Kuchma to receive Freedom Award (02/18/96)

Kuchma to receive Freedom Award

NEW YORK - President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine will receive Freedom House's 43rd Freedom Award for his work in promoting peace, regional stability and inter-ethnic cooperation. The award, first given in 1943, will be presented to the president at a dinner in his honor on Wednesday, February 21, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

In choosing President Kuchma, Freedom House cited his pledge to maintain Ukraine as a nuclear-free state as signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; his promotion of Ukraine's neutrality in close cooperation with international and regional organizations; and safeguarding the rights of Ukraine's large Russian and Jewish minorities, which has allowed Ukraine to avoid the often bloody inter-ethnic conflicts in much of the former Soviet Union.

During his brief U.S. visit, organized by Freedom House, President Kuchma will meet with President Bill Clinton for a working session, as well as representatives of international financial institutions.

"The administration's decision to meet with President Kuchma, particularly in light of the recent visit of Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, indicates President Clinton's recognition of Ukraine as a strategically important nation and a vital partner in maintaining regional stability," said George Zarycky, specialist for East-Central Europe at Freedom House.

Founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, Freedom House is one of the nation's oldest human rights organizations whose main focus is promoting democratization around the world.

Past recipients of the prestigious Freedom Award include journalist Walter Lippmann (1943), Dwight Eisenhower (1945), Winston Churchill (1955), civil rights advocate Medgar Evers (posthumously 1963), the Dalai Lama and Czech President Vaclav Havel (1991), and Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev (1995).

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