Mastermind of young activists' seizure of Communist Party headquarters is arrested (08/13/00)

Mastermind of young activists' seizure of Communist Party headquarters is arrested

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Oleksander Bashuk, founder and leader of the Independent Ukraine political organization, and mastermind of a late-winter assault on the headquarters of the Communist Party of Ukraine, was arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement agents on August 7, days after the Procurator General's Office allowed the release of the 10 members of the organization who carried out the action.

Mr. Bashuk was arrested at a safe house in the Podil section of Kyiv after evading authorities for five months. According to law enforcement officials he had moved frequently to avoid capture.

While in hiding, Mr. Bashuk, 27, had surfaced several times for interviews with the press, including one in which he denied accusations that he was a political opportunist and had used his younger underlings like a puppet master to draw attention to himself and his beliefs.

Mr. Bashuk, who was charged with two counts of conspiracy, is said to have offered members of his group apartments and automobiles in return for their assault on the headquarters of the Communist Party. The participants, however, have said they were motivated only by ideals and principle.

During the siege of the Communist Party headquarters Mr. Bashuk called himself the attorney for the group holed up inside the building, but went into hiding after preliminary law enforcement investigations revealed that he was, in fact, the head of the political organization and had supervised the action. He was placed on Ukraine's most wanted list on March 11.

Six days before Mr. Bashuk's arrest, law enforcement officials released the nine college students and one high school teacher on their own recognizance pending the outcome of court proceedings. They are charged with seizure of a building and infliction of bodily injuries, and could face up to five years in jail. Those charged have been warned not to leave the city of Kyiv.

According to Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko, the group was released after their parents had threatened individual hunger strikes. Mr. Potebenko said he believed it would be in everybody's best interest that the 10 young people, whom he has characterized as unwitting puppets of Mr. Bashuk, go free until a court hears their cases. Several members of the group had declared hunger strikes intermittently throughout their five-month imprisonment, which had caused law enforcement officials further problems in this highly publicized case.

Communist Party representatives bitterly criticized the move by the Procurator General's Office and accused the government of attempting to brush the matter under the carpet.

At a press conference after their release, the 10 members of the Independent Ukraine organization maintained that what they had done was proper. They proclaimed their innocence and demanded status as political prisoners and politically repressed individuals.

"Communist Party headquarters is an anti-Ukrainian center that is working to undermine Ukraine," said group member Serhii Nedilko. "We ask each Ukrainian who can attest to the crimes of the Communist Party to present evidence to the court."

Natalia Nemchynova, who has become the most vocal and outspoken of the group, and was the first to declare a hunger strike after the 10 were arrested, said that in her opinion the country is still controlled by Communists, who have merely changed the way they rule.

"Ukraine does not exist as a country," said Ms. Nemchynova. "Former Communists who have repainted themselves continue to retain all the key government posts. We have no hope for a better future until the former Communists are removed. Human rights in Ukraine are a mirage."

The Independent Ukraine political organization was an unknown entity until March 9, when its members seized the central headquarters of the Communist Party of Ukraine in Kyiv. Eleven young men and a woman entered the building by force at about noontime that day after overpowering a guard.

They manhandled employees while pouring gasoline over some before forcing them off of the premises. Then they covered the floors with the flammable liquid while defacing Communist mementos and books, and wreaking general havoc on the office.

Group members also draped a huge banner outside the building's windows that read: "One, united, undivided, free and independent Ukraine from the Carpathian Mountains to the Caucasus" - a slogan attributed to Mykhailo Mikhnovsky, the founder of the nationalistic Revolutionary Ukrainian Party in the first years of the 20th century.

In a statement released to the press, the group cited a historical link and the strong influence of Mikhnovsky and his ideas on their political formulations.

Among the demands the group presented to the government was a ban on all Communist Party activity in Ukraine; the replacement of all government officials who were former Communists; the withdrawal of Ukraine from the Commonwealth of Independent States; and recognition of former members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as World War II veterans, with appropriate honors and pensions.

The group threatened to set fire to the building and themselves if their demands were not met. After more than 12 hours of negotiations with government and law enforcement officials, during which National Deputies Hennadii Udovenko and Mykhailo Ratushnyi acted as mediators, the group surrendered and was immediately arrested by militia officials. One of the members was released several days later because he was a minor. His trial will be held separately from that of the other group members.

Their leader, Mr. Bashuk, never entered the building with them. He acted as a liaison with Mr. Udovenko and as a press spokesman for those inside during the ordeal. By the time law enforcement officials determined he was the kingpin in the matter, he had already fled to Lviv and gone into hiding.

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