NEWSBRIEFS

Chornobyl survivors march in Kyiv

KYIV - Approximately 1,500 survivors of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster marched in Kyiv on April 23 to mark the 14th anniversary of the accident at that nuclear power plant on April 26, wire services reported. Yurii Andreiev, the head of the Chornobyl Union, told Reuters that the Ukrainian government's contribution "to the invalids, widows and orphans of Chornobyl" is "offensive." Meanwhile, Ukrainian health officials reported an increase in the death rate among those who were exposed to radiation during the clean-up after the accident, the Associated Press reported. And the German Environmental Ministry pledged to provide additional assistance to Ukraine to "modernize" its energy sector, ITAR-TASS reported on April 24. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Chornobyl League notes disaster's effects

MOSCOW - Nearly 15,000 people engaged in the clean-up operation following the Chornobyl disaster have died, while over 50,000 - most of them between the ages of 38 and 48 - have become invalids, the Chornobyl League's president, Viacheslav Grishin, told a news conference in Moscow on April 21. The number of invalids among people involved in the clean-up operation has increased nearly 12-fold since 1991, he said. The area polluted with over 1 curie/square kilometer of cesium-137 totals 57,000 square meters. More than 52,000 out of 91,000 people living in 267 villages have left the area that was to become totally uninhabited, but 8,400 families are still living there. Fourteen years after the disaster the content of cesium-137 in timber, the flesh of wild animals, mushrooms and berries in the irradiated area shows no signs of receding, Mr. Grishin said. (Interfax)

Chornobyl march causes controversy

MIENSK - The Miensk City Executive Committee banned opposition organizations from staging any marches in the city on April 26, the 14th anniversary of the Chornobyl accident, and allowed only a rally on the outskirts on the capital city, Belapan and RFE/RL's Belarusian Service reported on April 20. Tens of thousands of people have marched in downtown Miensk every year since 1989 to mark the world's worst nuclear disaster. "[The authorities] cut benefits to Chornobyl victims, sow contaminated fields and harvest contaminated crops, which are then offered to Belarusians. The authorities apparently want to let the people of Belarus die out silently without a single protest," scientist Ivan Nikitchanka, head of the march's organizing committee, said. The organizers said that the march will take place despite the ban. Parliamentarians from Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia were to monitor the demonstration. On April 25 Reuters reported that Belarusian authorities had lifted their earlier ban on a demonstration by those opposed to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka after the opposition agreed to stage the march in the outskirts of Miensk rather than in the city center. Mr. Lukashenka said: "I will hold negotiations with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, with Chirac, with Clinton should they so wish. But I am not going to talk to the opposition. They have only one goal - to topple the president." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Belarus happy with union's progress

MIENSK - Belarusian Prime Minister Vladimir Yermoshin told ITAR-TASS on April 25 that the first meeting of the council of ministers of the Union of Belarus and Russia, which took place in Moscow that day, reflects the progress Miensk and Moscow have already made in bringing their two peoples back together. The meeting discussed the creation of a common currency and the formation of a legal basis for the further unification of the two republics. The German press agency DPA reported that the joint council of ministers has a budget of 2.2 billion rubles (approximately $77 million) for the year 2000. One of the places the two sides may increase funding is support for victims of the 1986 Chornobyl explosion, ITAR-TASS reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russia extends its nuclear umbrella

MOSCOW - Vremia Novostei reported on April 24 that the main difference in Russia's new military doctrine from the previous version is that now Russia, in the words of the doctrine itself, is "implementing a common defense policy with the Republic of Belarus, coordinating with it activities in the sphere of military construction, development of the armed forces of the union [of Belarus and Russia] countries, the use of military infrastructure, and taking other measures necessary to maintain the defense capacity of the union." President-elect Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving the new doctrine on April 22. The newspaper concluded that the new doctrine guarantees a place under Russia's nuclear umbrella to other countries from the former Soviet Union, provided that they also establish a special relationship with Moscow. (RFE/RL Newsline)

ILO says Ukraine in deep crisis

GENEVA - The International Labor Organization on April 25 concluded that Ukraine has sunk into a deep economic crisis and is suffering from massive unemployment, Reuters reported. In issuing this report, ILO economist Guy Standing said that "if Ukraine were not in Europe, it would be rightly called a developing country." The ILO report said that monthly income had dropped in real terms from $37 in 1998 to $25 in 1999, that life expectancy had declined sharply, that industrial firms are now operating at less than 44 percent capacity, down from 66 percent in 1995, and that approximately one-third of the work force is effectively unemployed, a statistic that makes "a mockery of the official rate of registered unemployment." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine to seek new IMF funds

KYIV - Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko will travel to Washington in early May to press the International Monetary Fund to resume loans to Ukraine, Interfax reported on April 25. The IMF had blocked a loan package to Ukraine in 1999 because of concerns about Kyiv's failure to adopt needed economic reforms. Mr. Yuschenko told reporters in the Ukrainian capital that he will also press for more funds to help close the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, Reuters reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Armenia marks genocide anniversary

YEREVAN - Tens of thousands of Armenians, including the country's entire leadership, marched in silence on April 24 to the Yerevan monument to an estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey in 1915, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. In a televised address to the Armenian people, President Robert Kocharian said Armenia will continue to try to persuade the international community to formally acknowledge the killings as genocide. At the same time, he called for reconciliation and for "a new kind" of relationship between Armenia and Turkey which, he said, is crucial to maintaining stability and developing regional cooperation. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Chornobyl's effects felt in Poland

WARSAW - Researchers in southeastern Poland, the region of that country most affected by the April 1986 Chornobyl nuclear accident, have found thyroid changes in one out of two young women and in 10 percent of all young people, the PAP news service reported on April 24. In the towns of Kolno, Sejny and Suwalki, up to 70 percent of the population have enlarged thyroid glands. The Bialystok Medical Academy plans to publish a full report later this year. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Three missiles go awry

KYIV - Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk on April 24 confirmed suspicions that an explosion in Kyiv on April 20 had been caused by a stray Ukrainian Tochka-U missile, ITAR-TASS reported. Also on April 24, a stray Russian dummy missile slammed into a Ukrainian passenger ship during a Black Sea training exercise, Reuters reported. The Russian Black Sea command on April 25 said the captain of the Ukrainian ship was to blame for the incident because he had strayed into waters that both Russian and Ukrainian officials had declared off-limits during a naval exercise, ITAR-TASS reported. This was the second such Russian missile misfire in one day; in Kazakstan a Russian Strizh-3 rocket spun out of control after launch and exploded in the western region of that country. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Cabinet backs draft land code

KYIV - Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers on April 21 approved a draft land code that would abolish most restrictions on the private ownership of land, Interfax reported. The draft will now be sent to the Verkhovna Rada for possible adoption. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Central bank may close 30 banks

KYIV - Yaroslav Soltis, the deputy chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, told Reuters on April 21 that the bank might close most of the country's 38 commercial banks currently under NBU supervision. "There will be 122 or 125 working banks left," he said. "If a bank is ill with such a disease as illiquidity or insolvency, then it should be closed." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma urges fight against corruption...

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma told the presidential Coordinating Committee for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption on April 20 that all that has been "stolen" from the people and the state must be returned, Interfax reported. Mr. Kuchma added that there should be "no untouchables, no double standards, no double morals" in dealing with crime and corruption. The president said he is concerned with the situation in the energy and banking sectors and named the United Energy Systems and the Slovianskyi Bank as entities that have evaded payments to the state budget. He also noted that privatization "remains a favorable sphere for corruption and economic crime" and demanded that the government ban "privatization of Ukrainian entities through offshore zones." (RFE/RL Newsline)

... while tax inspector points to Rada

KYIV - State Tax Administration chief Mykola Azarov said at the meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption that national deputies and their enterprises control 25 percent of imports and 10 percent of exports in Ukraine, the Eastern Economist Daily reported. Mr. Azarov added that 364 deputies are involved in economic activities and the number of organizations they control exceeds 3,000. According to his data, in 1999 these companies imported and exported goods worth 18.4 billion hrv ($3.4 billion), failing to pay 4.1 billion hrv in taxes and other dues to the state budget. Mr. Azarov also said only some 30 Ukrainian citizens declared incomes exceeding 1 million hrv in 1999, while more than 5,000 citizens purchased Mercedes worth between $100,000 and $300,000. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma criticizes Cabinet on reforms ...

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on April 19 criticized Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko's Cabinet for the slow pace of reform in the country, Interfax and the Eastern Economist Daily reported. "The government still has not found the instruments that could solve present problems," Mr. Kuchma told a Cabinet of Ministers meeting. He added that the government should focus its attention on structural reform and increase the regulatory function of the state. Responding to Vice Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov's report that Ukraine posted a 5.6 percent growth in gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, Mr. Kuchma said the growth results from the former Cabinet's effort last year and is not linked with current reforms. (RFE/RL Newsline)

... poor performance of energy sector

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma also said the performance of the fuel and energy sector, for which Vice Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is responsible, is "completely unsatisfactory." He noted that "The situation in the sector has reached the critical point and it was only a miracle that the country's energy system has not collapsed." Mr. Kuchma accused Ms. Tymoshenko of continuing the Communist-era practice of using energy resources whereby those resources are consumed but not paid for. "The energy sector became the creditor of practically all other sectors although it is almost bankrupt itself," Mr. Kuchma added. There have been rumors that the president wants to sack Ms. Tymoshenko, but he said he is not going to make personnel decisions at a Cabinet meeting. Some 200 Tymoshenko supporters demonstrated outside the government's offices, saying they back her attempts at reforming the sector. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine restructures foreign debt

KYIV - The Ministry of Finance on April 18 said Ukraine has concluded the restructuring of a $2.37 billion debt due to be paid in 2000-2001, Interfax reported. Under the restructuring plan, the ministry annulled old bonds, issued new Eurobonds with a seven-year maturity period, and repaid $220 million in interest. Simultaneously, Ukraine has issued $2.24 billion worth of new foreign loan bonds denominated in Euros and U.S. dollars and due to be paid in 2007. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 30, 2000, No. 18, Vol. LXVIII

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