From an Email on Moroz, the Left, Lutsenko, Ty and Ljubi Druzi

Trust me that I understand 100% the predicament of a disaffected Leftist--plenty about the Left in the US and the West in general is far from satisfactory, and the history of Western European social democrats (stooges of colonialism) and communists (stooges of the USSR) leaves much to be desired. The only respectable ones have been fringes of the fringe, such as the autonomia in Italy, etc. When it comes to Ukraine, well. . .Oleskandr Moroz and the rest of the Socialists who went with him just obliterated my hope that there was emerging a mainstream, left-wing party in Ukraine worthy of respect and support--and I think some long-time observers of Ukraine might consider me foolish to have even considered this Moroz-led Socialist Party as having such potential. Also, Yuri Lutsenko, now a former member of the Socialist Party, is troubling me. Quick background: Lutsenko was an OR leader-turned-pretty-good-Minister of the Interior (by Ukrainian standards) who was brought into government by Ty, and who was left in his position when Yu fired Ty. Which Yu did, if I may digress, like a little boy fighting with a little girl on a playground because the little girl had "bigger balls" than the little boy, who then felt he had to prove that he was more powerful just by virtue of having balls that he nonetheless didn't know how to use effectively. This is a crude way to put it, of course, but. . .I suggested, at about this time last year, that many "analysts" of Ukraine were producing post-lapsarian narratives in which Ty was the Eve in the Garden of the Orange Revolution. To my mind, her treatment by Yu and the Our Ukraine good ol' boys since her sacking vindicate the observation--for Yu i joho ljubi druzi, Ty has been something of an Eve they have been desperate to keep out of their garden.

Btw, the above statements are based on some recent observations of real playground dynamics. In our neighborhood park, Julija and I often encounter Nastja, one tough little 5 yr old girl who is always doing, and proudly saying that she can do, whatever the boys do. Yesterday she asked her grandmother for her cane because one of the boys in the playground had hit her and taken something from her; babushka smiled as she let Nastja run off with the cane and proceeded to chase the boy all over the playground! Later, recalling the event to my Julija's mama, I thought out-loud that Ty should have been given such a stick in the Ukrainian playground. Ty's trouble, however, was that she had Yu to look to for assistance instead of the backing of granny-grandaughter solidarity. I hope that my Julija grows to be a bit like Nastja, and that she takes on some of the fighting spirit with which her namesake is karmically endowed. But I do digress.

My trouble with Yuri Lutsenko is that he pledged he would not, under any circumstance, work in a Ya cabinet but has now decided to stay in his post with Ya as his boss. Perhaps his mouth ran ahead of his mind a few times (he made this claim more than once), but in the context of Ukraine's politics, this does not look good--he looks like all the rest of the bad politicians who do things for power rather than principle and who therefore consistently make contradictory statements and acts. I do, however, appreciate that he resigned from the Socialist Party after Moroz's perfidy--I am now, btw, certain that Moroz is a svoloch. So no conclusions, yet, about Lutsenko: I will give him a chance. Is he being pragmatic, trying to have a positive impact? It is, indeed, very important that a pro-OR (i.e., a pro-democratization) person remain Interior Minister (to my mind it is already clear that the Regions have made no conversions). However, is it perhaps it is the fact because he, allegedly, was good at getting-nothing-much-done under Yu (if that is true) that makes him trustworthy to Ya [corrections inspired by comment]? The to my mind rather cynical Maksymiuk (cheif of RFE's Ukraine desk) suggested so in the article I posted earlier to my blog. So. . .is Lutsenko, or is Yu, responsible for the failure to bring a single high-profile case to court since the OR? Is Lutsenko a stonewalling Interior Minister, an outsider to the ideals of the OR who pretended to be an insider and who is secretly working for his own agenda, whatever that may be, a la Oleksandr Moroz? Or is he simply hungry to keep power after having gotten a taste of it? I don't know. I don't want to expect the worst of most or all Ukraine's politicians, but recent events pretty much demand that one should.

Come to think of it, I had a similar crisis of uncertainty when the semi-progressive Senator Paul Wellstone (from the state of Minnesota) declared that he would run for a second term. Wellstone had pledged he would not run for a second term while campaigning for his first; the pledge was part of his populist attack on "career politicians." I was happy when he said he was going to run again--I agreed with him that he was needed in the Senate as the most progressive senator in the time of the GW onslaught. So maybe Lutsenko is taking a similar position. I want to believe him. But I will have to let his further actions speak. (Wellstone, btw, in the context of the US Congress, was almost a Communist--or, um, that's what his detractors said, conditioned as they were by the fact that the US consensus is so far to the right that anyone with a left toe is a Communist, but now I preach to the choir. Two great books from which to derive talking points to counter the BS about a contemporary liberal, let alone left, bias/consensus in the US are this and this. The first book is excellent in its analysis of how, even in more domestically liberal times, the US consensus has usually been much to the Right of the European, continental consensus. The title of the second book has inspired me to ruminate on taking its title and rewriting its theme as What's the Matter with Donbas?--a book to explain the similar dynamic in Ukraine as in the US whereby people vote for and/or support politicians and businessmen who ultimately stand against the common interest.)

Good, Old-Fashioned Democracy?

from Kyiv Post

Many analysts have reacted positively to the confirmation of the new Yanukovich government, welcoming the end of over four months of political turmoil. But, when looking past the short-term goal of so-called “political stability” to Ukraine’s long-term development, the formation of the government causes a number of concerns.

On August 3, US State Department Spokesman Scott McCormack suggested, “”Mr. Yanukovych has come to the prime ministership in the old-fashioned, democratic way. He worked hard for votes, he campaigned, he politicked.” Yes – and no.

It is true that Yanukovich’s Party of Regions ran a superb Western-style political campaign, based on the advice of several US Republican Party strategists. The party placed first in the parliamentary election, with 32 percent of the vote. And, in the end, Yanukovich negotiated well with the president to secure his job.

But the formation of the coalition that allowed Yanukovich to be in that position had as much to do with the physical blockading of the parliamentary rostrum, and the reported providing of “incentives” to MPs, as with “politicking.”

Almost immediately after the former “Orange” parties announced their own majority coalition, which would have nominated former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Party of Regions began blocking parliament. They blocked work for 10 days, assisted by at least one non-MP “hired gun.” The unknown man was filmed physically defending the rostrum from those attempting to unblock it.

During that time, the Party of Regions was able to “convince” the Socialist Party, the smallest member of the “orange coalition,” to switch allegiances. The Socialists did so spectacularly during the election of the parliamentary speaker. The party provided no notice to its previous coalition partners, thus violating Ukraine’s parliamentary procedures.

Given the long history of bribery in Ukrainian politics, it was not surprising when a television camera captured Party of Regions deputy Andriy Kliuyev on the parliamentary floor making what appeared to be a gesture of counting money while speaking to the head of the Socialists (although the Socialists deny receiving money). It also was not surprising for journalists to overhear a deputy from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc ask Kliuyev sarcastically whether they could “get” a committee membership for three million dollars since they missed the chairmanships “for 10.”

There may be a reason why Kliuyev has been called the “money man” in Ukraine’s domestic press. But one thing is certain – those watching the parliamentary majority’s creation saw very little that resembled Western-style parliamentary politics.

The inclusion of certain individuals in the new cabinet does little to assuage concerns. Andriy Kliuyev was named Deputy Prime Minister for the Energy Sector. This is the same post Kliuyev held in the 2004 pre-revolution Yanukovich government. In fact, the new Yanukovich cabinet includes several individuals from that time, which is the period when the questionable gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo was formed.

RosUkrEnergo, which controls Ukraine’s gas contracts, has been severely criticized by Western officials for its lack of transparency. Charles Tannock, a British European Member of Parliament suggested that the use of RosUkrEnergo in gas agreements with Russia suggests “there is a possibility of political corruption.” He and other Western officials have urged Ukraine to remove RosUkrEnergo from all gas transactions.

Yulia Tymoshenko had vowed to do this. During her tenure as premier, the company was investigated by the Secret Service for money laundering. “It is a front company,” she charged, designed to enrich certain Ukrainian officials. After her dismissal, the probe was shelved. Now, the new cabinet can be seen as a sign of support for the intermediary.

Ukraine’s new Minister for Coal and Mining, Serhiy Tulub, served as Yanukovich’s Minister for Fuel and Energy in 2004, when RosUrkEnergo was formed. Even more, Yuriy Boyko, the former head of Ukraine’s state gas company Naftohaz in 2004, will now serve as Fuel and Energy Minister. Boyko sat on the original “coordinating council” of RosUkrEnergo. The international watchdog Global Witness questioned the “curious relationship” between RosUkrEnergo, Naftohaz and Boyko and asked who profited from it.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s new First Deputy Prime Minister will be Mykola Azarov, a man known during the Kuchma administration for his use of the tax police against the political opposition.

As head of the Tax Administration, Azarov is heard on the “Gongadze Tapes” – secret recordings of President Kuchma’s conversations in 2000. These tapes were authenticated by the United States FBI. Most individuals heard on the tapes, including then-Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, have said the conversations in question did take place. Kuchma and Azarov have not, but they seem to correspond with real events.

In one conversation, a man identified as Azarov discusses his attempt to pressure Boris Feldman, a wealthy banker and supporter of Yulia Tymoshenko. On the tapes, Kuchma is heard to tell Azarov, “Put him in a cell with convicts. Let them pound him.”

Three months later, Azarov explains that Feldman will go to prison. “We agreed with the Luhansk court …,” he says on the tape. “I have talked about adding a charge. We have discussed this with the judges there, whom we can manipulate.” Feldman spent three years in jail before another court threw out the charges.

Under Azarov’s direction, the tax administration also opened investigations into the work of the US-based organization Freedom House and the US-owned newspaper Eastern Economist. Many Ukrainian organizations critical of Kuchma also endured excruciating tax investigations during Azarov’s tenure.

Now, Azarov is the second most important man in the cabinet. Though it includes reformers, its overall make-up and the tactics used to form the coalition, should give pause to those worried about corruption or possible oppression. Any resurgence of RosUkrEnergo may concern Europeans focused on energy.

As usual, the country appears to be heading in two directions at once. Despite concerns for the future, Ukraine conducted a free and fair election. All politicians expressed their opinions throughout the coalition formation. Perhaps most important, this government, unlike Yanukovich’s first, will be actively monitored by a real opposition.

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc refused to participate in the government, suggesting that it could better serve Ukraine as a watchdog. Tymoshenko’s new inter-party opposition may include disaffected members of President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party, which officially joined Yanukovich’s government. The President has welcomed the creation of the opposition and pledged to protect it.

In fact, protecting the opposition should be one of the president’s most important goals, given possible questions about the new cabinet [just how effectively we can expect Yu to this, I wonder?]. Will this government truly be able to meet Western standards of democracy and transparency? Ukraine will need its opposition to ensure that they do.

The author, is a Senior Fellow at Boston University’s Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology & Policy.

RFE's Maksymiuk Says Ya's New Cabinet Favorably Distinguished from Those of Yekhanorov and Tymoshenko

Jan Maksymiuk comments. . .from RFE here.

WHO IS IN NEW CABINET? Ukraine's tortuous, four-month-long
process of forming a new government ended on August 4 with
the confirmation of Party of Regions leader Yanukovych as
new prime minister.
The Ukrainian parliament also endorsed a new Cabinet of
Ministers, in which the Party of Regions will control some
major portfolios concerning the country's economy.
 Yanukovych will have four deputies, as he had in the
cabinet he oversaw during his previous stint as prime minister
in 2002-04. Mykola Azarov will serve as both first deputy
prime minister and finance minister, as he did during
Yanukovych's first term. The three deputy prime ministers will
also take on additional roles. Andriy Klyuyev will be in
charge of the fuel and energy sector, Dmytro Tabachnyk will
oversee humanitarian and social issues, and Volodymyr Rybak
will head the Construction Ministry. Azarov and Klyuyev are
among Yanukovych's oldest and staunchest allies. Azarov is
generally seen as a technocrat. As head of the State Tax
Administration in 1996-2002, he was repeatedly accused by
the opposition of applying fiscal and tax pressure on
businesses linked to political opponents of former President
Leonid Kuchma.
 Klyuyev is a wealthy businessman with interests in the
machine-building sector who led Yanukovych's campaign team in
the 2004 presidential election. He was rumored to be the
main player behind the falsification of election results in
favor of Yanukovych, although those rumors have never been
confirmed by investigators.
 The Party of Regions' quota of ministerial posts also
includes Minister for Liaison with the Verkhovna Rada Ivan
Tkalenko, Labor Minister Mykhaylo Papiyev, Environment
Minister Vasyl Dzharty, Coal Industry Minister Serhiy Tulub,
Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko, Economy Minister
Volodymyr Makukha, and Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers
Anatoliy Tolstoukhov. Virtually all of the Party of Regions'
ministers have considerable experience in serving in senior
government posts [and what did they do as they gained
considerable experience?  What are they experienced and good
at doing?] This favorably distinguishes [huh?!]
Yanukovych's cabinet in comparison to that led by Yuliya
Tymoshenko in 2005. Her cabinet to a large extent consisted
of Orange Revolution personalities with little or no
experience in government [this seems right, but Ya's
experienced crooks are favorable?].
 It can be expected that the new Ukrainian cabinet should
easily be able to agree on a basic set of economic reforms,
which will be needed to continue the current positive trends
in the economy. After all, it was under Yanukovych's
premiership in 2004 that Ukraine posted impressive economic
growth of 12 percent. [What? One of Yu's major claims in 2004
was that it  was his premiership that set the stage of Ya's
goodluck.]  However, a disturbing feature of Yanukovych's
cabinet is that -- as in virtually all former Ukrainian
cabinets -- there is no clear separation between politics
and business. Many cabinet members have vested interests in
different business spheres. This could become a seed of future
conflicts in the uneasy "coalition of national unity," which
includes not only ministers from the largely oligarchic Our
Ukraine, but also from the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Party.
 In accordance with the constitution amended in 2004,
President Viktor Yushchenko nominated the foreign minister and
the defense minister, Borys Tarasyuk and Anatoliy Hrytsenko,
respectively. Both politicians are strongly supportive of
Ukraine's integration with Euro-Atlantic structures and were
delegated by Yushchenko to assure the public both at home and
abroad that Ukraine's pro-Western course will not undergo any
significant changes under Yanukovych's premiership.
Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a former Socialist Party
member who is now independent, is also seen as a Yushchenko
man in the government. Lutsenko, an iconic leader of the
Orange Revolution, is widely seen as an uncompromising
custodian of the "Augean Stables," to which Ukraine's
notoriously corrupt police force is sometimes compared.
In accepting his post, Lutsenko asserted that he sees the
possibility of implementing the president's policies in
Yanukovych's cabinet. However, most Ukrainians have apparently
not yet forgotten that he completely failed to implement a
major tenet of the Orange Revolution -- "bandits will go
to jail" -- in the preceding cabinets of Yuliya Tymoshenko
and Yuriy Yekhanurov. No major investigation by the Interior
Ministry into corruption or election falsification has
resulted in jail terms. It is hard to imagine that Lutsenko
will be more successful now that some of the "bandits" have
returned to the government.
[Did he fail or did the people he was working for fail?  
Is it his failure or failure of Yu's leadership?]
 Our Ukraine, which has yet to sign a formal coalition
accord with the three other parties in the cabinet, is
represented by Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, Family
and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko, Emergency Situations
Minister Viktor Baloha, Culture Minister Ihor Likhovyy,
and Health Minister Yuriy Polyachenko. Taking into account
that the Verkhovna Rada is headed by Oleksandr Moroz of the
Socialist Party and all deputy-prime-minister positions are
filled by people from the Party of Regions, it is clear
that the pro-presidential Our Ukraine has no major
post in the government. This is the price Our Ukraine had
to pay for its clumsy coalition negotiations following the
March 26 parliamentary elections and its protracted
hesitancy over whom it likes more [true] --Tymoshenko or
Yanukovych.
Our Ukraine supported Yanukovych for prime minister on
August 4 only half-heartedly: just 30 of the party's 80
lawmakers voted in Yanukovych's favor. It appears that the
cohabitation of Our Ukraine with the Party of Regions in the
ruling coalition -- irrespective of whether it will be
formalized or not -- will not be easy. There seems to be a
pervading mood of frustration and political failure among a
majority of Our Ukraine leaders and rank-and-file activists.
 The Socialist Party is represented in the new
cabinet by Education Minister Stanislav Nikolayenko and
Transport Minister Mykola Rudkovskyy. While Nikolayenko
is seen as a good specialist in education and his
reappointment was to be expected, Rudkovskyy's main
contribution to Ukraine's transportation system seems
to lie in his fondness for driving expensive cars and wearing
smart suits. The political affiliation of Agroindustrial
Complex Minister Yuriy Melnyk and Industrial Policy Minister
Anatoliy Holovko is not clear. Theoretically, they should
belong to the quota of the Communist Party, which brings 21
votes to the coalition. But Melnyk is known for his
anticommunist views and pronouncements. Some Ukrainian media
suggest that the Communists exchanged their cabinet
portfolios for an undisclosed sum, which was paid by some
unidentified sponsors.
On the whole, Yanukovych's cabinet seems to be more
carefully assorted in terms of professionalism [with a
bunch of professional crooks and liars, a justice minister
who is a liar and weasel, and other questionable fellows]
than those of Yekhanurov and Tymoshenko. But it is too
early to predict whether the new government will become
an immediate success or can contribute something substantial
to bridging the east-west divide in the country, as some
commentators expect.
 In actual fact, neither the 2004 Orange Revolution nor
the 2006 parliamentary elections have brought any
significant changing of the guard in Ukrainian politics.
Instead, it is the country's voters who seem to have
undergone an important transformation. They are now more
politically active and more inclined to judge their
political leaders by deeds rather than pledges. And if
the trend of Ukrainian voters keeping a watchful eye on
their government continues, their chances of seeing a
change in their political elite might improve.
(Jan Maksymiuk)

[He's also a bit too silent here on the new Energy 
Minister Yuri Boiko for my liking; see this and this]

New (to me) Ukraineblog

I just discovered and am enjoying this Ukraineblog.

Here is a sample:

Where does the government-opposition fault line lie? Is it in terms of issues, in terms of the election results, or in terms of fear of losing power? If NSNU’s joining the “anticrisis” coalition is about national unity, then why does it split the Orange Revolution — the very engine that brought NSNU to power? Two steps forward, three steps back. Welcome to the schizophrenic world of the Orange Counter-Revolution.

Anyway, the talks will resume Tuesday, August 1. This day will mark the 15th anniversary of the notorious “Chicken Kiev” address Bush Sr. delivered during his visit to the capital of then Soviet Ukraine. For those who vaguely remember it,listen to this: “Freedom is not the same as independence; Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism." Can anybody imagine that this piece Moscow-centric garbage that flies in the face of Wilsonianism actually came from the pen of Condi Rice?

Karmically speaking, the Universal exemplifies the worst of branding choices, considering how the UNR had fared. Why not call it the Universal of National Utopia? The UNR government, run by Socialists, had naively relied on the assumption that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not attack a socialist democracy.

Ukraine remains one of the few nations in the democratic universe where the opposition and the government can’t settle their identities. The Snoozes (NSNU) seem to be lost in the Peter Pan-like fantasy of squaring the circle, keeping the West while shacking up with the PRU. It’s this misguided dreaming, not the Regs’ (Regionalists) dominance itself, that makes this country vulnerable to outside influence.

From this post here.

Looks Like The Good Ol' Boys are Back

Remember when Interior Minister Bilokon boasted before the 2004 elections that the militsija would celebrate Ya's presidential victory with three days of drinking? Well, the good ol' boys are back; got this from abdymok:

asked by reporters on aug. 4 how yanukovych planned to celebrate his re-appointment as prime minister, party of regions spokesmen replied, “по-мужски” (in a manly way). asked what that meant, they elaborated: “нажраться, подраться и кого-нибуть выебать” (eat too much food, have a fist fight, and fuck someone).

Bob also reminded me of this:

further degrading the image of yanukovych [in the lead-up to the 2004 elections] as the “people’s choice,” was the assignment for police officers to guard each of the 6,000 billboards nationwide on which the prime minister’s campaign poster appears.

the reports stated that the measure was enacted in order to protect the posters – and the prime minister’s image – from vandals. heavy criticism of this maneuver later led to denials from the prime minister’s office that this was indeed the case.

In the late summer of 2004, either in August or September, I was on the same bus route from Lviv to Pidhajtsi (a 2 1/2 to 3 hr trip) that I had, by then, been on a # of times when I spotted a giant poster of Yanukovych placed in the center of each of the major Lvivska and Ternopilska oblast towns through which we passed--thus, in the towns of Peremyshljany, Berezhany, and then in Pidhajtsi, but also in a number of villages along the route. I was rather shocked, and thought to myself, "Well, those won't last long without being defaced." Once in Pidhajtsi, I learned that the two-story-tall poster of Ya in the center of town was being guarded at night by a policeman. And indeed it was. Parked right there every night in front of the poster was a car--not the usual, marked, car of the militsija, but a car nonetheless.

"Nu, Stefane, rozumijesh? Admin resource! (Well, Stefan, understand? Administrative resources!)," I was told.

It became a local tradition to walk past the poster giving it the finger or the sign of the thumb pressed between the index and middle fingers. People cursed at it, spit at it, shouted at it as they passed by. If Ya could only comprehend how ridiculous he looked, standing there in the center of a town of people who despised him.

Pidhajtsi county of the state of Ternopil had the highest votes for Yu as well as the highest voter participation in the 2004 elections in Ukraine. The Pidhajtsi region has a long and colorful history of fervent Ukrainian nationalism (all the pluses and minuses of that history). It was a hardcore OUN-UPA center. Nearly everyone in the Pidhajtsi region has relatives that were and/or who have continued to be active participants in the Ukrainian nationalist cause. In this context, that Ya poster guarded by a militsijoner or policeman could not have announced any more clearly the utter shamelessness and the Soviet mentality of Ya and gang, as well as their total contempt for the Western Ukrainian people.

Late one night some boys finally succeeded in throwing some paint bombs at the poster. A chase ensued, but the lazy police who were roused from a half-asleep stupor did not catch them.
It was almost sad when the poster was taken down. It had become such a rallying point for townsfolk, and a fun little tradition to curse the bastard, almost as though in person.

The good ol' boys are back--well, they basically haven't gone anywhere since the OR, except the few that have either run away or killed themselves--and their talk about national unity is bullshit, and I am not convinced that they've been "tamed" or will be "tamed" in the coming process. . .

And oh, most folks in Pidhajtsi, I am told, supported Ty in the parliamentary elections and continue to support her bloc.

Yu Finally Takes A Stand?

From my perspective, whether this is the beginning of the beginning or the beginning of the end of a budding Ukrainian democracy (I have no answer myself on this question), it need not have gone this way, and Ya need not have to have the chance to become PM again. Yu i joho ljubi druzi have been a colossal disappointment.

I talked with Oksana today in Pidhajtsi and she spoke of tremendous disappointment. Her brother had gone to Kyiv to picket the parliament and demonstrate for new elections.

Here is an article from Kuzio which I copy here because I liked his points about Yushchenko, but which I reproduce here with a bunch of omissions of statements regarding the West (Kuzio in this article is far too idealistic for me about Western democracy). Read the full article here if you haven't already.

The Non-Listening President

One of the most surprising aspects of the Viktor Yushchenko administration has been its unwillingness, or disinterest, in public relations and public opinion, whether in Ukraine or abroad. The Yushchenko administration and Our Ukraine ignored public opinion in Ukraine among Orange Revolution supporters, and that of the USA and the West in general, which called for a revived Orange coalition following the March elections. A coalition was only put together on the eve of the June deadline but it immediately collapsed and led to the current political crisis.

In ignoring domestic and foreign public opinion and advice, the Yushchenko administration has boxed itself into a corner. The two choices facing President Yushchenko are both unpalatable; proposing Viktor Yanukovych as Prime Minister or dissolving parliament and holding new elections. The first would be to make Yushchenko a lame duck president and the second would make Our Ukraine a lame duck political force.

The Orange Revolution did not have to develop this way if the president and Our Ukraine had upheld one of the central ideals of the Maidan. When Ukrainians went on to the streets in the Orange Revolution they sought to change their relationship with their rulers.

The post-Soviet relationship had continued the Soviet approach of the ‘new class’ living in a different world to its ‘subjects’. The Orange Revolution was a call for the ruling elites to treat its ‘subjects’ as citizens.

[...]

A central component was to be that the ruling elites would listen and act in line with public opinion. But Yushchenko has failed to become a listening president.

Orange Revolution supporters were never told why the ‘bandits’ (commonly understood as former President Leonid Kuchma and his senior officials) never met any justice and are in parliament today heading key committees? When the newly free media asked awkward questions, such as why Roman Zvarych could be Justice Minister without legal training and after falsifying his CV or questions regarding the president’s son, they were told to stop asking them or were condemned.

President Yushchenko never explained why he had to remove the Yulia Tymoshenko government, after saying three weeks earlier that it was the ‘best government in Europe’. Similarly, Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov never explained why the bad oligarchs had suddenly become ‘good national bourgeoisie’?

Every poll that followed the March elections showed that an overwhelming majority of Orange Revolution voters in Our Ukraine, the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and the Socialists wanted to see a revived Orange coalition. Yet, Our Ukraine and President Yushchenko took credit for holding Ukraine’s first free election while, on the other hand, ignored the fact that Our Ukraine had come third.

Ukrainians also flocked to the Orange Revolution because they believed that Yushchenko, and other Orange leaders, were different. The September 2005 crisis, drawn out coalition negotiations following the 2006 elections and the July crisis have proven to many Ukrainians that this Maidan assumption was wrong.

Our Ukraine and Socialist politicians have not proved they are different to those under Leonid Kuchma. Only the Tymoshenko bloc has stuck to its stance of refusing to talk with Yanukovych.

If Our Ukraine had come first in the Orange camp in the 2006 elections, as they expected, there would have been an Orange coalition established in April, with Yekhanurov as premier. The only reason for the drawn out talks, and ignoring of Orange opinion, was President Yushchenko’s and Our Ukraine’s dislike for Tymoshenko, who had a right to claim the post as her bloc had come first in the Orange camp.

Instead of listening to Orange voters, Our Ukraine (presumably with the president’s knowledge) negotiated simultaneously with its Orange partners and the Party of Regions. This dual-track duplicity, coupled with the drawn out talks, only served to reinforce the view that the Orange camp was hopelessly divided.

In the foreign arena, the Yushchenko administration has also ignored public opinion and public relations. This is surprising as during the 2004 elections the Yushchenko camp had by far the best public relations exercise in the West.

The ‘pro-Western’ President Yushchenko and Our Ukraine ignored US and NATO advice following the March elections, which linked a revived Orange coalition to a NATO Membership Action Plan and NATO membership (without supporting any particular candidate for Prime Minister).

The only conclusion one can make is that personal animosity towards Tymoshenko became a more important policy than listening. . . [What follows is more talk about how Yu should have listened to the West and hired Western PR firms, etc.--these comments seem unnecessary to me. It would have sufficed for Yu to have listened more to his own constituents--which I take to mean the people who stood in the streets for ideals he claimed to represent, the so-called Orange demonstrators and pro-democracy voters. But again, go here to read the whole article.]

The return of Yanukovych as prime minister would be proof of Yushchenko’s failure to implement the core values of the Orange Revolution in becoming a listening president. He should have implemented what he promised on the Maidan.

Baltica 2006

This is footage from Day 3 of this year's Baltica Festival in Latvia. The Baltica Festival takes place each summer in one of the Baltic States, so every third year it is in Latvia, as it was this year. The Baltica Festivals, I believe, started in 1986 and were a major part of the movement that led to the Baltic States' independence from the Soviet Union.

The festival always takes place in a variety of locations in each of the host countries. This year it opened on a Th near the town of Sigulda; Fri it was in Riga; Sat it took place in different locations throughout the Latvian countrside, and Su it closed with a concert and ceremony in the very picturesque town of Kuldiga.

This is footage from Sat in the village of Kolka, which is located on the coast at the point where the Baltic Sea and the Bay of Riga meet in the Kurzeme or Courland region of Latvia.

More specifically, this is footage of two groups from Latgale. Latgale is a region of Latvia that has long fascinated me; it is considered by many to be the most rural part of Latvia, and it shares a long border to the east with Russia. The Latgallian dialect is quite distinct from the rest of Latvian, and Latgallians are considered a distinct group within the Latvian nation, though there is a small, small minority who consider the Latgallians a distinct Baltic ethnicity seperate from both Latvians and Lithuanians. I have heard many people--i.e., other Latvians--claim that one of the major points that makes the Latgallians distinct is the Slavic influence they have inherited in their borderland with Russia. Whatever is the case, there is a degree of similarity between, say, some Latgallian dance styles to those of their eastern neighbor, which is represented here at the end of the clip. I have seen/heard other Latvian groups play this tune while dancing in a different manner to the music.

One of the perfomers gives an explanation of his group's next song in the middle of the clip, which I have not subtitled. He explains, while speaking in more standard Latvian, that North Latgallians also differ from South Latgallians, which I presume he mentioned because of this stereotype in Latvia concerning how different Latgallians are from the rest of the Latvian bunch--well, he seems to be saying, Latgallians even differ from themselves, too! He goes on to say that the next song is an "apdziedasanas" (which I write here without the diacritical marks, as I don't have Latvian fonts on my laptop)--a song in which people sing about one another, often humorously. He says the singing of such songs is still part of wedding traditions in his, I think he meant to say, South North Latgale, and warns the audience that they might not understand the words as they are sung in the Latgallian dialect.

In short, Latgallians are to Latvians what Hutsuls are to Ukrainians.

In general, I have gathered from native speakers of Latvian that they can catch on to Latgallian if they listen carefully enough.

For readers of my blog, this is a perfect example of what I mean by "real" folk music/dance performance--no Sovietski Bullshitski, nor overly arranging and/or ornamenting the music, but rather the presentation of music and dance with an authentic village-based sensibility.

I absolutely adored the orchestra of the 4 older musicians that appears at the beginning of the clip.

In the middle and at the end of the footage appears my daughter with her mama and one of Julija's buddies--they are all dressed in Livonian costumes.

For family and friends: I was part of the festival, performing with the folk ensemble Skandinieki with Zinta; Julija was with us throughout the festival. In the footage you will see her charging to the performers on stage. Julija was a frequent and quite welcomed cameo in a variety of acts during the course of the festival, and was on stage when Skandinieki performed. Listen for the crowd's laughter in this clip as Julija takes the stage.

Dream, er, Nightmare. . .

Had the following dream two nights ago (reproduced here with just a tiny bit of embellishment):

BjuT continues to boycott parliament which Yu finally chooses to disband, but the rump parliamentarians refuse the order to dissolve (as promised). So the 1993 Yeltsin v. Parliament incident repeats itself in Ukraine, but in Ukraine things are more complicated. It turns out that Yu i joho ljubi druzi have sold the pipelines to Gazprom. The Kremlin then sends Russian Spetsnas into Ukraine--in collusion with the rump Parliament--under the pretense of protecting the pipelines and guaranteeing oil and gas deliveries to Europe during Urkaine's crisis. A civil war breaks out and the Kremlin sends more forces to back forces within Ukraine's military that remain loyal to the parliament, with the claim that Yu's move to disband the parliament was undemocratic and that the Kremlin most help restore democracy to Ukraine. Guardian writers publish pieces that say, "We told you so, about those Oranges," while others chide that this is what the West gets for meddling in Russia's backyard.

The forces of the rump parliament win with the aid of the Russian army, and the parliament rams through more legislation reversing the constitutional changes and restoring full powers to the presidency, after which they declare Ya an interim president before new elections.

As the war raged, the US, the EU and the UN all meakly said that the fighting should stop and that a negotiated peace should be brokered, and the EU of course continued to feed at the trough of Russian gas while they all three thanked Russia behind the scenes for protecting the pipes. All three are quick to recognize the legitimacy of the Russian-backed Ya government (this time it is they, not Putin, who are humiliated), and they--due to the new geopolitics of the situation and their neverending realpolitik that trumps all idealpolitik or principled politics--accept the presence of a Russian "peacekeeping force" in Ukraine. A partisan war begins, yup again in Western Ukraine against occupation by Muskali (slang for Russians). So unfortunately, scenes from that damn video game that was created in Russia during the OR come to life. (The game goes like this: it is 2008 or so and the OR has failed and Ya is President and Russian troops are in Ukraine again; there is a partisan war in the West, and in the game you are a Russian soldier shooting down Western Ukrainian insurgents).

The funny or most dreamlike part of the dream is that I am flying around Ukraine on a magic carpet with a hooka pipe in the center, observing everything happening. With me are Solzhenitsyn, Bulgakov, and Roman Szporluk (Professor of History at Harvard and former director of the Ukrainian Harvard Research Institute). Solzhenitsyn rambles on, saying such things as, "See, we told you nothing original comes from Ukraine. The Ukrainians are derivative, they copy us, they borrow our culture and tastes and call them their own. They copy what we, the Great Russians do, in history. The Great Russians are the true descendants of Rus', while Ukrainians--the Little Russians--are the offshoots, historical accidents. It is indeed time that the Little Russians returned home once more." Bulgakov sits there, only nodding his head but to mention once, "It takes a Russian writer from Ukraine to create something original--like Gogol, or myself."

Szporluk protests, mentioning first that Gogol had a rather tormented and unsettled/uncertain sense of his own identity and that one had obviously to admit that though he expressed himself in Russian, his inspiration was Ruthenian or "Little Russian," and that his Little Russianness accounted for a great deal of his originality as an author. Szporluk then went on to discuss first Nikolai Gogol's/Mykola Hohol's predicament and identity crisis as a perfect example of the predicament of colonial writers in the modern/colonial period, and then he discussed the history of colonial/post-colonial relations between Russia and Ukraine as per arts and culture, emphasizing how before the Muscovites incorporated Kyiv, there were no universities in Moscow and that there had been little high culture in Moscow that was not related to religion and icon painting. He went on to say--repeating in my dream a lecture he delivered the summer I studied at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute--that Ukrainians would never be truly free to develop themselves as a nation until the two major Continental powers of the late modern period--the Germans and the Russians--stopped bullying Ukraine and figured out who they were as peoples. The German nation, he argued, was now more or less fully formed and settled within stable borders, and that it had succeeded in doing so because it had given up further imperial adventures on the continent and channeled its energies into the supranational EU project--which for Ukraine means that it could expect no more invasions from the West. But looking down from the carpet, he said that it was clear that Russia will not give up imperial ambitions and delusions and stabilize in this generation, and so Ukrainians still had a generation or more of struggle ahead of them before they could truly try to build a society and government of which they could feel proud.

I do not intend here to put the lion's share of the blame for Ukraine's troubles on Russia or the Kremlin--the ending to my dream suggests I might. . .

More on Riga's Gay Pride and Latvia's Shame

Note: For those of you who may notice--this is a reposting of this post. I started to write this a couple of hours ago and then had to deal with getting the little one to bed, and must have accidentally hit "Publish Post" instead of "Save as Draft". . .though this is not a finely edited piece, the more drafty draft is gone. . .what's the blogger etiquette on this, I wonder, but only to wonder. . .

Notes and links:

1) The group that organized events surrounding the Gay Pride Parade, called Mozaika (Mosaic--their site here) has gathered 250 signatures so far and is calling for the resignation of the Minister of the Interior. The Latvian PM has given the Interior Minister 3 days to make a report on what happened during the confrontations, which took place both in front of Hotel Latvia and a church, in which he is to report on who the main people were that "did bad things." The bad things included throwing eggs and feces, and I forgot to mention in the previous post that there were perhaps a thousand or more counter-demonstrators. I don't know how many people were attending the events in the Hotel, as I did not myself go inside

2) A friend, a Latvian-American, said that she went into the Hotel Latvia as one showing her support for the GLBT community. Inside, people were told not to go out the front doors, and that transportation was being arranged out a side door. She, however, felt that she had come to show her support against the counter-demonstrators, and so went out the front door. Though nothing happened to her, she said that she was scared and that her impression was that the police were not doing a very good job of crowd control.

For more information on what happened to others, including to people who were just passing by, you can go to this post at the All About Latvia blog.

3) Some news links. . .it is one site. . .at the very top of the page, are two links with video of events:

A) The one entitled "'LNT ziņas: 23.jūlijs (2006)" has footage and info (in LV) of what happened in front of Hotel Latvia

B) The one entitled "900 sekundes: 24.jūlijs (2006)" has footage and information (in LV) of what happened today, the calls for resignations and demos in front of the ministry of interior.

I don't know how long those links will be up, and you have to go to that page to see them both, I can't provide perma or seperate links to them. . .

4) Then this today, from the Baltic Times: Minister of Interior responds to criticism.

5) Found this today, a statment by Latvia's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

Though she has her critics, she is a strong president who knows how to use her powers, limited to a largely symbolic function, to maximum effect. She is in general beloved of Latvians and in general disliked by those Russians who disagree with Latvia's strong language laws and attempts to beat a fiercely independent path from Moscow.

6) Another article here.

7) Article about last year's events, with damning comments from the PM:

Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis had opposed the event, saying Riga should "not promote things like that".

"For sexual minorities to parade in the very heart of Riga, next to the Doma church, is unacceptable," he told LNT television on Wednesday.

8) My closing thoughts from my post after last year's Gay Pride in Riga:

I was sitting in a cafe in Riga, in a location of a restaurant chain called Lido that serves traditional Latvian food (there are similar chains in Ukraine, serving Ukrainian food, of course), and I looked out the window to notice a tall, very muscular black man wearing a very tight black dress that came down only to mid thigh level, and who was wearing knee-high leather boots with stilleto heels. I was amazed. Ok, in the US one might be able to spot such bold display of one's sexuality, but here in Riga! And also given that he was a black man in a country where nonwhites are but a decimal point of the population, one can guess that he was quite a sight. At the time, I had no idea how to read him and his display of sexuality but for to think, "Right on man, be proud!" But I could not believe the risk he was taking. He just strutted--and he strutted--up and down the street looking intently at each person who passed by. I therefore wondered about his eagerness most of the day, until later I learned about this whole anti-gay uproar. That fellow is just as courageous as any of the Latvians who boldly stood out to proclaim their right to be Latvian against the Soviet government. Or to put it another way, in light of last week's anti-gay fervor, walking down that street in that dress was just as bold and courageous (and potentially dangerous) for that man as it was for any Latvian to have walked the streets wrapped in the (red-white-red) national flag in the early days of perestroika and of open resistane to the Soviet regime. Thus, I truly, truly hope that neither he nor anyone else like him becomes martyred as did the many Latvians who bravely struggled against the Soviet regime for one thing: the right to be who they are

9) And one more thing: It is true that the vast majority of the counter-demonstrators spoke Russian. You can make your own heads or tails of this--but I will voice in here to say that I think it is quite evident that the leadership of the Russian community of this country is leading its members into much darker areas of the human spirit than the leadership of the Latvian and other non-Latvian communities are leading their members . . .Not, of course, to say any one community is free of prejudice and intolerance of any kind.

Riga's Gay Pride and Latvia's Shame, Part II

As the world is going to hell--i.e., Israeli fundamentalists bomb Lebanon and warn of a ground invasion in a world in which far too many people foolishly view war as a means of lasting peace; and Ukrainian politicians continue to fuck over the people of Ukraine due to their meakness (Yushchenko), their tactical stupidity (Our Ukaine), their stubbornness (Yushchenko, Our Ukraine), their lack of vision and will (Yushchenko) or of moral compass (Moroz, Regions, but also Our Ukraine's upper eschelons), or all of these things (all of them); and claims about electoral fraud in Mexico get burried and laughed at as quickly as did the claims of fraud in Ohio 2004--things in Riga have to make me feel a bit more gloomy today. . .

The Issue of the Gay Pride Parade in Riga (go to this site for some general info):

Here is something from an email I just sent:

Well, have you heard anything about the issues surrounding a march for Gay Pride here in Riga? It was supposed to happen today, but the city council did not approve the permit for the march, claiming not that it was opposed in principle to a Gay Pride Parade, but that it was going to be too dangerous--last year, while 40 or so people marched in the parade, many more people showed up to throw insults and eggs and tomatoes at the marchers, and the counter-demonstrators pledged to return this year to do much worse than last year. So the city claimed that they could not guarantee the marchers' their saftey, said that the march was too dangerous, and one politician said that to march would be suicidal.

The claim that they can not provide security is, of course, completely bullshit. Every May, when Latvians and Latvian-friendly non-Latvians in Latvia celebrate the day the country (more or less) declared its independence form the USSR in 1990, mostly Russian counter-demonstrators show up and hurl insults and the occasional egg or tomatoe at the those celebrating. So, this past May major counter-demonstrations against Latvia's indepedence from the USSR were planned for the site where Latvians gather for their independence celebration (at Freedom Square), and the city council ensured that a massive cordon of police encircled the celebrants, protecting and seperating them from the counter-demonstrators. I guess there was a bit of violence this past May.

So, the claim by the city council that they could not protect a Gay Pride march is bogus. They could have--they just lacked the political will to do so, and this lack of political will betrays the prejudices and double standards of those in office, or the prejudices of the fellow party members and electorate of those in office. Last year, the city allowed the Gay Pride Parade to take place, but then faced a storm of criticism from portions of the Latvian press, the city government, and from the parliament and certain political parties. Calls were made for the resignations of members of the city government and even of some MPs. That many people in Latvia--no surprise--hold anti-gay attitudes here. (Read here what I wrote about Gay Pride in Riga last year; I got here one week or so after it was held.)

So this year, since there was no parade, the counter-demonstrators showed up in front of the Hotel Latvia, where events were to be held after the parade. The counter-demonstrators were there in front of the hotel today, heckling those who tried to enter and their supporters. The men that were counter-demonstrating against GLBTs were extremely angry and fiercely violent. Some guys charged at those trying to get into the hotel and the police jumped in to stop them. It was an angry, violent, disgusting scene--not because of the GLBTs, of course, but because of the intolerant ones.

But the point is that the city provided some security at the hotel. . .but they had to. Hotel Latvia is a prestigious (I think 4 star) hotel where foreign businessmen, diplomats and tourists stay. . .

They could have done so for a parade.

One hopeful comment, though: there were those in the press and in politics here who complained bitterly that all of this stood out against EUropean values and that they planned to take the decision of the city council to some EUropean court (I forget which), and I had dinner tonight with a bunch of fifty-something Latvians who I would never have expected to have held tolerant views about GLBTs, but who all agreed that allowing a march is part of the meaning of democracy. And oh, some pundits went so far as to warn that such ongoing intolerance could be grounds for throwing Latvia out of the EU. There are plenty here that would be all too happy if that happened (go here and look at the second photograph), but that is another issue. It is of course quite unlikely that Latvia would get the boot over a gay pride parade; more likely that the EU will become more tolerant of intolerance, as places the world over seem to be becoming these days (see this here for what I think of that).

I will try to get some video up of the confrontation in front of the Hotel in the next day or two. . .

A Hutsul Wedding

A Hutsul Wedding

Take a break from Ukrainian politics:

Watch the video

This is part I (go to part II here) of three short (8-10 min) pieces I will post of footage I took at a wedding in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine in August 2004. The wedding was that of a cousin of a friend, Anna. Much of Anna's heritage is Hutsul. Hutsuls and their descedents have lived in their part of the Carpathians for some 500-600 400-500 years*. The sign at the entrance to Anna's home village of Jabloniv boasts 450 yrs of settlement.

The video begins with footage of Anna, two other friends (including my second-cousin Oksana Kolodnytska from Pidhajtsi) and I leaving from Anna's village for another, nearby village for the wedding.

The majority of Hutsuls identify themselves as Ukrainians, unlike other peoples of the Carpathians who, like the Hutsuls, speak a language closely related to Western Ukrainian dialects. That is, the majority of people comprising other Carpathian Mountain groups that speak languages closely related to Ukrainian dialects, such as the Lemkos, Bojkos and Dolynjany, insist that they form a seperate ethnic identity from Ukrainians and refer to themselves as Rusyn or Carpatho-Rusyn (see this site for more info about the Rusyns).

(I am of the mind that the outsider must accept the ethnic self-definition of the majority of any ethnic group. Hence, Hutsuls indeed are Ukrainian, while the Bojkos and Dolynjany, and perhaps Lemkos too, are Rusyn. . .)

In general, the people of Western Ukraine and the Ukrainian Carpathians are thought to have preserved a great deal of their traditions. These are quite rural and agricultural areas that were once dubbed as among the most isolated and "backward" in Europe --and they may still be. "Backward," however, is a strong and wrong word, depending on one's prejudices (i.e., need of creature comforts); this can be a deeply enchanting and powerful land, especially if one can forego the typical requirements, service expectations, and judgments of a Westerner. Much of what many consider the traditional past remains contemporary here--with all its plusses and minuses (many of the latter of which are formidable vis-a-vis the young and especially for women).

Some notes to the footage:

This is Ukraine, and so drinking vodka (or better, horylka, as it is known in Ukrainian) plays a big role in the wedding festivities. I encourage the viewer to have an open mind about this and also to pay attention to a unique tradition in this area: when drinking a shot outdoors, people frequently would throw the bottom 1/3 or so of the shot over their right shoulder or downward at the ground.

There are some substitles, but much is left untranslated. From what is subtitled, one should easily get the gist of what is going on.

This is the best quality I knew at this time for uploading such a large file to the internet. It is best viewed while not expanded to full screen.

If one would like a high-resolution CD or even a DVD of this and the next installment, contact me at ontorev@yahoo.com to make arrangements.

This was obviously shot and edited by a folk music fanatic, thus the emphasis on
music/musicians. Note that while much if not most of the music is specifically Hutsul, some of the music is part of a general repertoire of Western Ukrainian Wedding Music--in particular, note the Wedding March played outside the Groom's Home, which is common throughout Western Ukraine, though with some variation. (Update: compare the wedding march in this video from the Hutsul region of the Carpathians to the wedding march here from Pidhajtsi, a quintessentially Galician town.)

Part II will come later, containing:

-Footage of the wedding ceremony at the church
-More footage of the Carpathians from this village of Nyzhnij Bereziv
-The Reception line and various traditions as people arrive at the reception
-Reception dinner and singing
-The Dance--including footage of authentic Hutsul dancing as done, not for the sake of performance but for enjoyment, by contemporary-day Hutsuls, including an arkan (UPDATE: this footage will form Part III, and will not be in Part II)
-More footage of the musicians!

*Update: The ancestors of the Hutsuls are thought to have been Vlachs (Romanian-speaking sheepherders/mountain people) that migrated up the Carpathian Chain from the Balkans about 400-500 years ago. Where these Vlachs settled amongst Rusyns, they eventually became Ukrainian. It is also thought the Gorale of Poland have a similar ethnogenesis. This is based on linguistic evidence: Real Hutsul dialect is said to have a number of words with Romanian roots.

SEE PART II HERE.

Still Photos from Video of a Hutsul Wedding II

Coming Soon. . .New Video

This is a still from footage of a contemporary Hutsul wedding I went to in August, 2004. I am almost done editing a short video (15? maybe 20 minute) of the day. I finally have a computer again with which I can get back to work using Adobe Premier; the last month has been full of nothing but lap-top troubles, computer help centers, and costing $. . .

****************

Pro bozhevilnu sytuatsiju v Ukrajini:

1) Kuzio pointed out, in some "notes to the disaster," that most of what was left in Our Ukraine for the parliamentary elections were its coalition-with-PR-friendly "national bourgeoisie," while most of its "genuine" national-democratic constituency had bolted; from the UkraineList:

From: "Taras Kuzio"
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 00:16:26 -0500

This disaster can be squarely blamed on Yushchenko's indecision and lack of strategy, Our Ukraine's unwillingness to accept the election results and the Socialists lack of moral principles.

The only [foreign policy] factor I would add is that the US support for an Orange coalition was too narrow. Perhaps the US should have backed an Orange coalition OR a Grand coalition with Yulia Tymoshenko as Premier.

The two parties to gain from the new coalition are Regions and Tymoshenko. Back in late 2005, I labelled such a scenario as one of three, but unlikely and called it Kuchma-Lite.

The Socialists, Our Ukraine and Yushchenko have lost out.

Lytvyn will gain votes in the next election from the Socialists who can now be accused of "betrayal" of their votes. I doubt this parliament will last 5 years.

Our Ukraine are weakened by not having their national democratic constituency in parliament. Our Ukraine is less national democratic today than it was in 2002 and more centrist. Major national democratic blocs did not join Our Ukraine in 2006 (Pora-Reforms & Order and the Kostenko bloc) and lost the elections. In 2002 these two blocs were inside Our Ukraine.

After returning from Kyiv I concluded that Yushchenko is a one term president. A minority told me in Kyiv that he might even not last one term (like Kravchuk who called early elections in 1994 and lost to Kuchma). I now believe that Yushchenko could go the way of Kravchuk as a coalition dominated by the anti-presidential institution left + anti-Yushchenko Regions, could attempt to either impeach Yushchenko or abolish the presidency by making Ukraine into a full parliamentary republic (where the president is elected by parliament, a step that Kuchma-Medvedchuk proposed in 2003 when constitutional reforms were proposed).

The only "good news" is that if you think that an Orange coalition had internal contradictions then take a look at Kuchma-Lite's anti-capitalist left & Regions big oligarchs (translation: Yekhanurov's "national bourgeois'). How long will Kuchma-Lite last?

2) LEvko at Foriegn Notes points out this piece about Moroz.

3) Yuri Shevchuk (Lecturer of Ukrainian Language and Culture at Columbia U, originally from Rivne, PhD from Shevchenko State U) had this optimistic thing to say I thought worthy of rumination (vis-a-vis his claims about PR here):

From an interview printed in Toronto's Novyi Shliakh newspaper (full text)

RT: What is your prognosis for the Ukrainian political situation?

YS: I feel a coalition between Our Ukraine and the Party of Regions (PR) would be the best outcome given the reality because I don't see any substantial difference in thinking and acting between the two forces. The pronouncements are all very well, but they say one thing, do another thing.

RT: But what about their different views on NATO and the EU?

YS: The PR absolutely wants to join NATO and EU; it wants their respect. Russia won't give them respect. It regards them as its vassals, not as serious partners, and PR realizes this. Simply behind them there are millions of people who have an animal fear of everything Ukrainian and PR is their hostage. But when PR is in power, they will sing another song. I think PR will achieve more for the European integration of Ukraine than this toothless and chaotic government we have now. It should have been done from the very beginning-unite with PR. Tymoshenko's bloc will be a great opposition and bridle them all. She's very charismatic; if in five years she persuades Ukrainians that she has an alternative, people will vote for her.

In my opinion, the Orange coalition has no future. These are completely different people, who hate each other; it will be a paralysis. On the other hand, it [that the democratic process of forming a coalition is taking place] is done for the first time in Ukraine. We should take this into account and not be frustrated.

[Sometimes], I get the impression that if Parliament never worked, no one would notice and life would go on...If laws are adopted, does anyone observe them? The problem is not in the laws, there must be political will to do things: to support culture, to not hinder business, etc.

As Bob says, Ultra-Competitive Uki Politics

Frickin' Ukrainian politics. . .

I have been dumbfounded, flabbergasted for the past few hours, and now have come up with this:

Our Ukraine should suck it up and accept Moroz as a Speaker and the Orange coalition should continue to hold and Tymoshenko get the PM seat. The three parties of the pro-democracy coalition getting the three more or less top jobs in descending order: Yushchenko/Our Ukraine, as victors of the presidential election, get the President; BJuT as the winners of the parliamentary elections within the pro-democracy camp, gets PM; and the Socialists, as the third partner, get the speaker position. I never wrote about or proposed such a scenario, but I have often ruminated on it. . .

This, I believe, is Moroz's intention/gamble. He may be a schmuck for so last-minutely backing out of the coalition deal, but I don't believe he was bribed. He is a cunning politician, a cool, cold-ass operator and manipulator who is not very gracious toward those he has used along his political path (i.e., Melnychenko, a la abdymok), but he is right about one thing: combination of Tymoshenko as PM and Poroshenko is full of potential disaster/s.

I once again blame the incredible stubbornness of Our Ukraine that has resulted in a) its failure to accept its defeat at the polls and b) its continual support for people like Poroshenko for much of what happened today.

And of course, Moroz's cunning is also to blame. . .he is indeed a major political risk-taker and is very, very cunning; will this risk work?

It is a little premature, it seems to me, to declare the experiment with democratization over just yet. . .let us wait and see who becomes PM. . .again, the Orange coalition can re-form if Our Ukraine can accept Moroz as Speaker (probably a pipe-dream); I am sure BJuT would accept it, if Tymoshenko can get the PM job. . .

Of course, the Socialists would have to agree to Tymoshenko still getting the PM job. . .

If they are completely against that, too, then they are schmucks, and Moroz one of the worst traitors of Ukrainian history. . .

UPDATE: Perhaps I was foolish to assign any degree of nobility to Moroz's move. . .just read (how did I miss this, out of all the things I have read today?) that he claims the other rationale for his move in addition to his opposition to Poroshenko is "the need to heal the east-west divide. . ." Now what the f? Why wasn't he talking about all that and a grand coalition when Our Ukraine was talking about it? Oh, of course, because he probably wouldn't have gotten the Speaker seat by going along with Our Ukraine. . . So he had to do it this way? He's that hungry to have hands on significant levers of power? For what purpose?

I don't know what to think about Ukrainian politics in Kyiv anymore. I think I will, from now on, keep completely to the grassroots, as I mostly do on this blog, anyway. . .

But I still think that Our Ukraine and BJuT should just suck it up, accept Moroz's perfidy, and keep the Orange Coalition alive as outlined above. . .

Fat chance. . .too many variables. . .too much distrust. . .too much contempt. . .

"If there aren't Russians, Germans, or Poles to fight, we have got one another to fight to the ruin. . . "

Good Analysis of the Coalition Deal

RFE's Jan Maksymiuk did a helpful piece explaining the basics of the coalition agreement here.

In the second, more analytical part of the piece, he sounded one warning I completely agree with:

Our Ukraine's proposal that Petro Poroshenko, Tymoshenko's fiercest enemy in the 2005 feud within the then-Orange coalition, take the post of parliamentary speaker seems to be an ill-advised "parliamentary check" on Tymoshenko as the head of the cabinet. There is a great likelihood that the former rivalry between these two might start anew, plunging the new coalition once again into recriminations and quarreling.

. . .Have not had time to do any blogging or vlogging this week after getting back from my trip, as Latvia "goes nuts" celebrating the Summer Solstice this week every year, and I have been very busy either performing myself this week with the folk group Skandinieki or looking after Julija while her mama performs . . .am recovering today from an all-night celebration of Solstice with the Skandinieki and their friends. . .Latvians often refer to Summer Solstice as Ligo or Jaņi (as Ukrainians call it Ivana Kupala, the first name coming from the Xtian calender/attempt to co-opt the pre-Xtian holiday). . .Ligo is one of the best times of the year to visit Latvia, especially if you can celebrate it with pagany, spiritual, folkloristic, nationally-oriented Latvians, rather than with those just looking for an excuse to party. . .but party and drink we did, along with the deep spirituality of the event!

2 Articles

I am back from my little Central to Eastern Europe adventure--Riga to Vienna to Budapest to Kyiv to Riga--and will have something to write about it, maybe, in the future.

For now, two good Kyiv Post op-eds worth reading if you have not:

How to understand Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko

by Taras Kuzio, rather (correctly) scazing about the man once thought to be contemporary Ukraine's savior

Ukrainians are not that easily fooled (good analysis of Tymoshenko's past and personality that clarifies why she should be given another chance)

I read somewhere the other day that Our Ukraine had proposed Poroshenko as speaker;if true, that is f**in' ridiculous. Zvarych, Bezsmertnyj and Poroshenko. . .blah

Excellent Commentary: Lessons of Germany's Grand Coalition for Ukrainian Process

If you get it, the most recent e-poshta (for May 31, 2006; you can join by writing to myroslava_e-poshta-canadaus@yahoogroups.com)
this week has an excellent commentary on the lessons that the recent Grand Coalition building process in Germany has for Ukraine. Many commentators, including from Our Ukraine and Yushchenko, have been making this comparison.

The major points of the commentary were thus (which are points I and others have been making in the Ukrainain blogosphere, in our various ways):

On the German model, Our Ukraine must accept that they lost the right to name the PM within a reform-oriented, pro-democracy coalition and must accept Tymoshenko's demand for the PM post. Merkel demanded the SPD's acceptance of her as PM before beginning talks on a guiding government program/policy, and the SPD, which like Our Ukraine was stunned by its defeat, initially resisted but eventually gave in. Our Ukraine should accept Tymoshenko's premiership, THEN talk about a specific program.

Second, Tymoshenko and her cadre then must proceed to divide posts reflecting relative states of electoral preference, agree to respect the president and his party, and work hard to compromise on a specific program and, once that program is in place, they MUST stick to it.

Now the following is my point, though it was hinted at in the piece: Though I share some doubt over whether Tymoshenko is a principled politician and populist or people's politician--i.e., whether she is not just an overly ambitious and glamorous loudmouth and de facto crony capitalist--she must be given a chance to demonstrate her sincerity once again. She will, as I have said in many other places, have to check her ambition and her stubbornness and will have to give-in on a variety of matters. And there are those who would argue that she has indeed attempted to strike a much more conciliatory tone toward Ukraine's free-market liberals and even, to some extent, the oligarchs.

The final issue hinted at in the piece: what was not done in the German case and what can not be repeated in the Ukrainian one is creation of a government with more than one center of power. I still blame Yushchenko squarely for the failure of his first government because of this, and his pal Poroshenko next.
I could not cut and paste the e-poshta article, as I am writing from an internet club in Vienna and the computer here, for some reason, is not letting me cut and paste.

My cousin, born and raised in Germany and grandson of Lev Rebet, the social-democratic oriented ideologue of the OUN, is getting married here in a famous Uniate Cathedral that is symbolic, for Ukrainian Uniates, of Maria Theresa's patronage of things Ruthenian.

Video: The Mill and the Peasants

Video: The Mill and the Peasants

Watch the video

This is more footage from the town of Pidhajtsi in Western Ukraine, shot in August, 2005.

If a peasantry is a population bound to and dependent for survival upon the land through various means that grossly benefit local or not-so-local lords while keeping the individual farmer more or less locked in his/her place--such as via outright serfdom or through credit arrangements and dependency on local "lords" to pay out some cash—then the cash-crop and subsistence farmers of Western Ukraine qualify as a contemporary, postmodern peasantry of the latter sort.

In the previous two posts I have briefly discussed the plight of the people/farmers of the Western Ukrainian countryside. Here I continue: This is footage of men loading sacks of processed wheat flour into their wagons and tractors (see previous post for a comment about the persistence of wagons in the Ukrainian countryside).

There are three main cash-crops that people sell in Pidhajtsi and throughout the Western Ukrainian countryside; in order of economic relevance (i.e., in order of what is most lucrative for the peasant household), they are: sugar beet, wheat, and cow's milk. Each of these crops are harvested by the peasant household and brought elsewhere to be processed. Cow’s milk and wheat are brought to local processing plants where they are made, in the case of milk, into cheese, creams, pasteurized milk, etc., and into processed flour in case of the wheat. Sugar beets are brought to a burjakpunkt or drop-off point from whence they are hauled elsewhere to be processed into sugar. All of the sugar in Ukraine comes from sugar beets.

Each family has roughly 1.5 hectare of land in the fields. Nearly all of the work is done by hand using rudimentary, though time-honored, implements and little or no modern machinary. In addition to the aforementioned cash-crops (there are sometimes others, but those are the main ones) a typical household raises foodstuffs for home consumption: red beets, yellow beets (for feed), corn (for feed), potatoes and a variety of other vegetables and herbs. There is a common plumb-and-apple orchard and most homesteads have apple trees, while some have plumb and cherry trees and berry bushes. Plumbs, though certainly good for eating and commonly used in pastries, is also necessary for making the local samohonka or moonshine, which usually is not a vodka or horylka (the Ukrainian word for vodka), but a plumb-brandy called, in this part of Ukraine, slivjanka. (Note: plumb-brandy is called slivovitsa by other peoples of Eastern Europe, and sometimes rakija in the Balkans; to Hungarians, it is palinka). It is also important to note that just about every household has either one cow or a goat for milk from which creams and cheeses are made, and plenty of fowl (as shown in a previous post).

Just a few American families employing American agribusiness technology could farm the land around Pidhajtsi; instead, the land supports about 7-8,000 people, if you include the nearby villages as "suburbs” of Pidhajtsi (Ukrainians live clustered into towns and villages with the fields surrounding the settlements). Many analysts complain that Ukraine’s agricultural potential is massively underdeveloped.

When farmers take their foodstuffs to be processed, they are repaid by the factories not in cash but in barter: they receive a cut of the final processed goods made from their beets/wheat/milk. A portion of the processed goods go for home consumption; the rest is sold whenever the need for cash arises at a local, weekly market (every Thursday in Pidhajtsi). In this footage, the men are loading their share of the processed flour made from their wheat.

Sugar beets yield sacks of sugar, and milk yields pasteurized milk or other processed dairy products. With the wheat, people will bake their own bread at home and will use the sugar that was the fruit of their own labor. The processed, pasteurized dairy products often go to market, as most villagers use milk straight from the cow in their own diets.

I was universally told by people in Pidhajtsi that it is not worth it for anyone to bring milk to the dairy factory unless one has at least three or more cows. Thus, in the afternoon you can see Babas carrying bucket after bucket to and from home and factory a number of times.

Whether it is the dairy, beet, or wheat factory, everyone will tell you that the exchange rate is unfair and to the advantage of the processors.

Who owns and runs these factories?

I tried to get an answer to this question in the following ways:

1) I tried to get some interviews and to film inside some of the factories, but neither the mill nor the dairy plant was willing to oblige. At the dairy factory, I was told by the plant’s manager that the owner was not present, that he does not live in Pidhajtsi and that he is probably at another one of his plants. The manager also said that she already knew the owner would not be willing to be interviewed, and when I asked if I could interview her, she said she had no right to speak about the company and told the security guards present to escort me and my second-cousin off the factory grounds. And oh, one of the guards had already made sure that my videocamera was turned off.

It was more of the same at the mill; thus the footage here is shot not just across the street from the plant but from across the street and down the road a bit, as security had told me to move on.

At the burjakpunkt or beet pick-up site, I was allowed to film, though the people rather nervously allowed me to do so. I was hollered at anytime I turned my camera on any worker. The most violent response to my camera came from the man in the room where the local peasants came to collect their sacks of processed sugar. Some of that footage will appear later.

2) I tried to get some answers from local officials, but most of them were reticent, even after the Orange Revolution, to answer my questions about who owns what and how they came to own it.

However, I do know the following from the tales of locals: The mill and the dairy factory both were part of a Soviet-era conservatives factory that produced a range of foodstuffs (bread, pastries, jams, jarred salads, pickles, dairy products, etc.). It collapsed in the early 1990s, and most people say that the managers of the factory ran their business into the ground and sold off factory equipment for their own, short-term gain (others defend them saying that they could not adjust to market conditions so quickly after the end of the command economy). The mill and dairy factory were reopened years later as private businesses, but on much smaller scales.

Corruption and and lack of transparency in the agricultural sector and especially in the Ukrainian countryside are truly large-scale problems. Many in Pidhajtsi have come to feel that Yushchenko has neither the intention nor the will to truly take on rural problems, and sometimes complain that like all previous administrations, his is focused all-too-exclusively on industry (which also means on Eastern Ukraine). One major sign to many locals that Yushchenko is not concerned with their plight in the countryside was his memorandum with Yanukovych in which Yushchenko agreed to extend parlaimentary immunity from prosecution to local government officials. Another symptom of this lack of will for many is his close relationship with Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s so-called Chocolate King. Poroshenko owns a large chocolates-and-sweets factory in addition to other businesses, and is definitely a New Eastern European worth an estimated $350 million, according to Warsaw-based Gazeta Wyborcza. He is widely perceived by many as profiting from the unfair barter practices in the countryside—a cheap supply of sugar for his factory contributing to is considerable wealth.

However, Ukrainians at the local level do have this problem: they barely self-organize to take on the power of rural agricultural corporations and officials. Western Ukraine is not Latin America and certainly not Chiapas, where there are local movements developing at the most grassroots of levels to take on or refuse the power of middlemen (coyotes) and corrupt politicians in the agricultural sector. Though the Orange Revolution showed an unprecedented level of civic activism and self-organization in Ukraine, and though such activism remains higher than it was in pre-OR times, people in general seem to have once again put all of their hope in the state and in politicians to make a difference. This is too bad. One recent speaker ruminated on whether Ukrainians have truly broken from what he called the following, centuries-old and unhappy tradition in Ukraine: apathy and disillusionment with political and civil-society processes creating a cycle of inaction only occasionally interupted by periods of revolutionary upheaval. He was not sure that Ukrainians are now solidly discovering the middlepath in which everyday actions by an active citizenry truly makes a difference, though many have proclaimed such is the result of the Orange Revolution.

This is what makes the apparent disappearance of the NGOs of the election campaign and Orange Revolution period so sad, and why it was so lamentable that the main (largest and best organized) activist group Pora! was more or less hijacked by those who wanted to make of it a political party. What Ukraine badly needs today is not more political parties but ongoing grassroots organizing efforts; and what Ukrainians should take as a contemporary model are the collectivist, self-organizing efforts of people on the ground in various parts of Latin America--or examples from their own history. A Zapatista, or even better yet, a Makhnovist (but without the guns) or OUN inspired model for regional self-organization could work well in agricultural Western Ukraine. This time, the fight would not be with foreign invaders but with locals, and the goal an effort to ensure a better rate of exchange. A Ukrainian Cesar Chavez?