09/17/2002 | Mykyta

pro nichni podiyi u Kyyevi.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/17/ukraine.riot/index.html



September 17, 2002 Posted: 6:22 AM EDT
(1022 GMT)

KIEV, Ukraine --
Armed riot police
have clashed with
anti-government
protesters in
Ukraine after tens
of thousands of
people held a
demonstration
calling for the
resignation of
President Leonid
Kuchma.

Police were called
in to dismantle a
makeshift camp of
more than 160 tents
set up by some of
the demonstrators
outside the
presidential palace in the Ukraine
capital, Kiev, in the early hours of
Tuesday.

Among those who clashed with the riot
police was opposition leader and former
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko,
who accused the police of beating many
of the 1,500 people guarding the tents.

"They started to beat people left and
right, peaceful people who were tired
and half asleep," Tymoshenko told The
Associated Press.

At one point, she said the protesters
seized control of tear gas tanks. She
said about 50 people from the tent camp
had been arrested, although the
Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported
that about 20 protesters were detained.

Tymoshenko said the protesters would
return later on Tuesday to wait for
Kuchma's return from a trip to Austria.

Earlier on Monday, the capital was the
scene of the country's biggest
demonstrations since Ukraine's
independence from the Soviet Union in
1991.

Protesters representing an array of
opposition groups, from Communists to
pro-western reformers, called for new
elections.

The march coincided with the
disappearance two years ago of
investigative journalist Georgit
Gongadze, whose headless and mutilated
corpse was found several weeks later.

Kuchma, who has been president since
1994, has been accused by the
opposition of being linked to the
death. Opposition leaders also accuse
the president of harassment and curbing
press freedom and civil liberties.