We learned on September 1 that two more law-enforcement officers who had been wounded during a protest rally outside the Verkhovna Rada building on August 31 had succumbed to their injuries. Overall, three National Guardsmen died near the parliament building. Three deaths and dozens of injuries suffered in a peaceful city while on police duty is more than a tragedy; this extraordinarily alarming event must force Ukrainians into urgently strengthening the defense of our “second front.” I mean the home front, which runs through peaceful urban areas, the corridors of power, squares and streets, TV waves and the press. We must, after all, clearly answer the question: what distinguishes constructive resistance from a destructive rebellion?
At the very end of August, shellings of our positions in eastern Ukraine calmed down significantly. This lull in the militants’ activity after a rather long series of powerful attacks coincided with the Verkhovna Rada vote on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. Immediately after the vote, the militants declared the changes offered by the Ukrainian side to be insufficient. Such messages on the part of the terrorists’ are nothing new and nothing strange. The bandits meet every concession of ours with demonstrative dissatisfaction. This is typical behavior of an aggressor. On the other hand, Ukraine has committed itself to making these amendments to the Constitution, although the Verkhovna Rada itself never ratified the Minsk Accords, and therefore any formal commitments are very tentative and exist in this case only when looking at it from the diplomatic standpoint.
Therefore, we are in a Zugzwang situation, when every move of our side at best delays the crisis, and at worst only harms us. This has long applied to foreign policy, and lately to the domestic situation as well. We cannot refuse to take part in the Minsk process because it has gone too far already, and cannot withdraw from negotiations lest it harm our relations with the international community. We also cannot fail to pass the amendments to the Constitution, because a failure will be interpreted as the breaking off of the negotiations as well. At the same time, by passing these amendments to the Basic Law, which deal not only with decentralization, but also “the special regime of the local government in some areas of the Donbas,” the government can create new problems for the state in the future. The least that Ukraine and our international partners should demand now is the Kremlin’s compliance with its obligations under the Minsk Accords. This should be two-way, not one-way traffic.
In this difficult situation, the only thing going for us was absence of a stab in the back that would induce the process of destabilization. A political party that lost in the latest legislative election took it upon itself to strike that blow. The grenade in the hands of an excited young man crowned a chain of provocative actions committed outside the Verkhovna Rada building on August 31, and in fact diverted the attention from what was happening in the legislature itself. The All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda monopolized through its representatives the protest against amendments to the Constitution, turning an expression of discontent with the MPs’ vote into a bloody show. On the other hand, neither protest nor criticism of constitutional amendments had any impact on the vote held in the parliament. Blockade of the speaker’s rostrum and screams at the podium turned out to be PR actions of MPs perfunctorily opposing the bill. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with a number of parallel realities that do not overlap, and therefore cannot bring a qualitative boost to the nation’s development.
COMMENTARY
Viktoria PODHORNA, political scientist:
“Our NGO ‘Constitutional Convention’ set up a platform outside the Verkhovna Rada building on August 31. We did it to enable the public, as opposed to politicians, to have a voice. For example, Levko Lukianenko took part in our event. People spoke and recited poetry. However, Svoboda drove us out and beat up our colleague Hennadii Druzenko. Svoboda sought to dominate all three platforms, both political ones and ours as well. Frankly, we had a shock. Their young supporters shouted ‘Shame!’ and even attacked those present at our platform. One 60-year-old woman came to me and complained that they had poured some kitchen oil on her. It seems that Svoboda was armed with homemade incendiary mixtures. That is, the party’s representatives were aggressive not only towards law-enforcement officers, but other participants in the rally as well. Svoboda militants with insignia of Sokil militia strongly dominated the scene. For example, I did not notice any unusual activity on the part of UKROP members, as they made a few speeches and left before the fight even started. Svoboda acted extremely aggressively throughout this event. Even the Right Sector, which is generally considered the most radical force, acted more constructively in fact. The speeches offered by members of Svoboda’s political council on stage were full of pure nationalism, and I do not know to what extent their unusual point of view furthers the interests of Ukraine.
“However, the event held outside the Verkhovna Rada building correlated closely with what happened in the legislature itself. We saw a tough and aggressive attempt to force certain decisions through the parliament as well. The government’s reluctance to listen to the public even after the Euromaidan events when it became politically active is a disturbing sign. The government limited itself to holding consultations with selected experts in decentralization and decided that it was enough. The president met with representatives of the expert community on August 26 and it was actually they who gave him a carte blanche to carry out constitutional changes.
“I believe that the content of the law cannot compensate for deficiencies of the lawmaking process, because the political wisdom is that if a law or a constitutional act did not have the public involved with its creation, it was not a normal political process, whatever the law’s own advantages. This is not a democracy because such laws will be unenforceable. One cannot put a hat on a man against his will. Our politicians do not understand that the process is no less important than the law’s wording. Experts, unfortunately, do not understand it either. I cannot see decentralization as a positive if the government powers are transferred to a lower level, to the level of communities, without taking into account the views of most of these communities themselves. This is absurd. Meanwhile, the parliament vote was a product of a broad coalition, for most votes came from the two governing parties’ factions and the Opposition Bloc. This suggests some very nasty things. I do not agree with Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party at all, it is a populist political force, I do not like many of Yulia Tymoshenko’s actions either, but they would never support a position that had not been discussed with the public first. The government justifies its actions by the fact that the EU demands amendments to the Constitution to be made, and states that such amendments are primarily related to foreign policy considerations, but we must understand that defending the national interests without compromising on fundamental points is always difficult. Our leaders do not understand one simple thing: when one addresses the public and attracts a wide civic support, no Western politicians will then object to their actions. The popular opinion will be a strong argument in the international context as well, for the West will then see that the government actions are based not on their own opinions or narrow interests of the elite circles, but on the opinion of the Ukrainian citizenry.
“The government’s reluctance to cooperate with the public on such key issues as constitution, decentralization, war and peace, the territorial structure of the state generates a very negative background. The government demonstrates that it is not ready for such a dialog. It will not end well. Sociologists confirm that the public understands it perfectly. People realize that they are not heard. Overall 72 percent of people believe that Ukraine is on the wrong track. For better understanding of this figure’s meaning, it stood at 67 percent at the start of the Euromaidan. This is a very dangerous situation and it will explode bringing even more destruction if political elites and leadership of Ukraine continue to ignore the public. Radical forces will use it as well. Of course, we must combat radicalism, but this fight will not be perceived by the public as righteous if it does not feel that the government appeals to the people, requests its opinions. An attempt at screw-tightening will look then as another go at building an authoritarian regime. For negating radicalism’s impact, the government must rely primarily on the general public. Otherwise, radical movements will only attract additional waves of supporters. These processes are already taking revolutionary character. Unless right conclusions are drawn in time, we can get into a situation similar to that of October 1917 in Russia.”
