INTERVIEW: U.S. ambassador offers comments on U.S.-Ukraine relations (CONCLUSION) (04/01/01)

INTERVIEW: U.S. ambassador offers comments on U.S.-Ukraine relations

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Carlos Pascual is the fourth United States ambassador to Ukraine. Prior to that appointment, he served from July 1998 through January 2000 as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton and the senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia at the National Security Council (NSC). While there as a leading formulator of U.S. policy towards Ukraine, he guided policies to encourage Ukraine's commitment to democratic and market reforms, and its integration into Europe.

Mr. Pascual, 42, a career member of the Foreign Service, joined the NSC in June 1995 as director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs. In 1994-1995 he served as deputy assistant administrator for Europe and the new independent states at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In 1992-1994 he was the director of the Office of Program Analysis and Coordination for the NIS Task Force.

The following interview was conducted on March 20 at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.

CONCLUSION

Q: USAID often has been criticized for its ineffectiveness or inefficiency, including its work in Ukraine. During the presidential elections, the Bush campaign said that one of its foreign policy priorities would be to review the work of the agency. Are there any plans to review the effectiveness of USAID in Ukraine?

A: What I can tell you is from my perspective here as ambassador. We are always looking at our programs, all of our assistance programs whether it is USAID, whether through the public affairs section or through the defense attaché's office or through the Department of Energy, to try find ways to make them more effective and have a greater impact.

One of the things that we have been doing over a period of time is increasingly shifting our programs to the non-governmental sector. If we look today, about 55 percent of our programs are in the non-governmental sector. About 30 percent of our activities are related to Chornobyl, this could be Chornobyl's closure as well as the sarcophagus. A portion is related to local government, about 3 percent, and only about 12 percent are actually programs with the central government. Here what we are often talking about is activities like supporting the legislative agenda, like development of the civil code, or the commercial code or the land code; working on issues of the rule of law and an independent judiciary; working on problems such as money laundering; then working on basic fiscal technical assistance problems, technical assistance issues such as how to improve the way in which the government collects revenue but does it in a more transparent, consistent and fair way.

What you can see is that the majority of what we are trying to do in Ukraine is actually focused on the long term, building the human capacity that Ukrainians need to be able to guide the direction of their own country and to really be able to promote change from the bottom up.

Q: With the political crisis in Kyiv over the Gongadze affair and Tapegate, have we reached a point at which U.S. financial aid to Ukraine might be threatened? Daniel Fried of the State Department told a Western publication that he could not promise continued U.S. aid to Ukraine if the situation didn't improve.

A: Let me raise two points here. First, there is a broader line, which has been the consistent position of the State Department and the NSC on these matters. Our ability to support Ukraine is based on Ukraine's ability to set a direction of reform and build a political consensus to implement that reform.

In other words, we can't impose a vision of reform for Ukraine from the outside. We can't make policy decisions for Ukraine on how it advances on economic reform. To the extent that Ukraine in fact can re-establish a consensus for economic reform, can move actively to advance its reform agenda and in fact be able to get beyond the current set of political problems that are facing this country, it will make it a lot easier for the United States to provide active support for the country.

The second point, which I think is important to note, is that a major share of what the United States does right now specifically promotes change from the bottom up in Ukraine, and it is important to continue these programs regardless.

There have been over 23,000 Ukrainians (since 1992) who have come to the United States on exchange programs. It has given them exposure to new ideas. It has given them contacts on which they can rely to stimulate them in the future.

It's important to continue these sorts of initiatives. There are programs that are supporting non-governmental groups and organizations. Last Friday we launched a new fund to support independent media. These kinds of activities are important to sustain in this kind of environment.

In the end, Ukrainians need to find their own answers to some of the political questions that are facing the country right now. What we can do is to reinforce the principles that the United States as a country stands for: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the rule of law. To the extent to which, by emphasizing those points and making them central features in our dialogue with Ukrainian officials and in effect making Ukrainian officials more sensitive to these values, we can then potentially help sustain a certain amount of political space within which Ukrainians can actually have their own debate and find solutions to the problems which face this country. We cannot impose those solutions from the outside.

Q: Do you give any credence to the several conspiracy theories that are floating about how and why Heorhii Gongadze was murdered, and if so why?

A: No. I can tell you that any conspiracy about the United States being involved and being behind it is wrong and is absolutely not true.

I can't tell you about any other conspiracy. What I can tell you is that there are real and specific issues before Ukraine, which is that a journalist disappeared; by all indications he was killed; there are questions that exist about the cause of the death; there have been problems in the investigation - President Kuchma himself has said that the way in which the investigation was handled has been horrible. And this has presented a real crisis for Ukraine, internally and internationally, and made people question whether or not the rule of law can prevail in Ukraine.

I think that the most important issue right now is for Ukrainians to find a way to give the international community and the Ukrainian people a sense that the rule of law actually has meaning in Ukraine.

Q: What would it take for the U.S. to sever relations with Ukraine in regard to the current political crisis?

A: I would rather not speculate about hypothetical situations. What I want to emphasize is that the reason we are engaged with Ukraine right now is that we have a longer-term agenda for Ukraine and with Ukraine, where I think we have similar visions. It's for an independent, democratic, market-oriented state that's integrated with Europe and founded on the rule of law. That's not going to be achieved overnight, but is going to take a strong effort on the part of Ukraine to get there and is going to take strong international support to get there.

We have to keep that long-term vision in mind. We have to guide our policy by that long-term vision and not let it be guided by every twist and turn of a political crisis that occurs on a day-to-day basis.

Q: What is the status of the investigation into the financial dealings of Pavlo Lazarenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine who is spending his second year in a U.S. government detention facility?

A: I really can't tell you much more than you probably already know. He has been indicted for money laundering and transportation of stolen property. I would really have to turn you to the Justice Department to get anything more.

Q: What is the U.S. doing to curtail the illegal trafficking of women into the U.S.? And - a second related question - how is it that certain "companies" succeed in getting visas for "trainees" and "employees" who end up working as prostitutes?

A: First of all, on the point about visas being allocated for people who should not be in the United States. We certainly try to be vigilant in our administration of visas, and we try to be fair in our administration of visas. If there are any signs or indications that people have about individuals who have inappropriately entered the United States, we would very much want that information so that we could follow up and act on it.

There is an e-mail address we have for our consular section for specifically these types of correspondence: [email protected]

I can tell you more broadly about the programs that we have to combat trafficking in women here in Ukraine. Some of those programs are education-related, some of the programs are economically related.

The education part of it is to try to make young women especially aware of the dangers of trafficking; the types of ways they might be approached; the options they have if they are approached. Some of those educational programs take place in secondary schools, some of them take place through outreach centers. There are increasingly networks of organizations that are being established throughout the country that exchange information and have electronic contacts so that they can work with one another much more effectively.

That information campaign applies broadly, whether it's a question of potential trafficking in the United States, or trafficking in Europe or trafficking in the Middle East.

The second set of issues has to do with the economic status of women, for that is one of the reasons why in many cases women have been attracted to going elsewhere because they have seen few economic options at home. We have been supporting several programs that are specifically targeted at giving women additional economic alternatives and options.

I visited two of these centers, one of them in Lviv, the other in Kharkiv. I have seen the dynamism that they can promote among women who have gone there looking for alternatives. These centers have been able to give them an alternative vision of what they can do with their lives and some practical training to actually pursue that. Some of them have become successful entrepreneurs.

A broader program that we are trying to promote in Ukraine is access to small and micro finance, where there can be access to loans as low as $150 and where the approach to collateral can be very flexible, where a whole range of things are being used as collateral, in one case an individual's dog, in another case a ring.

Q: A dog, you're serious? That has value?

A: Seriously, a dog. Yes, because that person valued the dog, they didn't want to give that dog up. In many cases the value of that dog is going to be a lot greater than whether or not they are going to be able to provide a thousand dollars of collateral.

Through innovative programs like this, what we are finding is that a wider range of people can actually have access to financing. The experience so far has been quite successful. About 99 percent of the loans have been repaid. One of the things that I have been doing is traveling around the country to what's called Roundtables with Small and Micro Enterprises. We include many of these women's centers in these roundtables so that they have more information about how to access micro finance. We are trying to build those linkages so that these centers that are specifically targeted to address the needs of women also can link to the broader economic options that we are trying to develop.

Q: Has the U.S. considered a guest worker visa program for temporary immigrants who might want to take on the menial jobs that today employ illegal aliens, such as babysitters, housekeepers and caregivers for the elderly?

A: Let me answer this with an initial caveat: that one of the firewalls that are drawn in my responsibilities is that I don't get involved in consular issues and immigration issues.

What I can tell you is that what I have tried to do from my perspective here as ambassador is to encourage our Consular Section to look at their job as a private sector job, from the perspective that they are trying to provide a very specific service and are they providing that service in a way that is meeting the needs and the interests of their clients.

As a result of that, we put in place a whole range of changes. Some of those are detailed in the letter that Lauren Marcott sent you [published in The Weekly on March 25], and has indicated that we in fact have been able to cut the waiting time for visas significantly.

For work visas like this, there are very specific issues that need to be taken into account vis-à-vis our immigration laws. I am not a specialist on that, but I think if individuals have particular comments or suggestions on that issue there is an e-mail address we have to take those comments, and we would be happy to receive them.

Q: In your opinion, how could the Ukrainian American community best help Ukraine at this stage of its development?

A: I would suggest two sets of issues. The first is that many Ukrainian Americans have excellent connections with the Ukrainian leadership in different parts of government: the presidency, the government, the Rada.

This is an especially important time for Ukraine, where Ukraine can take actions that reinforce its commitment to being a democratic state and where Ukraine can once again establish a political consensus to advance economic reform, or it can allow an opportunity for the rule of law to be lost.

Ukraine's economy grew 5.5 percent last year. It was able to close Chornobyl. It was able to get back on track with the IMF and made significant progress on energy and agricultural reform. It had a real potential of putting itself on the next platform and moving towards integration with Europe.

The Ukrainian American community can very helpfully reinforce this potential with their interlocutors here in Ukraine and give them the encouragement to restore the political consensus and the political direction which is necessary to give Ukrainians in the international community confidence in Ukraine's political and economic direction.

The second area where I think the Ukrainian American community can be very helpful right now is in developing and strengthening its contacts at the grassroots level. There are many organizations here that are already very active. This is a time when Ukrainian grassroots organizations are looking for support and are looking for ways to be able to influence their daily lives. Some of the issues are political, some of them are social, some of them are environmental, some of them have to do with independent media, others have to do with creating small businesses.

Depending on the skills that individuals and organizations have, if they can find ways to establish contact, relationships and partnerships, then this is an especially important time to do that because I truly do believe that Ukraine has an opportunity to take a major step forward right now and define itself as a European state. That has to happen as much from the bottom up as from the top down. Working at both of those levels, I think is something that the Ukrainian American community needs to consider to do.

PART I

CONCLUSION

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