Kuchma receives 43rd Freedom Award (03/03/96)

Kuchma receives 43rd Freedom Award

by Khristina Lew

WASHINGTON - Freedom House honored Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma as the 43rd recipient of its annual Freedom Award at a banquet held at the Mayflower Hotel here on February 21.

Mr. Kuchma, who joins the ranks of past recipients like Dwight D. Eisenhower (1945), Winston Churchill (1955), the Dalai Lama and Vaclav Havel (1991), was presented the 1996 Freedom Award for "contributions to world peace, regional security and inter-ethnic cooperation."

The crystal award was presented to the Ukrainian president by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Freedom House trustee and chairman of the American-Ukrainian Advisory Committee, Freedom House Vice-Chairman Ambassador Mark Palmer, and Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky before 500 U.S. government officials, businesspersons and Ukrainian American guests.

Freedom House, a human rights watchdog organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Wilkie in 1941 to galvanize U.S. public support for the struggle against fascism, began conferring the Freedom Award in 1943.

The organization has strong ties to Ukraine, and invited President Kuchma to the United States on February 20-22. During his visit, the Ukrainian president held working meetings with President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, International Monetary Fund Executive Director Michel Camdessus, World Bank President James Wolfensohn, U.S. policymakers and businesspersons.

Ambassador Palmer pointed out during the banquet that the organization's involvement with Ukraine predates the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as Freedom House defended national and human rights there and elsewhere in the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, the organization presented the Freedom Award to 15 Soviet dissidents, including Ukrainian cyberneticist Leonid Pliushch and journalist Vyacheslav Chornovil.

Under the leadership of President Karatnycky, Ambassador Palmer said, Freedom House has expanded its dealings with Ukraine by opening a full-time office in Kyiv and supporting an independent press service, the polling organization Democratic Initiatives and the media monitoring group Equal Access during the presidential elections in 1994.

The award ceremony

James Collins, ambassador-at-large for the newly independent states, welcomed President Kuchma on behalf of President Clinton and Vice-President Gore at the onset of the banquet, and reiterated the United States' "strong commitment to Ukraine's security, democracy and prosperity."

Speaking extemporaneously, Dr. Brzezinski praised President Kuchma and his predecessor, independent Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, for their efforts to lead Ukraine in a peaceful transition to democracy.

"It's a remarkable evening. For a time, independent Ukraine existed only in the hearts and minds of Ukrainians in America... Ukraine's destiny is not to be a part of Eurasia. It is firmly rooted in European civilization and an integral part of Central Europe," he said. "Of all the countries of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine has the best prospects for long-term economic prosperity."

The former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter emphasized that an independent Ukraine "makes Europe geopolitically more stable," and is good for Russia. Amid laughter from the audience, he said, "Russia doesn't realize it, but there will come a time when they will be grateful." If democracy is to take hold in Europe, he reasoned, Russia cannot be imperial.

After accepting his award, President Kuchma delivered a lengthy address outlining Ukraine's painful transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic system of government, the need to reform the organs of state authority, the importance of a new Ukrainian constitution, which will "deepen the democratic development of Ukrainian society, and legally safeguard against the threat of a return to authoritarianism and attempts to restore totalitarian means of political control," and Ukraine's position on expanding cooperation with European structures.

Mr. Kuchma noted that the shift in U.S. policy from "not accepting Ukraine as a truly independent state to seriously supporting its political sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity" has not gone unnoticed in his country.

As a member of the international community, he said, "Ukraine will assist in encouraging constructive cooperation in Europe, particularly in mutual understanding between Russia and European structures."

Mr. Kuchma pointed out that among all the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Ukraine is the greatest proponent of economic integration on an equal footing, but clarified his statement by saying, "As they say in the famous Ukrainian city of Odessa, there is integration, and there is integration." The Ukrainian president said his country's "future rests in the European economic sphere."

Mr. Kuchma reiterated Ukraine's position that new European security structures should be expanded to include all interested states, and that today's understanding of "security" should include an economic dimension as well as an expansion of a single democratic sphere.

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