Police forcefully dismantle tent city Kuchma hails "absolutely proper decision"

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Several days after a third major demonstration in Kyiv in as many weeks calling for the resignation of President Leonid Kuchma, Ukrainian authorities on March 1 forcefully took apart the tent city that had come to symbolize the movement and arrested more than 30 people.

The police action occurred just as the work day in Kyiv was beginning and included scores of uniformed militia who paraded out of buses and proceeded to knock down and then gather the tents, the flags and the banners, and heap them aboard waiting dump trucks.

As they worked, other law enforcement officers beat and arrested several dozen of the tent city's inhabitants, who resisted the effort and placed themselves before the wheels of the trucks, while six busloads of reinforcements and a communications vehicle waited on the Khreschatyk and an adjoining street, which were closed to traffic during that time.

National deputies and organizers of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement expressed outrage at the action and called it unlawful.

"This was done without basis or reason," said Andrii Shkil, the head of the paramilitary organization UNA-UNSO, which was guarding the tents. He also issued a veiled warning: "The government's action unties our hands. Now we can call the nation to another form of protest." Twenty-three members of his organization were arrested in the clean-up operation.

Several national deputies said the destruction of the tent city was a violation of their rights as lawmakers. Several of them, chiefly from the Socialist and Batkivschyna parties, as well as a few from the Ukrainian National Rukh Party, had taken responsibility for all the tents since the encampment was constructed at the beginning of February. Because national deputies have immunity from criminal prosecution, they maintained that no one could touch the tents. Twice city officials had retreated from attempts to clear the tent city.

National Deputy Yurii Karmazyn, speaking minutes after the tents had been cleared, pointed out that the action took place during a time the Verkhovna Rada, within which there exists a strong element of support for the anti-Kuchma movement, was not in session and national deputies were scattered about the country working in their constituencies. He also said the police action marks the beginning of a new stage in the government's handling of the opposition.

"I think that the authorities are now beginning a very serious attack on democracy in all parts of Ukraine," he said. "They have nothing to lose. The tapes have documented their criminal behavior."

President Kuchma commented on the destruction of the tent city at a press conference on March 1: "I am happy that the Kyiv government showed that it has authority. It was an absolutely proper decision." He added, "It is unfortunate that the deputies who are supposed to uphold the law, ignore it and go even further."

Last week, on February 22, a Kyiv municipal court ruled in favor of a request from the city administration that the tent city be disbanded because it was a danger to pedestrians and a health hazard. Since then, members of the press and protesters had maintained a nightly watch. Although there had been talk on the day of the court decision that the tents would be cleared out that night, most demonstrators had expressed a belief that authorities would wait until after a U.S. congressional delegation left Ukraine and after another mass rally took place on February 25.

On February 23, U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer, a member of the congressional delegation who had visited the tent city, said that the worst thing government officials could do was to turn more attention to the demonstrators by eliminating their place of protest.

"People ought to lighten up about the tents this is a good thing," said Mr. Schaffer.

Oleksander Savchenko, the commander of the militia unit on the scene, explained after the clean-up operation was completed that he had received his orders after a reassertion from the local court the previous evening that it had the right to remove the tents.

Four days earlier, on February 25, the tent city and much of the Khreschatyk was the site of a mass rally, which organizers had billed as the beginning of the end of the Kuchma administration and its political cronies. The anti-Kuchma forces had said they expected a turnout of 50,000, which would have made the rally one of the largest ever held in Kyiv.

Although representatives of the more than 20 political parties and organizations that are part of the Ukraine Without Kuchma action kept moving through the crowd that day, telling anyone who would listen that the crowd numbered 20,000, it was obvious to observers that no more than 6,000 to 8,000 interested people were on hand.

Making it more difficult to assess the turnout was the fact that many Kyivans were celebrating the last day before the beginning of Lent, which was marked with several concerts on the city's main thoroughfare.

The rally, including a mock trial of President Kuchma, began after about 1,500 demonstrators marched through the city's central streets carrying banners and placards proclaiming: "Kuchma - Remember Romania," "Youth for the Truth" and "Kuchma - Time to Resign."

National Deputy Anatolii Matvienko, a leading figure in the anti-Kuchma movement who at one time was a close ally of the president, called on the nation to unite behind the movement.

"We want the voice of the people to be heard. At the same time, we are going to work to change the Constitution, to make our government more European, to give the people guaranteed rights and a European way of life."

In the climax to the protest, several leaders of the anti-Kuchma movement donned judicial robes and played the roles of judges and prosecutors in what was dubbed a "popular tribunal," during which they found President Kuchma guilty of harassment of politicians and the media, falsification of elections, the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze, and corruption and the abuse of power.

A crudely constructed dummy, kept in a box resembling a cage, symbolized the president. After the verdict, some of the protesters marched to the Supreme Court building a few blocks away, where they made an attempt to hang the dummy from a miniature gallows constructed for the occasion.

First Vice Prime Minister Viktor Medvedchuk on February 26 issued a critical reaction to the mass rally. "This is more akin to a witchhunt or a circus, which is an offense to a normal citizen," said Mr. Medvedchuk, who explained that it did not reflect the thinking within society as a whole.

The removal of the tent city comes just as the momentum of the anti-Kuchma movement seemed to be ebbing. The previous day an independent analysis of the audiotapes at the center of the controversy (see story on page 1), which opposition members claim are recordings of President Kuchma conspiring to carry out criminal acts with government officials, did not conclusively prove they had not been edited or falsified.

Earlier, officials of the Procurator General's Office finally had acknowledged that a body found in a shallow grave about 75 miles outside Kyiv in November is indeed that of the Mr. Gongadze, whose disappearance in mid-September led to a series of missteps and alleged cover-ups by law enforcement officials that prompted and has fueled the anti-Kuchma movement.

Yurii Lutsenko, one of the leaders of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement, said minutes after the tent city was pulled down that this was far from the end of the anti-Kuchma action. "I guarantee you we will continue this action today in the city center," Mr. Lutsenko asserted.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 4, 2001, No. 9, Vol. LXIX

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