EDITORIAL: The struggle continues (10/22/00)

EDITORIAL

The struggle continues

The guest editorial below is an excerpt from remarks by Orest Deychakiwsky, staff advisor at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, who received an award October 7 from The Washington Group at its Leadership Conference in Washington for his work during the past two decades on behalf of human rights and democratization in Ukraine, as well as other countries in that part of the world.

While the difference between Soviet Ukraine and independent Ukraine from a human rights and democracy perspective is obviously huge - in some respects, like night and day - and while Ukraine's record is much better than that of its neighbors - Lukashenka's Belarus and, increasingly, Putin's Russia - this does not mean that the human rights and democracy picture in Ukraine is by any means perfect.

And what this means is that there is an obligation of the Ukrainian American community and friends of Ukraine to encourage the Ukrainian government to live up to international commitments that it freely undertook. Some people, unfortunately, equate any kind of criticism of the Ukrainian government with lack of support for Ukraine. This is not the case. Support, whether through policy statements or concrete assistance, and constructive criticism are not mutually exclusive - whether the criticism comes from the United States or other governments, or, for that matter, from the Ukrainian American community.

It is legitimate to raise concerns about actions that threaten democracy in Ukraine or that violate human rights of Ukrainian citizens (e.g., the recent treatment of independent media and missing journalist Heorhii Gongadze). And it is legitimate to encourage the development of the rule of law and to criticize the corruption that so debilitates Ukraine. A recent World Bank study, for example, singled out Ukraine as a country that could boost per capita income dramatically - even double it - if it shapes up its legal system. Clearly, there is a correlation between rule of law, human rights, democracy and prosperity. And while no society is perfect, including our own, it's no accident that most economically successful countries are democracies in which human rights and the rule of law are respected.

One further thought, or another linkage, if you will. Ukraine's achievement of independence nine years ago did not just mean independence from a foreign power because it was indeed foreign. It was independence against a foreign power that systematically and often brutally violated the elementary human rights of the people of Ukraine. Those who arrived here as refugees from the DP camps, having experienced both Nazi and Soviet occupation and the most horrible war the world has ever known, certainly know what human rights abuses were all about, many of them having experienced them in a very direct way.

Most of us present here tonight are their children and grandchildren, and I suspect most of us know of close or distant relatives murdered, or imprisoned, or sent to Siberia, i.e., we know by the personal stories of those close to us the consequences of human rights violations in a way than most people in this country do not.

And those of you who have recently arrived obviously know first-hand what it was like to live in a system that doesn't respect human rights - i.e., the Soviet system. So Ukraine's progress on human rights and democracy should matter to us, as should, quite frankly, the promotion of human rights and democracy all over the world.

To sum up, what is critically important to remember is that the struggle for independence was a struggle not just to throw off foreign domination, but it also was and to some extent continues to be, a struggle to restore the human dignity of the Ukrainian people. The promotion of human rights, civil society and democratic development in Ukraine is the best way to not only promote the material and spiritual well-being of the people of Ukraine; ultimately, it is the best way to ensure and strengthen Ukraine's independence and thereby contribute to the peace and security of Europe and, indeed, the entire world.

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