EDITORIAL: Teach your elected officials (05/18/97)

EDITORIAL

Teach your elected officials

Ah springtime! Season of freshness and new beginnings ... delicate blooms and warming sun ... season of enthusiasm and high hopes ... love and romance ... and, oh boy, congressional hearings! The joy! The thrill! The pain.

Every year, in the spring, both the Senate and the House of Representatives begins a series of committee hearings in order to gather information to help determine how much money the U.S. government gets to spend the following year. If all goes well, this process culminates sometime in late autumn with a vote that finalizes the nation's budget for the upcoming year, including funds designated for Ukraine.

At least half a dozen congressional subcommittees and committees hold hearings about Ukraine, and the process has already started. So far, not so good. Last year Ukraine was portrayed as a country filled with hope and promise, elevated to the level of one of America's "strategic partners." However, on the heels of several negative stories in the media, the testimony from this year's hearings overwhelmingly portrays Ukraine as a country filled with corruption and ineptness, one that is hostile to American businesses, in spite of attempts by Ambassador Richard Morningstar of the U.S. Department of State and Tom Dine of USAID to present some of Ukraine's positive developments.

Despite independence, a power struggle for Ukraine continues. There are strong forces within and outside of Ukraine that want to abuse the country for personal gain and there are numerous forces within and outside Ukraine that do not want Ukraine to succeed on Western terms. A simple example: the Socialist/Communist bloc in the Ukrainian parliament continues to pull together enough votes to block reforms, which means in turn that without reforms, corruption and the underground economy continue to flourish, which means in turn that Ukraine, as a nation, cannot become strong.

So one would think that the U.S., in its own self-interest, would evaluate its aid strategy to Ukraine, learn from its mistakes, solicit testimony from businesses success stories (because they are out there!), not just the failures, try to imitate the successes, and in general, target assistance to strengthen the reformists in Ukraine. Instead, Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations threatens to cut all U.S. aid to Ukraine to teach President Leonid Kuchma a lesson that corruption is bad. Well, yes. We'll bet President Kuchma hadn't figured that one out yet.

In the next few months the Ukrainian American community, once again, will be called upon to be, in the words of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), "teachers [who] must explain the significance of the past and the challenges of the future" to our elected officials. When you see "Action Items" requesting that you contact elected officials, please do so. Visit, call, write your elected representatives. Invite them to speak to your communities. Exercise your right in this democracy: let your government know what you want it to do, otherwise Rep. Callahan will decide for you.

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