Participants comment on second World Forum of Ukrainians (10/12/97)

Participants comment on second World Forum of Ukrainians

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - The Ukrainian World Congress presidium held a working meeting on September 26, at its headquarters here, at which officials of the diaspora umbrella body delivered reports on the second World Forum of Ukrainians and the attendant meeting of the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council (UWCC) held in Kyiv on August 17-24.

In an interview a week prior to the meeting, Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk, president of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), told The Weekly: "We went in apprehensive, we were certainly glad to meet Ukrainians from all parts of the world, but now there's still a considerable amount of work to be done to get everyone on the same page."

Forum impressions

The forum itself, which brought together 650 delegates and over 1,000 guests, was unanimously praised by participants from the Western diaspora as "a great party," a "very majestic celebration" and "worthwhile," as well as an unmatched opportunity to meet Ukrainians from 46 different countries.

Ukrainian Canadian Congress President Oleh Romaniw, reached at his home in Winnipeg, told The Weekly of his moving encounters with Ukrainians from places as far flung as Siberia in the east to Bulgaria in the west.

But few could muster similar enthusiasm over its organization.

UWC General Secretary Yaroslav Sokolyk told The Weekly that when he arrived at his hotel in Kyiv on August 17, thinking he was a day early before official UWCC proceedings were to begin, he was asked: "Why aren't you at the press conference?"

He rushed over to the Ukraina Society's building where it was taking place, only to see a room full of strange faces and a man at the microphone berating the Western diaspora for wanting to "destroy the UWCC." Mr. Sokolyk said it didn't get much better after that.

Reached at his law office in New York, Ukrainian Congress Committee of America President Askold Lozynskyj pointed to the September issue of the UCCA's Bulletin when asked his reaction to the events of August. "The forum had few tangible accomplishments, not much was learned about the UWCC, its workshops were essentially academic, its plenary sessions rostra for rhetorical exercises, all marred by chaos," he said, reading from the bulletin.

Mr. Romaniw told The Weekly, "They hadn't learned anything from the first forum." Mr. Romaniw had not even attended the UWCC's meetings because he said he hadn't been informed when they'd be taking place in time. He said he expects the next forum to be even more ceremonial.

"I doubt that many people will go to the third forum to try to accomplish something serious, because there was nothing accomplished at this one," Mr. Romaniw said.

Mr. Sokolyk and Vasyl Veryha (UWC vice-president) were included in the forum's roundtables, on language and religion, respectively. They learned of their inclusion mere weeks prior to the event, and so their protestations that they were hardly experts in these fields were moot.

Messrs. Sokolyk and Veryha were also enthusiastic about President Leonid Kuchma's address at the forum. As Mr. Veryha put it, "Ukrainian statesmen are now saying the things we fought for." Dr. Bohdan Shebunchak, chairman of the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council's national council, said that "it was good to hear an official statement from the president endorsing the role of our communities as lobby groups around the world."

Dr. Shebunchak was heartened also by the increase in the number of delegates from Baltic countries and from the Eastern diaspora as well as by their youth.

Report on UWCC convention

Dr. Cipywnyk, the Western diaspora's top representative, reported to his presidium that, in violation of the UWCC's by-laws, nobody in the West had received an official agenda for the Kyiv-based umbrella body's convention, and several letters expressing the UWC's concerns were never answered. "I was prepared not to attend at all," he recalled.

Dr. Cipywnyk also said that once the meetings did finally get under way on August 19 at the Writers' Union Building, there was little that delegates from Ukraine, the West and the East agreed upon, other than "the need to care for Ukrainians in the world."

There continues to be no agreement on whether the UWCC submitted an acceptable financial report. At the UWC presidium meeting in September, Mr. Sokolyk distributed a two-page statement, signed by his UWCC counterpart Mykhailo Slaboshpytsky and the UWCC's chief accountant, which provides information about dues payments by organizations, income and expenses "for the period of August 15, 1996, to August 18, 1997." However, no information was provided for the previous four years.

William Sametz, the UWC's chief financial officer, said the statement was "not serious."

Dr. Cipywnyk said Mr. Slaboshpytsky demonstratively pointed out that the Ukrainian Canadian Congress had not paid any dues, despite the UCC's long-held and publicly voiced position that as a constituent member of the UWC it considers it redundant to pay dues to an international body to which the UWC belongs.

UWCC by-laws confusion

A serious breach in views came to light when Western delegates pushed to ensure that the composition of Ukraine's delegates be more directly representative of local non-governmental organizations.

Dr. Cipywnyk said UWCC President Ivan Drach rejected the approach, insisting on his right to select Ukraine's nominees to the body's executive council. "We have about 600 NGOs in Ukraine," Mr. Drach was quoted as saying, "but we aren't ready to function as an umbrella body for them, nor are they ready to work in concert with one."

Mr. Drach was backed by UWCC General Secretary Slaboshpytsky in seeking to completely revise the by-laws, both saying that the current version has proven "unviable."

Mr. Veryha said he found little point in changing by-laws that had not been adhered to in the past.

When the challenge by the West was put more strongly, Dr. Cipywnyk said Mr. Drach responded by saying "If I'm going to lead the organization, this is how it's going to be."

At the UWC presidium meeting in September, presidium member Dr. Oleh Romanyshyn said that since he'd heard of protests expressed by regional Ukrainian organizations and by members of the Eastern diaspora, this created a fundamental problem, which the UWC's presidium had to make a decision on at its next meeting in November.

After the UWC presidium meeting, Dr. Romanyshyn told The Weekly that Mr. Drach's position was typical of "the recidivism to Soviet attitudes" that permeates the UWCC in Ukraine. He added that "Drach doesn't understand how civic organizations should function. They should function with the assistance of the government, but without being beholden to or controlled by it."

Conflicting visions

The UWCC meeting in Kyiv apparently brought to light significant differences in approach to any world coordinating body.

Jurij Rejt, chairman of the national council of the Association of Ukrainians in Poland and president of the European Congress of Ukrainians, told The Weekly's Khristina Lew that he opposes the creation of an "artificial worldwide organization full of bureaucracy," and that the UWCC should function only as a clearinghouse of information on the activities of Ukrainian organizations worldwide.

Oleksander Rudenko-Desniak, the outgoing head of the Association of Ukrainians in Russia, was critical of the UWCC's work, saying that it had failed in its mandate by not following through on commitments made to the Eastern diaspora at the first World Forum of Ukrainians held in 1992, notably in supporting the creation of Ukrainian-language schools in Russia.

Mr. Lozynskyi told The Weekly that "ultimately, there needs to be a single organization like the World Jewish Congress. I'd like it to be a force the United Nations has to deal with, that governments deal with, that need not be headquartered in Kyiv."

He said in the interim "the UWC must remain because the UWCC has been a failure" in acting as an umbrella body for Ukrainian NGOs and in speaking up for Ukrainians worldwide whose human rights are being violated. He said the UWC must consider taking up the causes of human rights victims in Ukraine as well.

Ukraina Society at issue

According to Dr. Cipywnyk, no clear statement had been issued by the UWCC on the issue of the potential conflicts of interest arising out of Mr. Drach's presidency of the Ukraina Society prior to the UWCC's convention despite repeated requests to do so.

Dr. Cipywnyk said that two Western delegates, Mr. Lozynskyj of the U.S. and Dr. Lubomyr Mazur of the United Kingdom, were particularly forceful in raising the issue. He said this provoked a riposte from nominations committee member Dmytro Pavlychko (also currently the ambassador to Slovakia), who shouted: "You've forgiven two presidents, Kravchuk and Kuchma, for their Communist past, can't you finally forgive the Ukraina Society?"

Mr. Drach, however, insisted that both the society and his leadership of it were clear of any wrongdoing. In fact, he said that one of the by-laws changes in the works will provide for an outright merger between the UWCC and the society, so that the Ukraina Society's administrative arm will take care of the international body's day-to-day operations.

Mr. Lozynskyj told The Weekly that he agreed to this move because representatives of the society agreed to change its name, as well as the name of its official organ, Visti z Ukrainy. However, others who were present at the meeting did not remember this concession being made.

Resolutions or state of Ukraine report?

Most of the UWC's officials found the resolutions of the second World Forum of Ukrainians, read at the concluding plenary session on August 23 and since published in the Visti z Ukrainy weekly of September 11, completely unusable as a guide for future action.

At the UWC's presidium working meeting Dr. Cipywnyk gave his take on the document: "It was a state of the country address, not a series of directives for future action, as required."

"It describes everything, includes everything, but in such vague and indeterminate form that no committee or commission that could be struck would know what to begin with," he continued. "It contains nothing about the UWCC as an formal umbrella body, no mention of the compromise allegedly reached concerning the Ukraina Society and, oddly, no mention of the UWC, which is allegedly the UWCC's major Western partner."

Mr. Sokolyk concurred. "Resolutions have to be obtainable, brief, substantive, and preferably, include time limits," the retired engineer said. "If there is no preparation of specific long-term projects, then the waste of potential begins to loom large."

However, the UWC general secretary was optimistic about the UWCC's future. "The structural pyramid is there. On this kind of structure we can build a strong diaspora whose first task is to help Ukraine secure itself, and whose second task is to maintain its own identity."

Dr. Cipywnyk was more circumspect. "By voting to re-elect Mr. Drach, people expressed confidence in his charisma, and his clear drive to make the UWCC a viable organization," the UWC leader said. Many questions remain, and we'll see what happens at our presidium's meeting in November, and the meetings with UWCC representatives scheduled for January 1998."

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