Kyiv authorities dismantle second tent city erected by students near Shevchenko University (03/11/01)

Kyiv authorities dismantle second tent city erected by students near Shevchenko University

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Thirty burly, yellow-jacketed municipal workers made short-shrift of a newly erected tent city opposite the main building of Taras Shevchenko State University on the morning of March 6, tearing down the several tents and hauling them away.

The action came two days after several dozen students of five local universities and others from Lviv and Rivne constructed a new tent city consisting of four pup tents in Taras Shevchenko Park, located across the street from the university, to replace a larger one law enforcement officials had dismantled days before.

The action came before several days observances of the anniversary of the birth of Shevchenko, a 19th century poet considered the single greatest figure in fomenting the development of a Ukrainian national self-image. Traditionally, the leaders of Ukraine's three branches of government lay flowers at the foot of the park's Shevchenko monument on that day.

The students, who are backed by the Forum for National Salvation and the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement, two closely linked organizations calling for the resignation of President Leonid Kuchma, were hoping to block the president's access to the park and the monument by forming a human chain. They had been calling on concerned citizens to join them and were expecting a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators.

National Deputy Volodymyr Filenko, a member of the Reforms-Congress faction and a leading figure of the Forum for National Salvation and another newly formed group, the Ukrainian Pravytsia, had announced the new action on March 2.

"We will not allow the president or his wreath near Shevchenko. We believe he has no moral right to approach this great symbol on this day," explained Mr. Filenko.

He said that after the demonstration at Shevchenko Park, the protesters had planned to move to the Khreschatyk and form a human chain along the more than one-kilometer-long thoroughfare.

Oleh Diomyn, assistant chief of staff to President Kuchma, responded to the threat to deny the president access to the park by stating that the demonstrators must honor the rights of citizens to enter the park and pay respect to the Ukrainian bard.

The anti-Kuchma organizations have sought the ouster of the president for what they believe is his involvement in planning the disappearance of a Ukrainian journalist and other criminal conspiracies, based on secret audiotapes made by a former presidential bodyguard of Mr. Kuchma's conversations with high-ranking government authorities. The political crisis has come to be referred to as "Tapegate" or the Gongadze affair.

The new tent city was supposed to be the continuation of a series of largely peaceful civil protests that have occurred in the city over the last month, including several mass rallies attended by thousands, of which the focal point was a large tent city of nearly 50 structures erected on February 6 that had stood along Kyiv's main thoroughfare for about a month. Then, on March 1, scores of state militia violently tore down the tents and arrested more than three dozen protesters.

Volodymyr Chemerys, head of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement, said the liquidation of the Shevchenko Park encampment began after a city official presented a document from the municipal administration calling for the tents to be removed, according to Interfax-Ukraine. A student who was present said the campers had not been prepared for the action because they were awaiting a court ruling on the legality of the new tent city that was not expected before noon on that day. He explained that all but a couple of his colleagues were in class at the time.

The student said the city workers worked methodically, taking great care not to break or tear anything, and especially not to desecrate the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag.

He explained that he heard the workers remark, "Be careful with the state flag," as they took apart the tents.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has directed the dismissal of the officers who showed disrespect for the national flag during the destruction of the encampment on the Khreschatyk, where some officers dragged and trampled the Ukrainian flag as they tore the tents down.

At the time the new tent city was constructed, several students threatened a hunger strike should their domiciles be destroyed. At press time it was not clear whether the students would follow through and whether the March 9 demonstration would be held even with the tent city gone.

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In other Tapegate developments President Kuchma said on March 6 that he expected government workers who did not support his administration, whether ministers or mid-level bureaucrats, to resign.

"I propose that each government officer, including ministers having membership in, sympathy towards and especially, contacts with the opposition, should decide in a week either to resign or publicly break with anti-government formations," the president said during an address to representatives of regional governmental bodies.

A day earlier he told Polish journalists that he had no intention of resigning or opening new lines of communication with the opposition. He asserted that government officials had the responsibility to assert their authority.

"I was elected by 16 million, not by 3,000 or 5,000," said President Kuchma according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

He also told the Polish reporters he was puzzled how people could consider Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, the bodyguard who recorded conversations in the president's office, a national hero when he is "a spy and a traitor" and "not even a human being."

President Kuchma said that private Western detective agencies had been hired to investigate the bugging scandal and Maj. Melnychenko.

Meanwhile National Deputy Oleksander Turchynov, head of the Parliament's Budget Committee, accused the leadership of the Procurator General's Office, including Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko and his first assistant, Mykola Obikhod, of maintaining contact with a shady figure Mr. Turchynov identified as a U.S. citizen going by the name of Mr. Lambert.

The national deputy, who has taken over as Batkivschyna Party leader for Yulia Tymoshenko since she was imprisoned two weeks ago on charges of forgery, embezzlement and blackmail, said the leadership of the Procurator General's Office is guilty of "corruption, abuse of power and actions inflicting damage on the national economy and security."

Mr. Turchynov said he had in his possession documents that implicate the country's chief prosecutor of illegally entering into a deal with Mr. Lambert, which gives the U.S. citizen 12 percent of all monies he can obtain from the accounts of Pavlo Lazarenko for return to Ukraine. Mr. Lazarenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister under President Kuchma, is spending his second year in a U.S. detention facility on charges of money laundering in the United States and Switzerland.

Mr. Turchynov said that Ms. Tymoshenko and her firm, United Energy Systems, earlier had been approached by Mr. Lambert, who had offered "for millions of dollars" to turn over to them all the records that the Procurator General had on them and to have the various investigations closed. Mr. Turchynov said United Energy Systems turned down the offer.

Procurator General Potebenko reacted to the accusations by stating that his office "will do everything needed to get the money stolen by Pavlo Lazarenko returned to Ukraine."

Mr. Potebenko also told Green Party leader Vitalii Kononov during a March 5 meeting that shortly he will publicize a list of lawmakers who took money from Mr. Lazarenko while he was prime minister, reported the Eastern Economist.

Finally, on March 5 Mr. Potebenko said he had authorized a second DNA examination of the Tarascha corpse, for which earlier testing had established a 99.6 percent probability that it belonged to the dead journalist.

"In doing so we have met the request of Heorhii Gongadze's mother," explained Mr. Potebenko.

For weeks Mr. Potebenko would not certify the body as Mr. Gongadze's, stating the test was not conclusive. When he finally did and offered to release the remains for burial, Mr. Gongadze's mother demanded a second, independent examination.

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