Group seizes CPU headquarters (03/12/00)

Group seizes CPU headquarters

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - As The Weekly was preparing to go to press on March 9 members of a previously unheard of political organization forcibly occupied the headquarters of the Communist Party of Ukraine and presented a list of demands, among them that the government ban all Communist Party activity in Ukraine. The group was threatening to set fire to the building and themselves if their demands were not met.

Calling itself Independent Ukraine, the group released a statement in which, in addition to the abolition of the Communist Party, it demanded barring present and former Communist Party members from positions in government, the withdrawal of Ukraine from the CIS and recognition for former members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as World War II veterans.

In its statement the organization cited a historical link to the identically named radical group headed by Mykola Mikhnovsky (1873-1924) in the first decades of the 20th century.

The group, believed to be students, which militia officials said numbers six or seven, but which witnesses said was closer to 11 individuals, including a female, entered the Communist Party headquarters at just after noon.

After overcoming a guard at the entrance, the group occupied offices and demanded that workers leave the building at once. Militia representatives said members of the group were armed with mace and possibly pistols, and carried gas canisters into the building.

Adam Martyniuk, a leading member of the Communist Party and a former first vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament, said that he was sprayed with mace and then ordered to leave the building.

"They are just kids, unfortunately," said Mr. Martyniuk. He added that many of his workers, who are elderly, were manhandled, although no one was beaten.

Soon after CPU workers and officials were evicted, the group hung a 20-meter sign outside the second floor offices that read: "One, united, undivided, free and independent Ukraine from the Carpathian Mountains to the Caucasus" - phraseology used by Mikhnovsky.

Oleksander Kornienko, head of the Kyiv Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the group had requested a meeting with national deputies to discuss their demands and that National Deputies Hennadii Udovenko and Oleksander Chornovolenko, both members of the National Rukh of Ukraine Party, had met with them before reporting to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko on the situation.

Mr. Kornienko said that currently the group would be charged only with trespass, illegal occupancy and assault. He said the militia would not consider the use of force to remove the interlopers until all peaceful means of resolution had been exhausted.

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