EDITORIAL: Not without hope (08/29/99)

EDITORIAL

Not without hope

A seven-year-old child watching the impressive display of Ukrainian military hardware during the August 24 Independence Day Parade, in celebration of Ukraine's eighth birthday, aptly put it when he told our Kyiv correspondent "Hoorah Ukraina!"

It was a shout of hope for a country that has suffered a sickly infancy after a hesitant birth, but remains alive. It is a word of encouragement for a team down, but not out.

After the end on August 21, 1996, of the putsch in Moscow that led to the final collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine timidly vacillated three days before finding the gumption to declare itself an independent sovereign state. But it took the giant leap forward and looked well on the way to a smooth transition to democracy and a free market economy after more than 90 percent of the electorate supported a referendum of independence in December 1991. A president was elected democratically. A new day looked to be dawning.

But then the uncertainty began. How to make the transition to a free market society; how to deal with an oppressive northern neighbor who continued to cast its weighty political and cultural shadow over the land; how to resolve control over the Black Sea Fleet and the problem of the Russian-dominated Crimea: what to do with a huge nuclear arsenal the West wanted gone?

The economy went into a funk as the GDP began a steady decline, while inflation skyrocketed to the highest in the world by 1993.

Many of the problems have been resolved - most of the nuclear arsenal has been removed, inflation has been eliminated and the currency is relatively stable, the Black Sea Fleet is divided, there is a stable relationship with Russia - and that is to be applauded.

Yet an uneasiness remains part of the Ukrainian landscape. The economy remains in tatters, and two presidents have not had either the courage or the desire to take the bold steps needed, to divulge the country of loss-making factories and cede government control to free market entrepreneurs in the largest sectors of the market place. The government continues to provide social payments to much of society even as its own revenues shrink.

It has borrowed heavily and has received enormous amounts of international aid, financial and otherwise without which the country would find itself in an even much more dire situation.

So what's the big hurrah all about then, you ask? It's about a country that is now entrenched in the international community, which has shown that it is willing to work with the West in international relief efforts such as the one going on in Turkey currently, and in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Bosnia.

It's about four major democratic elections, and opposition political leaders who can speak their mind. It's about a Constitution, though sometimes ignored, that is universally regarded as the authority for the state.

Ukraine has friendship treaties with all of its immediate neighbors and strategic partnerships with the strongest countries of the planet, including the United States. It has a bonafide, if still fledgling, space program. It is developing economic ties with the European Union and may finally get associate status in the next year or two. That, too, must be applauded.

There is even reason to believe that the country's economy may begin to grow, if not next year then by 2001, but only if economic reforms begin to gather steam.

The October presidential elections, as most of the candidates proclaim, could be the most important yet in this country's brief history and will play the deciding factor in how it continues to develop. Ukraine will most likely have a leftist president, whether a Communist, or one with a faded red coat, such as the current president who still leads in political opinion polls.

Yet, the country, which has withstood the tests of the last years, will survive. As political scientist Mykola Tomenko said in an interview with The Weekly recently, "No matter what is said in society today, the Socialist Party stands on the principle of [a Ukrainian] state, as does a large part of the Communist Party. An absolute majority understand that Ukraine has its borders, its territories, its economy, that it is an entity that must move ahead independently.

And that is most worthy of applause.

| Home Page |