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11/10/2005 | Stefan vel Seitz
Sack Kostusev
Nov 02 2005, 22:52
http://kyivpost.com/opinion/editorial/23437/
Oleksiy Kostusev is the chairman of Ukraine’s Anti-monopoly Committee, an important government body with considerable power. He’s also someone who doesn’t belong in the Ukrainian government, and President Viktor Yushchenko should find a way to relieve him of his job as soon as possible.
In addition to his government post, Kostusev is head of a political party called Soyuz (Union), one of the goals of which is destroying Ukraine as an independent nation and joining it in political union with Russia and Belarus. This is a free country, and Kostusev as a private citizen should be able to waste his time working toward whatever stupid and futile goal he chooses. But at the same time, his extracurricular activities should have disqualified him from holding a position in official Ukraine. It seems ridiculous to have to point out that a requirement for serving in the Ukrainian government should be belief in the idea of Ukraine.
Soyuz is doing more than just engaging in a democratic war of ideas. There’s an ugly, paranoid side to the party. Its Web site, for example, has Kostusev declaring that “to ban Russian songs is fascism,” as if banning Russian is really an option in a country whose capital is almost 100 percent Russian-speaking, and in which even nationalist politicians from Lviv fluently speak Russian. Only a lunatic or a troublemaker believes Russian is going to be banned here. Political scientist Volodymyr Malinkovich is featured on the Soyuz site complaining about discrimination against Russian in Ukraine. What nonsense. That’s the sort of stale Orwellian cant that could have come right out of the Kremlin – Brezhnev’s Kremlin. Soyuz’ billboards, incidentally, read “God and Russia Are With Us.”
It gets worse. In Sevastopol recently, Soyuz activists teamed up with World War II veterans to protest against granting veterans’ benefits to men who fought in the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA), the Western Ukrainian guerilla outfit that fought against both the Nazis and the Red Army. The protestors carried Russian flags. Photos show activists and old men in Red Army uniforms throwing UPA banners in a coffin and setting it on fire. A Soyuz press release brags how the group went across town and “swept” a Pora protest off the street. The morality of the UPA aside, these are brownshirt tactics. Why is Soyuz’s leader in the government?
Kostusev can’t have it both ways. If he wants to try to destroy independent Ukraine, he has the right to make noise. But he’s not entitled to carry on his ugly agitation and intimidation from a privileged government position. No one who engages in street-thug tactics should work in the power structure. President Yushchenko should find a politically neat way to relieve him of that position.
Nov 02 2005, 22:52
http://kyivpost.com/opinion/editorial/23437/
Oleksiy Kostusev is the chairman of Ukraine’s Anti-monopoly Committee, an important government body with considerable power. He’s also someone who doesn’t belong in the Ukrainian government, and President Viktor Yushchenko should find a way to relieve him of his job as soon as possible.
In addition to his government post, Kostusev is head of a political party called Soyuz (Union), one of the goals of which is destroying Ukraine as an independent nation and joining it in political union with Russia and Belarus. This is a free country, and Kostusev as a private citizen should be able to waste his time working toward whatever stupid and futile goal he chooses. But at the same time, his extracurricular activities should have disqualified him from holding a position in official Ukraine. It seems ridiculous to have to point out that a requirement for serving in the Ukrainian government should be belief in the idea of Ukraine.
Soyuz is doing more than just engaging in a democratic war of ideas. There’s an ugly, paranoid side to the party. Its Web site, for example, has Kostusev declaring that “to ban Russian songs is fascism,” as if banning Russian is really an option in a country whose capital is almost 100 percent Russian-speaking, and in which even nationalist politicians from Lviv fluently speak Russian. Only a lunatic or a troublemaker believes Russian is going to be banned here. Political scientist Volodymyr Malinkovich is featured on the Soyuz site complaining about discrimination against Russian in Ukraine. What nonsense. That’s the sort of stale Orwellian cant that could have come right out of the Kremlin – Brezhnev’s Kremlin. Soyuz’ billboards, incidentally, read “God and Russia Are With Us.”
It gets worse. In Sevastopol recently, Soyuz activists teamed up with World War II veterans to protest against granting veterans’ benefits to men who fought in the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA), the Western Ukrainian guerilla outfit that fought against both the Nazis and the Red Army. The protestors carried Russian flags. Photos show activists and old men in Red Army uniforms throwing UPA banners in a coffin and setting it on fire. A Soyuz press release brags how the group went across town and “swept” a Pora protest off the street. The morality of the UPA aside, these are brownshirt tactics. Why is Soyuz’s leader in the government?
Kostusev can’t have it both ways. If he wants to try to destroy independent Ukraine, he has the right to make noise. But he’s not entitled to carry on his ugly agitation and intimidation from a privileged government position. No one who engages in street-thug tactics should work in the power structure. President Yushchenko should find a politically neat way to relieve him of that position.