There is a lively and rather odd debate going on in this country about lustration, the political cleansing of former officials. Perhaps the point lies in the literal interpretation of a link between the Orange Revolution and the Velvet Revolutions of the late 1980s in Europe and the Baltic countries. Maybe this is an indispensable act of justice and purification. Or is the lustration debate just an element or instrument of competition in politics, business, and the media? The various shadings of opinion and arguments of many advocates of lustration suggest that in the 14th year of independence we may have learned this buzzword too late. The most debatable issue is, of course, the point of departure, the criteria, and the process of lustration. Who should be lustrated? Those who worked with Leonid Kuchma? And what about those people who supported Kuchma in the 1999 election and then switched sides? (This especially applies to the media, which at the time were allowed to mention only Petro Symonenko and Natalia Vitrenko as oppositionists.) If the canons of lustration were to be followed literally, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian politicians, journalists, and business people would have to be lustrated one way or another. It will obviously be far easier to follow the Criminal Code and let the prosecution and courts look into concrete facts and deeds.
Who in Ukraine has the moral right to talk about lustration, to discuss whether it is really necessary, and to wonder about what lies behind all these polemics? We addressed this question to experts who, unlike the fervent advocates and rabid opponents of lustration, can hardly be suspected of being an interested party in this matter.
Semen HLUZMAN, human rights champion, dissident:
“Everybody has the right to talk about this, because we have freedom of speech. That’s fine. I see the point when journalists talk about lustration — they need to ask a question that is as thorny as possible and get the most interesting answer possible. I see the point when fools and rascals do. But I am surprised when clever people seriously discuss lustration. The point is that lustration is a specific juridical term. For example, embezzlers or people who committed other crimes under the previous president are subject to the relevant clauses of Ukraine’s Criminal Code and the principle of inevitable punishment. If we prosecute those who are guilty, what does that have to do with lustration? Lustration could have been a topic for debate when Ukraine won independence, but now it is too late: 14 years have passed. It is usually secret agents who are lustrated. When a regime falls, informers are the first to rush to destroy documents. If a person held an office and abused it, s/he must be dismissed and taken to court, but this has nothing to so with lustration.”
Hennadi KNYSHOV, director, Amosov Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery; full member, Ukrainian Academy of Medical Sciences:
“I consider any kind of persecution, witch-hunt, and even the very question of lustration inadmissible. Everything that occurred is part of our history. Democracy is not anarchy but legislation, which means that all citizens have equal rights, no matter what office they occupied. If an individual obeyed the law, s/he has the right to live without fear; if s/he flouted the law, prosecutors must gather evidence and take legal action. But nobody may be punished for personal insults and political views. Criticism is a very nice springboard for a political career, so if people raise the question of lustration, they want to take the vacated place. Furthermore, some of them actively supported an entirely different side a few months earlier.”
Vadym KARASIOV, director, Institute of Global Strategies:
“In Ukraine’s case, lustration is 13-15 years too late. A serious or, to be more exact, substantial debate on this matter should have been held right after the collapse of the Communist system. However, given our domestic political system, this practice would have hardly been successful at the time, especially if we had copied the experience of Eastern European and Baltic states. In those countries, the cleansing of officials rested on the presumption of guilt on the part of the local Communist regimes, which the populace considered as stooges of foreign occupiers. This is why it was quite easy to prove their viciousness, sometimes by means of dubious judicial methods. Moreover, there was no danger of a societal split according to elites in connection with a small number of functionaries who had tarnished themselves. Besides, the nucleus of a professional bureaucratic apparatus was left intact.
“In addition, the mechanism of lustration as such was rarely brought into full play. For instance, Poland applied a ‘softer’ method of changing the bureaucratic machinery by holding roundtable discussions. ‘Purges’ were selective and primarily carried out in the ranks of top-ranking functionaries, who had tarnished their reputations by collaborating with the Soviet secret services.
“The situation in Ukraine was qualitatively different in the first decade of independence. First of all, our ‘oligarchic democracy’ cannot be called a totalitarian regime. The electoral mechanism did work, albeit not without hitches; the judicial system was relatively independent, etc. — i.e., there was a ‘facade of democracy.’ The ‘Communist past’ caused not so much surprise or indignation as awareness of the fact that no career had been possible without party membership.
“Given the circumstances that have emerged in this country over the past six months, including post-election tension in the regions and the peaceful nature of the Orange Revolution, it seems doubtful that lustration could serve its primary purpose of cementing the elites and triggering a positive rotation of the bureaucratic corps.
“On the other hand, this could really benefit a narrow circle of elites who are interested, as their predecessors were, in absolute control over the government apparatus and monopolized political clout.
Yet there is a not-so-simple moral and ethical point: in the days of the Orange Revolution many civil servants, especially in the middle ranks, supported Yushchenko either overtly or covertly. What about them?
“There is a large group of radicals who eventually want to rule ‘in the name of the revolution,’ which was not supported by all strata of society. But no democratic revolution is worth anything unless it can halt in good time.”
Andriy YERMOLAYEV, director, Sophia Center for Social Research:
“To start with, I’d like to stress that there is no legal mechanism of lustration as such. The advocates of this practice have posited the question exclusively in the political plane, instead of making an effort to lay the proper legislative groundwork. The very fact that this issue is being hyped shows that Yushchenko’s team is trying to resort to rather dubious methods in deciding which representatives of the old bureaucratic guard can retain their places in the new government. These matters, however, require extreme caution and a balanced approach because, if the degree of honesty and transparency at the time that someone held an office is to be the main criterion, most of the members of President Yushchenko’s team will automatically come under fire. All that can ‘whiten’ them is the extent of their personal contribution to the election campaign. Besides, it would be totally wrong to suggest that severe punishment should be meted out to everyone who had something to do with the old government (often in the line of duty). The term ‘public enemy’ is not applicable to them. It would be wiser to formulate clear-cut ‘criteria of guilt,’ such as, for example, direct involvement in vote rigging.
“In all probability, it is the traditionally populist politicians from the radical wing of the People’s Power coalition, including the supporters of Yuliya Tymoshenko, who will be pressing for lustration because this will be a kind of self-vindication for them. So far it is difficult to predict the outcome of this situation. Here I would like to quote a character from the film Chasing Two Hares, who said that the situation will be ‘many-colored,’ without radical deviations toward one side or the other.”
Volodymyr FESENKO, Penta Center for Applied Political Research:
“In the conditions of a free democratic society, every individual has the right to speak on any subject allowable by law. On the other hand, the new government can now raise the question of lustration to emphasize the necessity of a watershed between the old and new leaderships, between the old and new regimes. Formally, the new government has the right to do this. But, in my opinion, it will be extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible, to draw a clear dividing line because there are no clear-cut criteria. For example, what position will be taken vis-З-vis the people’s deputies during lustration? Vis-З-vis Volkov, who is now one of the closest allies of the Tymoshenko family? What about, say, the sylovyky ministers of defense, internal affairs, or security, including Smieshko? What about the old-guard parliamentarians and politicians who switched sides last December?
“Who stands to gain from these polemics? At the moment, they reflect the revolutionary romanticism and maximalist spirit of the new government and its followers. On the other hand, this is a pretext for everyone to engage in political intrigues, including the representatives of the new government. They are taking advantage of this issue in order to wage a struggle both against their potential and professional rivals in the current governmental apparatus as well as against their allies/competitors, who will be selected for the new state apparatus.”
Kostiantyn MATVIYENKO, Gardarika Corporation
“Any individual can speak about lustration. Everybody knows that the election campaign was hard and brutal and that in all the previous years this country’s government served itself, not society. So the public has accumulated a lot of grievances against the government in general and individual officials in particular. This is why any individual is entitled to claim that a certain official should not be re-appointed by the new authorities. What does the term ‘lustration’ mean? It means purification. In our interpretation, this means a ban on holding executive offices in administrative bodies. For example, the Kyiv City Council has again done Ukrainian society an invaluable favor by offering the new government a list of names of everyone who was involved in the misappropriation of land in Pushcha-Vodytsia [a Kyiv suburb], i.e., 2,000 bureaucrats and politicians on the national and municipal levels, who should be the first to be lustrated.
“For some, lustration may be a way to settle scores. For others, though, it is a desire to really improve the quality of government. (I hope Viktor Yushchenko belongs to the latter category.)”
Yuriy MAKAROV, television journalist, 1+1 studios:
“I do not know anyone with moral authority in this country who would be bold enough to issue evaluations and pass judgments. Even if such moral authorities could be found, in my view they would be the least inclined to give out marks and pass judgments. For the wiser a person is, the more s/he is aware that most people’s lives consist of a series of compromises. So, if these compromises do not contravene the Criminal Code, the only judge is God, and the individual in question. I am answerable to God, if I am a believer, and to myself. Everything else is simply a not very successful attempt to change the ‘landscape’ and the composition of decision-making bodies. Likewise, there are no institutions that could shoulder the responsibility for passing judgments. The church? That would be strange, after the way the church behaved during the latest elections. The press? Do we not know how the press behaved? In other words, lustration is either an instrument for settling scores, which is rather funny and indecent, or an instrument for demonstrating one’s loyalty to the new political leadership of Ukraine.”
Ihor FISUN, chairman, Democratic and Dynamic Youth, Kharkiv:
“Local activists, especially regional election campaign managers, must never be given the right to lustrate because it will boil down to settling personal scores. Since this process requires a systemic approach, decisions should be made by professionals. There are so many bureaucrats now who have changed their ‘color’ and convictions that only serious, unbiased experts can clear this ‘logjam.’ There are political and technical positions. For example, the head of a computerization department naturally has no impact on the policy of a governmental body, so it is wrong to say that all the members of the previous administrative team should be replaced. If lustration can’t be avoided, it should be applied to regional administration heads and their deputies. It can also be applied to some department chiefs who are, for instance, in charge of liaison with political parties and civic organizations and, hence, greatly influence regional politics. It would be irresponsible to sweep everything away without exception. We must remember that we are dealing with human beings who support their families, not just bureaucrats. Ukraine is not only Kyiv: that became clear when representatives from every region came to the capital to defend their rights. We have to seriously address this problem and try not to repeat past mistakes, when a new government would crack down on all civil servants, without determining who was right or wrong.”
Petro VOLVACH, full member, Ukrainian Ecological Academy, Crimea:
“Lustration is purification; it is an indispensable step for a society to successfully switch from totalitarianism to democracy. As history shows, societies that have gone through lustration develop more successfully and faster in all spheres — the economy, culture, etc. Had Ukrainian society gone through lustration back in 1991- although that was hardly possible, given the deep social crisis in which we found ourselves as a result of Communist rule-Ukraine would be an entirely different state today, integrated into all international structures. But ‘we have what we have,’ and Ukraine still needs lustration because I believe that we had a neo-totalitarian society during the years of independence, and the old regime committed a lot of punishable offenses.
“No one may be forbidden to talk about lustration, but the ongoing debate between the advocates and opponents of lustration shows that it is going to be a difficult and contradictory process. Firstly, it is highly unlikely that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will be able to pass a wide-ranging and perfect law on lustration because this matter should not be rushed — the entire global experience should be studied. Secondly, lustration must be carried out with clean hands and a good heart. What matters is not so much punishment as public condemnation and making it impossible for people to commit further crimes or cause society any harm. Understandably, the opponents of lustration are calling this process a ‘witch-hunt’ because they want to retain their cushy jobs. These ‘witches’ hope to get a chance to take revenge later and conduct an ‘anti-witch-hunt.’ So I think that, on the one hand, we should disregard this demagogy and conduct lustration in keeping with international standards and on the other, we must avoid punishments for convictions because the latter form the basis of democracy. In other words, lustration should be applied not to those who worked and voted for the failed presidential candidate, not to those who think differently from us, but to those who committed real, prosecutable crimes in the conditions and with the support of the totalitarian system.”
Oleksiy MATSUKA, political scientist, Donetsk:
“What Ukraine needs is not lustration but staff rotation, which will bring in an absolutely new generation of politicians and executives. Historical experience shows that lustration can degenerate into a witch-hunt. Therefore, we must take an open and democratic approach to staff rotation. But it is rather difficult to establish such criteria in the current conditions. The following examples point to this difficulty. Yanukovych’s supporters in Lviv were publicly castigated (church walls were plastered with lists of people who voted for Yanukovych), while Yushchenko’s supporters in Donetsk were hounded (a schoolgirl told her teacher that her parents were voting for Yushchenko. This resulted in the girl’s hazing by her schoolmates).
“Before resorting to castigation and intimidation, the new government should introduce courses on ‘Nationalism,’ ‘Patriotism,’ ‘The National Flag of Ukraine,’ into public school and college curricula, thereby taking on the function of an active agent of socialization. Under President Kuchma the function of agent was passive and practically undeveloped. May I remind you of something Mr. Kuchma said: ‘The national idea has failed to work in Ukraine.’ Making a link between political culture, active socialization, and perception of democratic values (on condition that the totalitarian and authoritarian mode of thinking is dropped), is the guarantee of fair and transparent lustration.”
Anatoliy HALCHYNSKY, director, National Institute of Strategic Studies:
“I would like to proceed from the fact that Ukraine does not have a surplus of highly-skilled specialists. Everyone, including those who worked in governmental bodies, should be valued. In my opinion, it is undemocratic to stage any kind of ideological purges. As for business structures, one must understand that our business was forming in conditions when the state was still being renewed, and it could develop in no other way than through an organic growth of bureaucracy and business, and on top of it, under conditions of a legal vacuum, and absence of a civil society and a system of political checks and balances. Now is the time to correct this situation and resolve these problems. I repeat: I know about our human resources potential. The Ukrainian political and economic elites are still in the making. Our professional resources are in many respects inferior to those of Russia, although we say that we’ve done a lot in this field. I think we should take an extremely cautious approach to people who have no links to criminals and did not pursue anti-statist policies.”
