The Economist: Ukraine -Falling Apart
02/16/2001 | Broker
Ukraine
Falling apart
Feb 15th 2001 | KIEV
From The Economist print edition
They want to blot Kuchma out
AT FIRST sight, the chances of replacing President Leonid Kuchma and his coterie of tycoons and hard men look increasingly good. A scandal involving a murdered journalist, Georgi Gongadze, and the mysterious bugging of private conversations has badly damaged the Ukrainian leader. Leaked recordings, if authentic, show him as foul-mouthed, corrupt and perhaps even complicit in murder. Official denials so far have been muddled and unconvincing.
Thousands of people have joined “Ukraine without Kuchma” demonstrations in recent days. Hundreds have been camping in a tent city in Kiev’s main street. The media have become a bit less timid about reporting the protests and the latest twists of the scandal, such as the flight abroad of the doctor who first identified Gongadze’s corpse and who now says he fears for his own life.
Last week brought the first casualties in the president’s inner circle. He sacked the head of the SBU, Ukraine’s omnipresent, murky and unaccountable security service, as well as the head of his bodyguards. The prosecutor-general, another ally implicated in the Gongadze affair, was banished for several weeks. Mr Kuchma’s business cronies may be losing their enthusiasm for him.
The president is also facing unaccustomed criticism from western politicians who used to back him (holding their noses) as a bulwark against Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union. Both the State Department and the European Union have criticised official bungling in the investigation of Gongadze’s disappearance. An EU foreign-policy team, led by Javier Solana from the Council of Ministers and Chris Patten from the European Commission , visited Kiev this week with a mixed message: criticism of Mr Kuchma and his friends but continued support for Ukrainian reform and integration with the rest of Europe.
Mr Kuchma has been fighting back. His main target so far has been the woman widely believed to be financing the protests, Yulia Timoshenko, herself a former energy tycoon and, until she was sacked last month, the deputy prime minister responsible for energy. Her reforms had stamped on the toes of powerful businessmen close to the president. Arrested on February 13th on bribery charges, she spent Valentine’s day in jail, as did (separately) her businessman husband, who was arrested last year.
Also on February 13th, Mr Kuchma corralled the reformist prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, and the speaker of parliament into signing a strongly worded joint statement which denounced the protests’ organisers as egotists bent on power at all costs. They were accused of using “national socialist” tactics to provoke the authorities into repression, and of putting the “very existence of Ukraine, its territorial integrity and social peace at stake”.
That looks bad for the protesters, who would like Mr Yushchenko as president but are now accusing him of betraying them. The authorities have ordered the tent city to go. The SBU has been harassing the protesters; repression may increase. As a sop, the government says that public-sector wages will go up by as much as 70%.
Mr Kuchma and his allies may reckon that they have been too lenient. Besides, the protests have not yet caught the nation’s imagination. A popular revolution of the sort that swept through Central Europe a decade ago feels a long way off. The constitution gives parliament the right to remove the president, but this is tricky in practice. Protests from the West are muffled by the desire to support the Ukrainian government under Mr Yushchenko and to prevent Ukraine drifting further into Russia’s arms.
The latter may be happening anyway. Mr Kuchma’s other main move this week was a chummy chat with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The pair signed agreements to co-operate in such matters as a unified electricity grid and new ventures in satellite rocketry. Russian companies have already been buying up increasing amounts of Ukrainian industry, mostly very cheaply (see article). Opposition politicians say that there is a secret political price for the deals; Ukraine may, for instance, have to join the Russia-Belarus Union. Mr Kuchma’s lot hotly denies this.
Mr Putin did not talk publicly about Mr Kuchma’s troubles. But an influential Kremlin website carried a commentary backing Mr Kuchma, smearing the protesters as a hotchpotch of fascists, opportunists and misguided reformers, and claiming recent events were a “tragedy” staged by westerners plotting against Russia. Meanwhile, provided he can keep his nerve, shaky Mr Kuchma looks set to hang on, at least for a while.
Falling apart
Feb 15th 2001 | KIEV
From The Economist print edition
They want to blot Kuchma out
AT FIRST sight, the chances of replacing President Leonid Kuchma and his coterie of tycoons and hard men look increasingly good. A scandal involving a murdered journalist, Georgi Gongadze, and the mysterious bugging of private conversations has badly damaged the Ukrainian leader. Leaked recordings, if authentic, show him as foul-mouthed, corrupt and perhaps even complicit in murder. Official denials so far have been muddled and unconvincing.
Thousands of people have joined “Ukraine without Kuchma” demonstrations in recent days. Hundreds have been camping in a tent city in Kiev’s main street. The media have become a bit less timid about reporting the protests and the latest twists of the scandal, such as the flight abroad of the doctor who first identified Gongadze’s corpse and who now says he fears for his own life.
Last week brought the first casualties in the president’s inner circle. He sacked the head of the SBU, Ukraine’s omnipresent, murky and unaccountable security service, as well as the head of his bodyguards. The prosecutor-general, another ally implicated in the Gongadze affair, was banished for several weeks. Mr Kuchma’s business cronies may be losing their enthusiasm for him.
The president is also facing unaccustomed criticism from western politicians who used to back him (holding their noses) as a bulwark against Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union. Both the State Department and the European Union have criticised official bungling in the investigation of Gongadze’s disappearance. An EU foreign-policy team, led by Javier Solana from the Council of Ministers and Chris Patten from the European Commission , visited Kiev this week with a mixed message: criticism of Mr Kuchma and his friends but continued support for Ukrainian reform and integration with the rest of Europe.
Mr Kuchma has been fighting back. His main target so far has been the woman widely believed to be financing the protests, Yulia Timoshenko, herself a former energy tycoon and, until she was sacked last month, the deputy prime minister responsible for energy. Her reforms had stamped on the toes of powerful businessmen close to the president. Arrested on February 13th on bribery charges, she spent Valentine’s day in jail, as did (separately) her businessman husband, who was arrested last year.
Also on February 13th, Mr Kuchma corralled the reformist prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, and the speaker of parliament into signing a strongly worded joint statement which denounced the protests’ organisers as egotists bent on power at all costs. They were accused of using “national socialist” tactics to provoke the authorities into repression, and of putting the “very existence of Ukraine, its territorial integrity and social peace at stake”.
That looks bad for the protesters, who would like Mr Yushchenko as president but are now accusing him of betraying them. The authorities have ordered the tent city to go. The SBU has been harassing the protesters; repression may increase. As a sop, the government says that public-sector wages will go up by as much as 70%.
Mr Kuchma and his allies may reckon that they have been too lenient. Besides, the protests have not yet caught the nation’s imagination. A popular revolution of the sort that swept through Central Europe a decade ago feels a long way off. The constitution gives parliament the right to remove the president, but this is tricky in practice. Protests from the West are muffled by the desire to support the Ukrainian government under Mr Yushchenko and to prevent Ukraine drifting further into Russia’s arms.
The latter may be happening anyway. Mr Kuchma’s other main move this week was a chummy chat with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The pair signed agreements to co-operate in such matters as a unified electricity grid and new ventures in satellite rocketry. Russian companies have already been buying up increasing amounts of Ukrainian industry, mostly very cheaply (see article). Opposition politicians say that there is a secret political price for the deals; Ukraine may, for instance, have to join the Russia-Belarus Union. Mr Kuchma’s lot hotly denies this.
Mr Putin did not talk publicly about Mr Kuchma’s troubles. But an influential Kremlin website carried a commentary backing Mr Kuchma, smearing the protesters as a hotchpotch of fascists, opportunists and misguided reformers, and claiming recent events were a “tragedy” staged by westerners plotting against Russia. Meanwhile, provided he can keep his nerve, shaky Mr Kuchma looks set to hang on, at least for a while.