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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2004Our Life and Timesby Kevin A. Barry Ukraine uprisingThe November-December uprising surpassed anything seen in Ukraine since the 1920s. The Nov. 21 elections were blatantly rigged by the regime of Leonid Kuchma, who has not hesitated in the past to assassinate his critics. The regime has drawn its support from a new and corrupt business oligarchy, from remnants of the old totalitarian apparatus, and from the neo-Stalinist Russian regime of Vladimir Putin. As with his friend Bush’s Iraq war, Putin over-reached by interfering in Ukraine’s elections to back pro-Kuchma candidate Viktor Yanukovich. This has given the democratic movement a nationalist coloration. If it succeeds in bringing to power Viktor Yuschenko, the true winner, this would humiliate Putin, and perhaps undermine his power at home. Beginning the night of Nov. 21, when the fraudulent results were announced, tens and then hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, most of them youth, took over the center of Kiev. They have camped out day and night ever since to support Yuschenko and more broadly, a democratic regime. The student organization Pora (It Is Time!) has given the camp a meticulous organization, complete with tents, food and medicine, and barricades, all within a framework of disciplined nonviolence. Pora models itself on Otpor, which helped organize the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, and on Kmara, which played a similar role in Georgia last year. As in those countries, it is at most a political, not a social revolution that is on the agenda, since the democratic movement in no way opposes the capitalist order. This is why these movements have received funding from Western foundations. As in most peoples’ movements of this sort, winning over the rank and file of the repressive apparatus has been a key element in the struggle. The movement quieted club-wielding goons sent to menace the demonstrators through dialogue. When pro-democracy youth marched on the presidential palace, they found three tanks blocking the way. Yulia Timoschenko, the democratic movement’s most forceful orator, jumped onto a tank and led the crowd in a chant of "Soldiers, join us!" The tanks parted and a delegation marched straight into the palace to tell Kuchma his time was up. Kuchma and Putin have tried every trick to derail the movement, including threats to organize an irredentist movement among Russian-speakers in industrialized eastern Ukraine. All of these efforts have fizzled or backfired. People are losing their fear. TV reporters, led by a sign interpreter who protested the fraud on Nov. 21, have forced government TV to cease its totally one-sided coverage. During their hour of need, the Ukrainian people have found their staunchest allies in Poland. A demonstration was held in Warsaw, and Lech Walesa visited Ukraine to show his solidarity. The European Union has come out strongly against any attempt to crush the movement. Bush has shown his true colors by tepidly supporting democracy, all the while stressing that he does not want to offend Putin, a key ally in the "war on terror," or Kuchma, who has sent 1,600 troops to Iraq. Yuschenko has promised to withdraw those troops. |
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