Kuchmagate, Two Years On

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Chanting "Away with Kuchma!" some 15,000 protesters marched through the centers of Kiev and other Ukrainian cities last week. The protest is believed to be the largest such demonstration since Ukraine gained its independence 11 years ago.

The protests — which marked the second anniversary of the disappearance of independent Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze — were directed against Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Gongadze's headless body was found in late November 2000. The president was implicated in the murder after a former bodyguard released tapes containing incriminating conversations that allegedly took place in the president's office.

The 16 September protests united representatives from radically opposed political backgrounds: ultra-left communists, socialists, the centrist Our Ukraine bloc headed by former prime Minister Victor Yuschenko, the Yulia Timoshenko bloc, and the ultra-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The unity was welcomed among the parties involved in the action. "It does not make any difference which hand hits Kuchma in the face," Serhiy Holovaty of the Yulia Timoshenko bloc told the Russian newspaper Gazeta. Oleksandr Moroz from the Socialist Party agreed, adding, "The only difference is whether you are left- or right-handed." Yulia Timoshenko, apparently seeking a knockout punch, concluded, "The best would be to [hit Kuchma] with both hands."

Demonstrators signed a resolution demanding Kuchma's resignation or early presidential elections. That contest is currently set for 2004. The Kiev group later marched to the president's office to give the resolution to Kuchma's administration. The president himself was attending the European Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum in Austria from 15 to 17 September.

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Volunteers erected approximately 150 large tents in front of the president's office and in the Lypky district of Kiev. Protest leaders said that the tents — which can sleep approximately 10 people each — would remain in place until Kuchma steps down. The tents blocked traffic throughout the night in some parts of Kiev.

By early morning, however, police had destroyed the camps and arrested more than 60 people. Police said the protestors had not adhered to a 12 September Kiev court ruling that mandated that the planned demonstration be held outside of Kiev. Prosecutor-General Vyacheslav Piskun indicated that criminal cases had been opened against those who were arrested. "Nobody has a right to force the president to do anything," Piskun told Gazeta. "There can only be three reasons for the president's resignation: his own decision, death, or impeachment. All other methods are unlawful."

Speaking from the European Economic Summit, Kuchma told the Viennese daily Der Standart that "we're all learning democracy and the means of expressing our disagreement. If people take to the street and share their grievances, this is understandable. However, this is happening during a time of economic growth and increase in salaries and pensions." Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh meanwhile assured journalists that there was "no revolutionary situation in the state." He appealed to Ukrainians to "get out of their permanent state of fighting and work instead at bringing up children, communicating with friends and nature, and developing themselves."

In what opposition activists are calling a related development, all of the major Ukrainian television channels — state-owned UT-1 and UT-2 as well as privately held Inter, 1+1, and ICTV — were switched off on the morning of the demonstrations. The manager of the Kiev Regional Broadcasting Center, Valerian Dorenko, said that the shutdown was part of planned protective technical measures that had been scheduled last November and was not related to the protests.

*This article was edited and adapted from Transitions Online. A longer version is available at: www.tol.cz

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