ANALYSIS
'Kuchmagate' and the Ukrainian diaspora
by Taras Kuzio
CONCLUSION
"State capture" by Ukraine's oligarchs has led to widespread corruption in Ukraine. In a recent study of 90 countries by Transparency International, Ukraine was ranked the third most corrupt - placing third from the bottom (with the No. 1 slot going to the least corrupt and No. 90 to the most corrupt). Russia was ranked 82nd, only six places better than Ukraine's 87th, while Belarus was far better at 43rd.
This corruption is particularly severe in the energy sector where oligarchic interests struggle against those of reformer-derzhavnyky. The much-touted Odesa oil terminal, which will remove Russia as Ukraine's supplier of oil, is still only a quarter built after seven years. Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko supports this project to reduce Ukraine's dependency on Russian energy. Meanwhile, the oligarchs prefer to maintain energy links with Russia because that is how they have made most of their illegal income, the debts for which have been passed to the Ukrainian state.
A Russian newspaper Segodnya (November 27) claimed that the Kharyzsk pipe manufacturers, controlled by the Pinchuk-Derkach clan with close family links to President Leonid Kuchma, have been offered the contract to build the gas pipelines that will bypass Ukraine through Belarus to Europe. Even though, as Prime Minister Yuschenko has openly admitted, this will harm Ukraine's national security, one oligarchic group with close connections to the president will nevertheless personally benefit. This is another example of personal interests being placed above those of the Ukrainian state.
The struggle for survival and economic stagnation corrupts the entire population because illegal activities are often the only way to survive. It also corrupts values and morals, making it impossible to build a new national identity and political culture for a democratic state with the rule of law.
As society has become increasingly atomized, support for reform has, not surprisingly, declined during the 1990s from 78 to 54 percent (Den, December 9). Support for a multi-party system has declined during the same period from 60 to 30 percent (Den, October 24). As society has stagnated this has increased its disrespect for the rule of law and legislation (after all, if the "vlada" (authorities) can do anything, why can't we?). Therefore, everything is allowed; hence, it's not surprising that a recent poll found that two-thirds of Kyivites were not surprised at the revelations about Mr. Gongadze's death and President Kuchma's alleged involvement.
This "lumpenization" of society, Prof. Anatoliy Halchynskyi believes, has led to the marginalization of the intelligentsia and the social degradation of society (Den, December 7). The majority of the population is removed from state and official policies, which are being implemented by a small group that has captured the state. This has increased the inferiority complex, creating "Little Ukrainians," and promoted widespread apathy.
Taras Chornovil says that western Ukraine has not escaped this degradation: "The fact that even in Western Ukraine the people are voting for oligarchs, selling their votes for a few hryvni reflects an ongoing process of denationalization of culture and language of the population" (Den, December 7).
And this in a independent Ukrainian state.
Not only are there accusations that the president ordered the assassination of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, but that the state apparatus (the Tax Administration, judiciary, Security Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs, etc.,) have been involved in the implementation of an authoritarian regime.
The Tax Administration is under the control of the presidential administration, and Prime Minister Yuschenko has demanded that it be placed where it should be: under the Ministry of Finance. The SBU officer who taped President Kuchma's conversations is set to reveal other material which describes how he ordered the taping of opposition politicians and deputies, the suppression and closure of newspapers and NGOs. This harassment of the media - the subject of recent deliberations of the Council of Europe - is continuing in Kyiv and outside. Last year President Kuchma was placed in the top 10 of the world's leaders who suppress press freedom by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Russia under President Vladimir Putin has a greater number of independent media than Ukraine.
The SBU officer also claims he has evidence that President Kuchma falsified the 1999 presidential elections and the April referendum (the official results of the latter have always been suspect).
A benefit of "Kuchmagate" may be that the referendum results are now unlikely to be implemented as deputies are not going to support even greater presidential powers and the reduction of the Parliament's influence when it is the only body halting Ukraine's slide towards a Belarusian-style regime.
These authoritarian measures indicate that during the second half of the 1990s President Kuchma became beholden to, or led, a small group of oligarchs. They captured the Ukrainian state and milked it for all its worth while ignoring the plight of the rest of the populace.
Oligarchs versus reformers
It is not surprising that these oligarchic groups (as well as Yevhen Marchuk, whom many in Ukraine and the West, surprisingly, supported during the last presidential elections) are now so hostile to Prime Minister Yuschenko's government. This government is Ukraine's first reformist government and it is no coincidence that it has a center-right (i.e., national democratic) profile. Why? Because it has long been evident that reform is only successful in post-Communist countries (e.g., the Baltic states) where civic nationalism and reform are combined.
The problem in Ukraine is not that there is too much nationalism, as the Western media often write, but that there has been too little civic nationalism (or, if you prefer, patriotism). In contrast to all of Ukraine's previous prime ministers (Vitold Fokin, Leonid Kuchma, Yukhym Zviahilskyi, Vitalii Masol, Pavlo Lazarenko, Yevhen Marchuk, Valerii Pustovoitenko) Mr. Yuschenko is Ukraine's first true reformer-"derzhavnyk" who has no interest in personal enrichment. That is why he is both detested and misunderstood by Ukraine's oligarchs.
Six years of rule by a cosmopolitan, denationalized president and oligarchs devoid of any civic nationalism or patriotism has led Ukraine to ruin. President Kuchma himself admitted in October at a Kyiv conference that the oligarchs had become a threat to the Ukrainian state. What he forgot to admit was his responsibility for having helped create them and allowing them to flourish. One of the top oligarchic groups is, after all, led by Andrii Derkach (son of the head of the SBU, Leonid Derkach) and Viktor Pinchuk, the president's son-in-law. Its business interests, to which President Kuchma is indirectly linked, include pipe manufacturing.
President Kuchma's state of the nation speech on November 16 showed to what degree he believes in state control rather than reform. Strengthening the state and control from the top down has priority over political-economic reform. The only way out of the abyss into which he has led Ukraine is allegedly greater state (presidential) control of Ukraine. To put it in simpler terms: if President Kuchma gets his way, then Ukraine will be transformed into a Belarusian-style regime.
The diaspora and Ukraine
It is not certain how "Kuchmagate" will end. President Kuchma's televised speech on December 6 warned about the threat of chaos looming in Ukraine. It is interesting to note that it is the revelations about himself that he considers to be supposedly the threat to Ukraine's stability - not his alleged illegal actions, which should be the real cause for concern.
Particularly ominous was a presidential decree dated October 17 (No.1138/2000) on the Ministry of Internal Affairs. One article within the decree demanded that the ministry ensure high military and mobilization preparedness for its personnel and internal troops to take part - if the need arose - in imposing a extraordinary sate of emergency. The National Guard, which had been under joint parliamentary and executive control since its creation in 1991, was disbanded in December 1999 and its elite units transferred to the internal troops and the armed forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that to escape from prosecution President Kuchma could impose a state of emergency, introduce a Belarusian-style regime and openly become Ukraine's Lukashenka. This is, after all, what he believes is best for Ukraine.
Rada insiders have revealed that during the last week the MVS have been putting together plans if they called upon to impose a state of emergency that would include disbanding the Rada and media censorship.
Ukraine's only chance to escape from its current crisis is to ensure that the state is returned to its rightful owners - the people, and the oligarchs' capture of the state is ended. Ukraine's continued stagnation in its "third way" and "multi-vectored" domestic and foreign policies is preventing integration into the West, despite all the rhetoric about "returning to Europe." Russia is only too happy to see these policies continue because, sooner or later, Ukraine will have only one place to go, back to Eurasia with Mr. Kuchma as Ukraine's Lukashenka.
The Yuschenko government's support for transparent, non-corrupt political and economic reform and nation-and state-building will ensure that Ukrainian society will be transformed along lines the Ukrainian diaspora recognizes. Within one year the Yuschenko government has improved the economy and paid off wage, pension and other arrears. An important aspect to this process, Prof. Halchynskyi noted, will be the creation of a Ukrainian middle class which supports the national interests of the state, rather than the unpatriotic corrupt, parasitical oligarchs. It should be therefore supported by the Ukrainian diaspora.
But, surely it is time to drop any illusions we may have had about President Kuchma whose record in office scholars will describe in future years as an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine. The diaspora should support the reformers-derzhavnyky, who will integrate Ukraine into Europe and strengthen statehood - not President Kuchma or the anti-state oligarchs whose continued misrule over Ukraine means we can forget about Europe for a long time, returning instead to the Slavic union - the union of outcasts (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, December 2).
President Kuchma will never be able to return Ukraine to Europe as his actions would never be accepted there. The diaspora has no choice, therefore, but to abandon any illusons it has about Mr. Kuchma, stop supporting him and instead throw its backing behind Prime Minister Yuschenko and his supporters in the Verkhovna Rada.
Dr. Taras Kuzio is the author of "Ukraine: State and Nation Building" (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), "Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence" (London and New York: Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, 1994 and 2000) and joint author of "Politics and Society in Ukraine" (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1999). He is also editor of "Contemporary Ukraine: Dynamics of Post-Soviet Transformation" (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), and joint editor of "State and Institution Building in Ukraine" (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999).
CONCLUSION
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 31, 2000, No. 53, Vol. LXVIII
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