COMMENTARY: Ukraine's history over the last quarter century is inextricably linked with the Helsinki Final Act (08/06/00)

COMMENTARY

Ukraine's history over the last quarter century
is inextricably linked with the Helsinki Final Act

by Orest Deychakiwsky

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, which launched what has become known as the Helsinki or OSCE process, a critical vehicle for advancing human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe.

On August 1, 1975, 35 countries signed this milestone agreement consisting of three sections known as "baskets," containing a broad range of commitments designed to enhance security and cooperation in Europe, and including language on human rights.

History is filled with irony. At the time of its signing, the Helsinki Final Act was harshly criticized, perhaps with good reason, by some skeptics, including some Ukrainians in the diaspora, as endorsing the political status quo of Soviet control over half of Europe. Instead, the Helsinki Final Act, with its emphasis on human rights, and the process it engendered, turned out to be a key factor in the demise of the Soviet empire - a blessing in disguise.

Former President Gerald R. Ford, who signed the agreement for the United States, has stated that "the Helsinki Final Act was the final nail in the coffin of Marxism and communism in many, many countries, and helped to bring about the change to a more democratic political system and a change to a more market-oriented economic system."

Ukraine's recent history has been intertwined with the Helsinki process. There is a thread that links the signing of the Helsinki Final Act with Ukraine's independence. Ukrainians, who in the late 1970s and 1980s took the Helsinki Final Act seriously and formed the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group, used the accords' human rights standards to press the Soviet government to live up to its freely undertaken commitments under the Helsinki Final Act. Similar groups were formed in other Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries. For their efforts, members of these groups were repressed, imprisoned or exiled. The Ukrainian group - which stressed not only human rights but self-determination - not surprisingly came in for especially harsh treatment from Moscow. The members of the Ukrainian group suffered tremendously for their courage and commitment to the ideals of Helsinki, and some - notably Vasyl Stus, Oleksa Tykhy, Yuriy Lytvyn and Valeriy Marchenko - sacrificed their lives, dying in Soviet prison camps in the mid-1980s.

Despite these harsh repressions, the members of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote Implementation of the Helsinki Accords (the monitoring group's formal name) laid the groundwork for the events that were to follow which culminated in Ukraine's independence. With the dawn of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, veterans of the Helsinki movement such as Vyacheslav Chornovil, Lev Lukianenko and the Horyn brothers became the leading members first of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, then of Rukh - and there can be no question that the major force in forging an independent Ukraine committed to democracy was Rukh.

There is a clear link between the Helsinki movement in Ukraine, with its emphasis on human rights, self-determination and democracy, and Ukraine's independence. The human rights ideals for which the Helsinki monitors - including the Ukrainian monitors - fought, and the persistent Western pressure on their behalf, became a springboard for the democracy and independence movements in the captive nations, including Ukraine.

An important aspect of the Helsinki process was Western - and especially American - support for Helsinki principles and willingness to raise substantial and pervasive violations of these principles by the Soviet Union and other recalcitrant signatory states. A vital role was played by the U.S. Helsinki Commission, a U.S. government agency composed mostly of members of Congress, working closely with East European ethnic, Soviet Jewry, and human and religious rights advocacy groups. Indeed, it was Congress and the Helsinki Commission, often citing the Helsinki Final Act and subsequent OSCE documents, that ensured Ukraine was not forgotten throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

There were numerous efforts in the U.S. Congress to call attention to the plight of Ukraine, including various hearings featuring Ukrainian dissidents such as Petro Grigorenko, Nadia Svitlychna, Nina Strokata and Danylo Shumuk, on topics such as human rights in Ukraine; numerous resolutions, statements and letters by congressmen on behalf of individual Ukrainian political prisoners, especially the Helsinki monitors concerning the plight of the banned Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Churches. Russification and the suppression of Ukrainian culture, constraints on emigration and family visits, the jamming of radio broadcasts; Chornobyl and other issues were also often raised with Soviet officials.

Among various Congressional resolutions initiated by Helsinki Commissioners was a 1991 resolution that called upon the administration to recognize Ukraine's independence. This legislation passed Congress prior to the historic December 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum - despite the State Department's lack of enthusiasm for it. A vital role in ensuring that Ukrainian concerns were raised in Congress and at various conferences of the Helsinki/OSCE process was played by Ukrainian American community activists and organizations like Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians Human Rights Commission, the Philadelphia Human Rights Committee, Smoloskyp and others.

Ukraine's entry into the CSCE/OSCE in January 1992, shortly after independence, paralleled the significant changes in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or, as it has been known since January 1995, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). From 1975 to 1991, the CSCE/OSCE was less structured - basically, it was the 35 countries that had signed the Helsinki Final Act meeting periodically to discuss and debate various issues concerning security, human rights, economic cooperation. During those years, of course, Ukraine, as part of the Soviet Union had no formal role in this process, and the only time attention was paid to Ukraine was in the context of the United States, Canada, and, to a lesser extent, other Western countries raising human rights issues pertaining to Ukraine.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the number of OSCE member-states expanded to 55, and the OSCE has become more institutionalized, with the creation of various permanent structures that had not existed earlier. Ukraine has been an active member of the OSCE. The stated goals of the Ukrainian state - democracy, respect for human rights, protection of national minorities - go hand in hand with the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and subsequent OSCE agreements. Importantly, Ukraine has also used OSCE agreements - specifically, the Helsinki Final Act principles dealing with the inviolability of borders, territorial integrity and sovereign equality - to bolster its arguments to the world community and other OSCE states for the preservation of current borders and to reject foreign claims on its territory.

Since 1992 OSCE institutions have also become more involved with Ukraine, as they have with many OSCE countries. In 1994 an OSCE Mission to Ukraine was created that contributed to the stabilization and reduction of tensions in Crimea. The mission ended its work in May 1999 and became the first of 18 OSCE missions or field offices operating in various OSCE countries to close. OSCE Election Missions have observed and reported on presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine in 1994, 1998 and 1999. Earlier this year, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media wrote a report on the media situation in Ukraine, with recommendations on how media freedoms can be improved, given that the role of the free media as a check on the government has not yet been fully accepted.

Since June 1999 an office of the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine located in Kyiv has focused its efforts on projects "aimed at supporting Ukraine in the adaptation of legislation, institutions and processes to the necessities of a modern democracy based on the rule of law," according to a recent OSCE report. These include a review of Ukraine's human rights legislation, technical support for the Verkhovna Rada's Human Rights Ombudswoman, support for Ukraine's National Council against Trafficking in Human Beings, reforms in the field of military judiciary and law enforcement, and assistance to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.

The OSCE, through its institutions and forums, also provides a framework for addressing issues and problems that affect Ukraine, such as market reforms, corruption and good governance, and trafficking of human beings. Furthermore, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, launched in 1992, provides opportunities for parliamentarians of the OSCE participating states to promote security and cooperation in Europe. One of its current vice-presidents is Ihor Ostash, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Foreign Relations Committee.

The signing of the Helsinki Final Act 25 years ago this month and launching of the Helsinki/OSCE process was a milestone in the history of Europe. And, while it may not yet be recognized as such just yet, it will come to be seen as a landmark event in the achievement of Ukraine's independence and its continuing development as a democratic state based on the rule of law and respect for the rights of all its citizens.

For more information about the OSCE, see The Helsinki Commission website at http://www.house.gov/csce/.

Orest Deychakiwsky is staff advisor at the U.S. (Helsinki) Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Washington and has served as a member of U.S. delegations to numerous meetings of the CSCE/OSCE.

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