PROTESTERS AND POLICE CLASH IN KYIV (03/18/01)

PROTESTERS AND POLICE CLASH IN KYIV

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Mass demonstrations turned bloody as violent civil disturbances swept through Kyiv on March 9 in the form of pitched confrontations between local militia and protesters who were demanding the resignation of Ukraine's president. The violence left 35 militia officers and 60 demonstrators hospitalized or injured, and led to the arrests of more than 200 people.

Law enforcement officials blamed organizers of the anti-Kuchma demonstrations, who represent the civil organizations For the Truth, Ukraine Without Kuchma and the Forum for National Salvation, for provoking the confrontations. The organizers, meanwhile, said provocative tactics by law enforcement officials and heavy-handed police maneuvers caused the violent and bloody encounters, which included a firebomb attack and smoke bomb incidents and led to a teargas response by the militia.

The demonstrations were the first in Kyiv of such a violent nature since 1995. But the mass gatherings and protests against the current administration were another in what are becoming regular occurrences on the streets of Ukraine's capital organized by opposition forces who blame President Leonid Kuchma and several of his top officials for complicity in the disappearance and death of Ukrainian journalist Heorhii Gongadze.

The Gongadze affair became a political crisis for the Kuchma administration after a presidential bodyguard made public hundreds of hours of audiotapes he had recorded secretly in the president's office. The tapes seem to implicate the president in various criminal undertakings and conspiracies.

National Deputy Taras Chornovil, who has become an active leader of the opposition movement and who walked at the head of the 18,000-person column that marched through Kyiv that day, said the people who initiated the rock and bottle throwing and hurled a Molotov cocktail and several smoke bombs towards a police security line were not participants of the demonstration.

"These people were obviously part of a plan to provoke the demonstrators to violence and make them look bad," said Mr. Chornovil.

Yurii Lutsenko, a co-leader of the Ukraine Without Kuchma civil organization, said he had reports that the person who threw the firebomb appeared from a side street and disappeared in the same direction afterwards.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials, who were called on the carpet before the Verkhovna Rada on March 14 to explain the events of March 9, blamed the demonstrators for the violence. Deputy Procurator General Oleksander Dzhyha said his officers had videotape that clearly shows who had provoked what. He said the militia had acted with adequate force to defend themselves and the Presidential Administration Building, as well as the park where Ukrainian leaders took part in a ceremony earlier in the day.

Volodymyr Radchenko, in his first public appearance as the newly appointed head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), told lawmakers it is possible that foreign agents were behind the March 9 violence. He did not specify whom his agency suspected, but asserted that those who had initiated the violence were paid to do so and coached on how to provoke a violent confrontation.

"Our preliminary investigation has established that those engaged in civil disorder were paid with money; they were instructed on how to attack the police and how to behave during interrogation in case they were detained," said Mr. Radchenko.

Mr. Chornovil and fellow National Deputy Taras Stetskiv, both of whom belong to the Reforms-Congress faction in the Ukrainian Parliament, also accused the militia of indiscriminate use of arrest powers at the Kyiv train station the evening after the violent encounters.

Scores of young people - some leaving Kyiv after participating in the demonstrations, others after having taken part in a national congress of the For the Truth civic organization - were pulled from trains because they were wearing the civic organization's round black and white stickers with the word "truth" printed on them. The emblem has become a common sight at anti-Kuchma rallies.

Law enforcement officials said on March 10 that they had detained 217 suspects in all. Mr. Dzhyha explained that only those whom the militia had filmed breaking the law were arrested, as officials carried photos of the accused to make sure they nabbed the right people.

In addition to those at the railroad station, arrests were made at the Kyiv headquarters of the Ukrainian National Self-Defense Organization, an extreme right paramilitary organization whose members took an active part in the confrontations with law enforcement bodies. Among those arrested were the organization's leader, Andrii Shkil.

While the detained were being quickly processed and sent for court hearings immediately after the arrests, Mr. Chornovil and Mr. Stetskiv scoured local jails looking to help those wrongly taken into custody. By Sunday afternoon 87 people remained in detention after receiving jail sentences ranging from eight to 15 days for minor hooliganism.

The day of bloody violence began on a holiday of sorts, the birthday of Ukraine's national bard, Taras Shevchenko, who in his 19th century poems gave voice to the concept of Ukrainian national identity.

The first of what were to be three encounters with law enforcement bodies that day took place in the morning near the huge memorial at Taras Shevchenko Park, located across the street from the main administration building of Shevchenko State University.

The scene was set when more than 3,000 state militia personnel and 100 members of the national guard gathered in the park in the wee hours of the morning. After searching the area with bomb-sniffing dogs, they secured it by forming a two-layered perimeter of militia and metal barricades. All ingress into the park was limited as the only entrance was through a single metal detector at the front.

During his March 14 report to the Verkhovna Rada, SBU Director Radchenko said the unusual step was taken because law enforcement agencies had received two threats of terrorist action and one bomb threat the previous day.

When a delegation of Socialist Party members from Vinnytsia, who had bused in to Kyiv for the demonstrations, attempted to lay flowers at the Shevchenko memorial at about 7 a.m., the first clash occurred. Several older women from the delegation, along with National Deputy Valentyna Semeniuk, aggressively insisted they be given access to the park. After officials refused them, they began pushing officers and trying to get around the barricades. In the ensuing scuffle Ms. Semeniuk was allegedly punched in the face.

Tensions rose further when 200 to 300 protesters, supporters of the various parties and civic organizations that make up anti-Kuchma forces, but mostly UNSO activists, gathered near the park and marched on the militia lines. They also demanded access to the park, to commemorate Shevchenko's birthday and lay flowers at his memorial. After being refused access, they attempted to push their way through the security lines, at one point rushing at the militia in waves and lifting metal barricades to heave at the militia.

One female member of UNSO climbed atop a low awning of the university building with a pole she seemed ready to hurl into the crowd of militia when several officers came after her and pushed her from the building to the ground about 15 meters below, where other officers kicked and stomped her.

As law enforcement officials were finally achieving some success in containing the violence, the president's motorcade pulled up at the far side of the park and President Kuchma, along with Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko and First Vice-Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Viktor Medvedchuk, exited the vehicles and proceeded to the Shevchenko memorial where a brief wreath-laying ceremony took place.

As the official delegation departed, the thousands of law enforcement officials made an orderly retreat to awaiting buses, leaving the park to the demonstrators, who quickly tore apart the official wreaths. Mr. Chornovil went so far as to take a lighter to the blue-yellow ribbon that adorned the president's flower arrangement.

A small contingent of between 1,000 and 1,500 protesters then proceeded up Volodymyrska Street to the local Ministry of Internal Affairs headquarters, where they demanded and received the release of four individuals who had been arrested earlier. The protesters, in a bad mood even after this small victory, attempted to destroy the paddy wagon that brought the four arrested individuals out to the crowds.

After a noon rally that saw the crowd swell to more than 15,000, the demonstration organizers decided to march on the Ministry of Internal Affairs central headquarters and then the Presidential Administration Building.

At militia headquarters they knocked down construction barricades and pelted the face of the building with rocks, ice and eggs, while calling for the resignation of Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko. The climactic final chapter of the day's events began when the column approached the Presidential Administration Building.

There, several hundred militia clad in riot gear and carrying large metal shields and batons readied for a confrontation. Leaders of the demonstration maintained that they had urged the crowd not to stop and to proceed to the Khreschatyk for a final rally, but rocks and pieces of ice were lofted from the crowd in increasing numbers. Then the UNSO marchers attacked the militia line, beating several officers while grabbing their shields and the batons. At this point a Molotov cocktail flew into the crowd of militia, injuring three, followed by smoke bombs. After the 15-minute encounter, demonstrators who had taken part in the violence, numbering several hundred and led by the UNSO delegation, marched on while chanting a fight song and carrying their booty of several militia shields and batons.

One excited supporter raced down the street screaming, "We won, we beat the militia," as what remained of the huge column made its way onto the Khreschatyk, before dispersing.

With the aura of non-violence to which the demonstrators had remained committed until March 9 now broken, calls increasingly have been heard for negotiations between the anti-Kuchma forces and the president's administration to resolve the political crisis. On March 12 three political parties that support President Kuchma - the Social Democratic Party (United), the Democratic Union Party and the Green Party - criticized the opposition and condemned the violence of March 9, but called for talks between the two sides.

That same day Nina Karpachova, the human rights ombudsman in the Verkhovna Rada, called for both sides to sit down at a negotiating table for a "constructive settlement" of the situation. She said that Ukraine could well be on the verge of civil war.

Prime Minister Yuschenko called the events of March 9 a dangerous situation and said it would be a mistake to discount them. He also warned of the danger of ceding ground to forces that desire to gain political power through social unrest, but, nonetheless, said he believes the two sides must meet.

"The government, the Parliament and the president will profit from open political dialogue," said Mr. Yuschenko.

Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, with whom Mr. Kuchma met in Warsaw on March 15, said two days before the Ukrainian president's arrival that he was willing to host and mediate talks between the opposing sides.

Meanwhile Volodymyr Chemerys, a co-leader of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement, said he has been and continues to be ready to meet at any time.

FOR THE RECORD: Powell on developments in Ukraine

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