with Western democracies. However, he made it perfectly clear on the eve of last year’s NATO summit in Istanbul that Ukraine should not hope for any enhanced format of cooperation with the Alliance (it was the time of the thwarted Our Ukraine bloc congress in Donetsk). What aroused Mr. Jackson’s burning indignation was the inhospitable attitude that Kyiv displayed during the international conference “Ukraine in Europe and the World” in February 2004, when, according to some sources, conference participants were under surveillance by the Ukrainian secret service. Naturally, he could not help rejoicing over the “orange changes” in Ukraine. Yet, the impression is that the revolution has not quite come up to his expectations. He believes that Ukraine has only three years to effect changes. Then it will be too late because the European Union will probably have completed the process of its formation. Mr. Jackson also suggests that Kyiv be sort of a magnet to attract democratic ideas from other countries and play the role of a “new Prague” in the region. He thinks that regional transformations might be discussed at meetings of the so-called Club of New European Democracies (which the president of Ukraine mentioned a little while ago).
FIVE WARNINGS TO “THE ORANGE”
“What is the purpose of your current visit? What do you think about the latest changes in Ukraine after the Orange Revolution?”
“There are two things we deal with: those outside and inside. In Europe and the United States they have finally come up with a calendar of how they intend to go forward. We all know about the crisis caused by the Dutch and French referendums. As a result, the European political leaders decided that they needed two years as a period of reflection. It looks like this period can take up to three years. In this period much can be done so that the US and Europe could make important decisions at a summit in 2008. Speaking about the ‘inside’ reason, that means several things. One, that’s very good news for Ukraine and Georgia, because they have a good chance to improve their situation in these three years. Secondly, in the first six months of democratic changes nobody pays any attention to these problems of certain confusion.
It’s very hard to get people’s attention. This is like in a marriage: when the honeymoon is over, you talk about real issues. The honeymoon is over; now it’s time to talk about serious work.”
“What problems do you mean exactly?”
“I think there are five major concerns. One is an overall concern that occurs in all new democracies. There is a tendency to fake it and not really do it. Romania is a good example. For six years they said that there is a reform going on but there was no reform. It was just a bare statement. However, it’s fairly normal for the first years of transformation.
“One concern is the problem of economic policy. Some of the first steps of this government in the field of economic policy reveal their significant ignorance of modern economics. Take, for example, their price control notion. This is early Marxism at best. Any of the twenty-thirst century’s economic theories explains that it simply is not going to work. President Yushchenko is right to step in and say, “That is not going to happen.” That was a great concern for the United States.
“Second concern was this nationalization issue. In the view of most Americans it doesn’t matter who owns the property in the country — if the state owns it, it is going to be worse. So the whole idea of re-privatization was something Americans and Europeans advised against. The model that was suggested for Ukraine was a model of Britain. After they had the privatization in Britain, some people made big money on it. It looked like they had an unfair advantage and so they were physically called and said, “You have to pay a one-time tax.” And this is how everything was forgiven. That’s the same thing that Georgia did. There are other countries that come to terms with this problem of ownership. They use taxation, other kinds of appropriate policies, but nationalization is not one of them.
“The third thing is criminalization. Once again, we think about Poland, that went through a period of martial law in the 1980s, there were many crimes then. But when you ask how many people went to jail after the fall of the Wall in 1989-1990, the answer is zero. Because they went to a round table; they decided not to criminalize their past — they tried to understand it. They did not criminalize their political differences — they tried to bring them together. So, there is huge concern that there exists a tendency to make political differences into criminal affairs. Let’s say, if they played by the rules of criminalization, president Kwasniewski of Poland would be in jail today, because he was a Communist. Does anybody think that the world would be better off with President Kwasniewski in jail? This is a joke, of course. I’m not talking about the people who murdered Gongadze or those who tried to kill Yushchenko. Those people really have committed serious crimes that have to be punished. The other people you have to discuss at the round table and work out an attitude as they did in Poland, talking about how you can forgive them. Coming to terms with nations is not only about remembering but also about forgetting.
“The fourth problem is the problem of populism. There seems to be a profound misunderstanding of what democracy is. About four or five politicians I talked to made the same statement: “But the people want justice!” As if people were to decide every day by referendum what they wanted to happen. 99% of Americans thought that O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson were guilty. But it’s not their business; it’s the business of the courts. The President of the United States doesn’t say, “Oh, the people want justice.” In a representative democracy you have a chance to elect your officials once every four or two years, and then you have NGOs, press and other people who monitor their activities; you have justice department to investigate crime; in a word, you have all checks and balances. But you don’t have a right every day, whatever the mood or enthusiasm is, to press on them.
“The fifth point is that Ukrainians like politics too much. After the election is over they still want to continue the fight. This kind of open warfare between the parties is really profoundly unhealthy. The Ukrainians ended this summer with a fistfight in Parliament on the national television about relatively trivial issues, not the most important thing in the world. That’s quite unsettling for the friends of Ukraine. There got to be a period of relative political peace between parties. You can be an opposition but you have to be a loyal opposition; loyal to your country. It seems to observers, including myself, that these people were fighting because they got used to fighting, or because they enjoyed fighting. None of them told themselves, “Are we doing the right thing for the children of Ukraine, for the future of Ukraine, for the people and the country?” There has to be a political tradition of coming to consent.”
“POPULARITY IS A DANGEROUS THING”
“Does this mean that the new leadership may lose popularity as fast as it gained it?”
“This is a good point. I’m trying to be fair and also tell you the truth. I wouldn’t say that people are frustrated by the first six months in Ukraine. Some of what happened is Ukraine’s fault and some the fault of the West. Expectations for Ukraine were so high in January that even Jesus Christ would have been a disappointment. After 500 years of occupation by various dictators it could hardly be expected that overnight Athens was going to appear in Kyiv with all the liberalism of Britain, the understanding of the French Enlightenment and architecture of Rome. That’s never going to happen. We are actually talking about a man who got out of at least three, possibly four murder attempts, got out of his hospital bed, and ended up one of the most famous persons in the world. Being a celebrity is a very dangerous thing to hit you without preparation. Probably getting used to giving interviews alone would take at least the first six months. So all that was hugely unfair to a young government trying to build one of the most powerful nations in Europe, trying to build a new country.
“It’s being said that friends of Ukraine are confused, frustrated and disappointed. Most of them intellectually understand this is no different than what we had in Poland six months after the change or in Romania for six years after the change. Poles did not actually come to Washington to begin the European integration campaign until the end of 1993. They didn’t get it going until the end of 1996. So in historical terms Ukraine is probably more advanced than other countries making the transmission. . I think the reason people are very anxious about this is that there’s not as much time left as it was for the changes in 1991. Everybody understood that there was ten, or fifteen, or even twenty years in which to work it out, so it didn’t matter if Romania failed three times. It probably doesn’t matter if the Balkans stall almost all the time. It does matter for Ukraine, which is in a pressure situation where it has got to get it right the first time, just because the history is moving rather rapidly. They now set off a three-year schedule to make a decision, and it’s hard to believe that historical circumstances will ever be this favorable for having a large nation into Europe. And also we have Russia that is getting increasingly negative about democracy and that’s part of our worries. There was no major political force opposing Poland or any of the new members. There is a very significant European player in Moscow that is on the record as being opposed to democracy in Ukraine. So for all those reasons Americans and Europeans want this government to do better.
“It is sometimes our impression that the last six months the government has been running a primary amongst its cabinet. They are not functioning like a single team.”
“But disputes also occur within the US government. Recall the press’s comments on the differences between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld on various issues.”
“There is a natural competition in any democratic government. But Powell and Rumsfeld would deny till the end of their days that there was ever a real competition. The White House is absolutely ruthless in this respect. I think the president of Ukraine has done a very good job here saying that this is unacceptable to him, and I think he has to continue to do this.
“The question is why they could get this far that he had to make decisions. They should have known what the president wants and shouldn’t come forward with the policies that he doesn’t agree and has to correct. It is hugely unfair to president Yushchenko under the given circumstances that he has to fix economic policy, nationalization, etc. The ministers of the Cabinet should be informed by the Prime Minister about the vision of the administration, and they should execute that vision.
“Again, I’m getting slightly unfair to expect that this will happen in six months. This usually takes five to ten years; Poland is still fighting like this. Still, everybody has set high hopes for Ukraine, because Ukraine is such an important phenomenon for itself and for Europe and also has a huge effect as a model for all the other states of the former Soviet Union. So it bears a historical responsibility of a huge size.”
UKRAINE IS A “TEENAGE DEMOCRACY.” IT IS TIME TO GROW UP
“The US seems to be far more cautious now. It is taking a more responsible approach to what is going on in Ukraine. We remember how the US’s excitement when Leonid Kuchma came to power in 1994 gradually gave way to disappointment, if not complete rejection. The impression is that this time the White House is trying to avoid old mistakes and has been pointing out the new leadership’s drawbacks (in spite of extremely great sympathy) since the very first days.”
“Let’s go back to the famous “chicken Kyiv speech.” We made almost every possible mistake with regard to Ukraine over all periods of history. There is a wonderful saying about American policies, that Americans will always be glad to do the right thing after they tried everything else. And this is yet another example. There have been dangers and errors in American European policy for not caring enough about Ukraine. Now we may get into a period where the danger is that we care too much. The best thing we could have done for Ukraine is after the democratic revolution to leave them alone for five years, like Poland or Romania, until they had time to come to terms with their history, with building a nation. What is most important about the next three years, what Zbigniew Brzesinski actually wrote about, is that what is happening now is the completion of Europe. Europe changed its membership, its political soul, and its constituency, and there is great concern that Turkey or Ukraine or Georgia or the Balkans may be left out of that completion and that community of democratic states. That would be a tragedy for many of the mentioned. So there is a huge pressure now not only on Ukraine but also on Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Georgia and in another way — on Belarus, to make changes that would finally reunite them with the center of European civilization of which they are a part. This is why there is this push brought on this country. Kyrgyzstan, for instance, doesn’t get this kind of attention. Either we in the West, Washington and Brussels, didn’t speak clearly during the Kuchma period or Kuchma didn’t understand what we were saying. Nobody wants to repeat those kinds of mistakes.”
“Will Viktor Yushchenko understand what Washington is saying this time?”
“We have a nickname for the new democracies before they become a member of NATO or EU: we call them “the teenage democracies.” And, like with teenagers, you are never really sure if they are listening to you. They are preoccupied with growing up, with all these social challenges. So you have to repeat things time and again, and you’re never really sure if they got it. This is quite typical. When you have thousands of publications outside your door every morning, and invitations to the Academy Awards Ceremony, Davos, etc., there are so many distractions. So it is Ambassador Herbst’s job to keep repeating what the values of the United States are or what his instructions from President Bush are. Broadly, in the United States president Yushchenko and all his government remain among the most admired people. Frankly, of all the countries I’ve never seen this much support for the country this early at the highest levels of Europe and the United States.
“I don’t think that anybody understood or really appreciated how devastated and indeed raped Ukraine was by the Soviet system. They had to build the modern state from really nothing. I think there has to be at least some understanding of how much Ukraine had to do, and this returns me to the problem of expectations. If Georgia is not bankrupt today, it’s a democratic miracle. If Ukraine fails to get WTO legislation, it’s a catastrophe. That is so unfair! The reason that Ukraine has so much higher standards is that everybody understands how important Ukraine is for Europe. This is like with good pupils who get more homework, because you know that they have a capacity, and so they get pushed a little harder. It is sort of unfair, but that’s the way it is with Ukraine. Economically Ukraine in twenty years will be as significant as the West German Miracle after WW II and politically as important as Poland was throughout the 1990s. Also, Ukraine is the key to the understanding of post-Soviet states. Frankly, it is a bridge to finally getting Russia reconciled with Europe.”
“What role do you think non-governmental organizations should play in Ukraine? Should they intensify their activities? For example, word has it that NGOs in Georgia are now in crisis because most experts have been invited to occupy governmental posts. Is your visit connected in any way with cooperation in this sphere or perhaps with the creation of a new non-governmental organization?”
“As Ukraine has organized its government and is ready to organize its relations with the other democracies and its democratic foreign policies, what usually happens at that time is NGOs and civil society basically try to develop their agenda. Many people from Europe have observed that there are many ideas in Ukraine about supporting democracy, getting NGOs together to set European democracy. I was meeting with many of the NGO leaders in Kyiv, and this is not something we are going to establish — this is something Ukrainian NGOs are trying to establish, and we are going to support them. The overall idea is that Kyiv is becoming of the same significance that Warsaw and Prague were ten or fifteen years ago, that this is the center of political thinking, that it is a magnet where people will want to come from Tbilisi, Minsk, Almaty, Baku, etc., and this is where they will work together and exchange ideas. So the question is how you make that easier. We are hopeful that we can bring all the people working on this together and set up a due form, a common space where people can be engaged in public debates. There is a vibrant civil society to accompany what the government is doing. Hopefully, we’ll have this going by September.”
