Unlike the domestic electronic media, their foreign counterparts are giving considerably more room for direct dialogue between political opponents. As a result, both the government and opposition appear to have not only strong arguments, but also weak points; not only subjects causing heated debate, but also aspects allowing them to meet each other halfway. Perhaps if all the participants in the Ukrainian social process placed their major emphasis on consensus based on real democratic changes, in both the economy and politics, we would have long ago got out of the dead end of today’s crisis. Be that as it may, when one can conduct a debate providing well-grounded arguments instead of shouting at the top of one’s voice, when different stands are compared instead of breaking PR lances, a given society can get a real opportunity to adopt the currently best course, action plan, find a reliable political force, and leaders. This was once again demonstrated by the meeting organized by Radio Liberty’s Russian Service on February 17 with People’s Deputy Taras Chornovil of the People’s Rukh (currently with the Reform Congress fraction); Volodymyr Malinkovych, former dissident, Ukrainian Helsinki Group member, and political scientist; Larysa Ivshyna, editor-in-chief of The Day, and Radio Liberty journalist Olena Kolomiychenko as hostess. The following is a slightly abridged transcript of the broadcast.
Olena KOLOMIYCHENKO: Our subject tonight is Ukraine again, what has actually been happening in this country over the past several months and weeks — I say weeks, because the situation is constantly changing.
Perhaps never before, not in the past several years in any case, has Ukrainian political life attracted such public attention, including that of the European media, as in the past couple of weeks. My first question is to you, Mr. Chornovil. Would you please formulate the opposition’s objectives and strategy as you see them? What are your basic requirements to the current executive and president? Would you also explain the opposition as being united not by certain joint public actions but only by certain common temporary interests?
Taras CHORNOVIL : First, saying that we have some direct requirements or demands with regard to the current regime would perhaps be not quite correct, because our main demand is that the current regime be changed. The very style of government must be changed, turning Ukraine from фpresidential-parliamentary republic — the way it is now or maybe the way it has practically become entirely presidential — into a parliamentary-presidential one. And the main condition, on which we most strongly insist, is knowing the truth about what is going on in this country; openness of the domestic political process and Ukraine’s participation in world politics as an equal partner. It would be incorrect to say that we are planning any further stages like, say, the next presidential campaign. We are defending democracy against totalitarianism.
O. K. : You just mentioned totalitarianism. What signs of totalitarianism do you see in today’s Ukraine?
T. C.: Look at what’s happening to the freedom of expression. I think it has become a proverb and a byword. Our journalists and political leaders get killed, people like Vyacheslav Chornovil and Heorhy Gongadze, and no one moves a finger to investigate such cases in a more or less unbiased manner; the powers that be openly lie to the public concerning these high-profile cases and concerning everything else that happens in Ukraine. You know, I think it’s not the signs of totalitarianism, but totalitarianism itself. It’s true that there has been considerably more freedom of expression recently thanks to the cassette scandal. Yet this freedom is paid for with human blood and tremendous insistent effort.
O. K.: You say that Ukraine must be equally represented in the world. What precisely do you have in mind?
T. C.: Primarily Ukrainian-Russian relations. I have just returned from Moscow, so let me quote Moscow’s NTV when recording one of the big and popular programs, lest anyone accuse me of serving my own narrow nationalistic interests. They say the Ukrainian leadership is prepared to sacrifice all the interests of its country. Those participating in the televised debate described this attitude as “disgusting villainy.” In this particular case I absolutely agree with our Russian colleagues. As to what happened during the last meeting between Kuchma and Putin, I regard it as a phenomenon that can be qualified using the Criminal Code: high treason, specifically betraying the national interest and inflicting tremendous financial damage on one’s country, depriving it of its economic independence.
O. K.: You have mentioned betraying the national interest; please explain, how did the president betray Ukraine’s national interests?
T. C.: Take that agreement on a single Ukrainian-Russian energy system, allowing Russia to control the energy systems of Ukraine, along with three [other] energy systems; going back, how is one to regard the privatization of the Zaporizhzhia Aluminum Combine when, instead of a perfectly normal domestic investor willing to spend $100 million, the controlling interest went to a Russian enterprise for a 60-million investment? A $40 million treason! And it’s only one of countless such cases.
Volodymyr MALINKOVYCH: I don’t think it’s worth discussing problems concerning Russo-Ukrainian relations, and I would like to broach the subject of the forum (National Salvation Forum — Ed. ). Many of its demands are quite understandable. I also think that there is no democratic system in Ukraine, that the situation with the freedom of expression is bad, as are the relationships between the president and parliament. All this should be changed, and this is what we should talk about today.
However, there is one thing I don’t understand. Why was Yuliya Tymoshenko side by side with Taras Chornovil, a respected figure representing Rukh, a movement held in such esteem in Ukraine? Also, why does the forum make Mrs. Tymoshenko’s release from prison a compulsory clause in starting negotiations with anyone, specifically those in power? I saw Taras Chornovil on Khreshchatyk. He was pasting a leaflet [to the fence] with a motto quoting his father: “Thieves should be in prison!” Indeed, this is their place, all the more so with our corruption. I don’t believe that Taras Chornovil can seriously regard Yuliya Tymoshenko as another Joan of Arc or some other immaculate virgin. I know that Taras’s father more than once called Lazarenko a thief and also often addressed words to Yuliya Tymoshenko that could not be described as compliments. Can we make the destiny of society and people dependent on whether or not Yuliya Tymoshenko stands trial?
O. K.: I would like Larysa Ivshyna to be the next to speak, since she is a journalist and has met more than once with various people, as her newspaper gives room for both opponents and exponents of some political orientations or others. Ms. Ivshyna, what conclusions do you draw?
Larysa IVSHYNA : My conclusion is very sad. Ukraine has reached a critical point — thanks to the opposition as much as the regime — where rules and criteria materialize, which we all should examine very carefully. All this might be swept under a tidal wave of falsehood, no less immoral than that coming from the authorities. I am very aggrieved to realize that in recent years we have not received a new generation of reasonable politicians capable of acting as clever, interesting arbiters in a dispute which at times makes one think of the First World War of Oligarchs, as you correctly put it, Ms. Kolomiychenko. Without doubt, there are objective factors aggravating the situation. The regime has ill used the resource of [the people’s] confidence it had at the outset, especially considering the time Leonid Kuchma has spent in office out of ten years [of Ukraine’s independence]. He is also personally responsible for this. However, I am personally alarmed by the kind of means and methods being used by the National Salvation Forum. I can see a lot of Bolshevism there, even though in different packaging; there are lots of slogans hurled at the public just to radicalize the people. You know, every time I hear about Ukraine being sold out I think that it would be a good idea to teach Ukrainians to earn money with their own hands, so they would not have to beg in the street, so that certain parties would not have to be gigolos, so that a normal movement could be worked out, adhering to the correct principles in terms of the economy, so they would not have to side with the Left, those farther left than the Left or totally unprincipled people, so we could find a way to somehow change the economic situation for the better. When we say that the Russians will come and buy everything we have, it’s not as bad as it sounds if by everything we mean civilized capital, the more so that often nobody else wants to buy it. On the other hand, why do we call for ousting all those we brand as oligarchs? Why don’t we call for millions of private owners to compete with those oligarchs? Where is the required legal framework? Who will take care of this? Those who refuse to recognize any ideology and are happy that we are all thrown in the same boat? I think that it means lowering our political living standards, even compared to what we had at the beginning.
As for the much-advertised problem of the freedom of expression, yes, the situation leaves much to be desired. However, I think the main problem is that we have more freedom of speech than we have earned; it is not convertible in the sense that people do not have enough to pay for truthful, unbiased information.
O. K.: Mr. Chornovil, you described the Putin-Kuchma summit as a betrayal of the Ukrainian interests. Let me quote from Andrei Illarionov’s (Vladimir Putin’s economic adviser — Ed. ) February 12 interview in Novaya gazeta, Moscow’s perfectly liberal and respected newspaper. He is quite enthusiastic about Ukraine’s chances and some of its attainments of late. And he believes that the accords reached by the presidents could result in Russia being undersupplied, and that Russia, as a supplier of raw materials, is prepared to share them with Ukraine. The agreement signed has nothing to the effect that something Ukrainian will be sold to Russia. Russia will supply electricity, something Ukraine needs badly, so where do you see an act of treason?
T. C.: Let me tell you that there are quite a few other realities. First, it is Ukraine’s idee fixe of having only one energy supply option, although I personally believe that the problem can be solved very simply. I am far from accusing Russia of doing anything wrong to Ukraine, not now at any rate. Ukraine is as dependent on Russia as the Ukrainian leadership wants it to be. The problem is not Putin or his administration, the problem lies in the Little Russia concept, the servile mentality of the Ukrainian leadership, of those at the highest echelons of power. If we approach economic reality considering each of the points mentioned one by one we will have ample evidence.
O. K.: Mr. Chornovil, I would like to remind you of what Volodymyr Malinkovych said. Do you personally consider morally correct to use oligarchic money — in this case Yuliya Tymoshenko’s — to supply the current opposition’s needs and objectives?
T. C.: You know, I am in the epicenter of all the opposition actions, and I can assure that I haven’t found any of Yuliya Tymoshenko’s money there. At least if there was any perhaps the opposition would act more purposefully and with greater confidence. I agree on many points with what Volodymyr Malinkovych had to say, but let me ask you this: Was Yuliya Tymoshenko arrested as a businesswoman that had once done all those bad things like corruption and gross embezzlement? Or as a Vice Premier that had started hunting down all those oligarchs, blocking the outflow of Ukraine’s capital (they are now after the Donbas coal mines, the nation’s sanctum sanctorum), or as an opposition leader fired from the government?
O. K.: Ms. Ivshyna, what about a dialogue between the regime and opposition? Or maybe the time has been lost?
L. I.: Actually, we said at the outset that a dialogue is all we need. Of course, the regime is getting late and it would stand a better chance if it had come out with a dialogue initiative a bit earlier. However, I think that it must arrive at certain conclusions concerning the possibility of such a dialogue, also on the part of the opposition. It is high time we revised our approaches. First, the national interests must come first for both the regime and for the opposition. Taras said it was our internal affair; he is absolutely right, except that one must remember that when Putin arrived our local Cossacks were ready to kiss his shoes to convince him not to meet with Kuchma. I think this humiliates Ukraine. What has Putin to do with all this? Why do we forget that we wanted independence and to be masters of our own house? Second, a dialogue takes professionals, bright people. We must see that good cadres are raised in the opposition, people who will later claim the highest political posts, not by shouting, because opposition is not a bar braw,l but an ability to offer an alternative way of thinking and a better quality way of doing things, a moral one that society will trust. In such a case they will be applauded not by an ecstatic crowd but by completely sober citizens.
