10th anniversary of independence vote is marked with little fanfare in Ukraine (12/09/01)

10th anniversary of independence vote is marked with little fanfare in Ukraine

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV -Ukraine celebrated the 10th anniversary of a national referendum that assured the country's independence with surprisingly little fanfare on December 1.

Perhaps the country was still recovering from the weeklong series of events back in August that led to the Ukrainian Independence Day bash. More likely, however, the reason was that politicians were too deeply involved in final election campaign preparations and their own political fates to take time out to remember one of the key dates in contemporary Ukrainian history.

The Ukrainian Weekly contacted several political parties to determine just what had taken place to commemorate the jubilee anniversary of the national plebiscite held a decade ago in which 84 percent of the Ukrainian population took part and nearly 91 percent answered in the affirmative to the question on whether Ukraine should be an independent state. It was a result that put the final nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union. Days later Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced that at the stroke of the New Year the empire would exist no more.

No one in the offices of the two political parties that were contacted could quite say just what celebrations took place in Kyiv. At one Rukh Party uncertain representatives shuttled a reporter back and forth via telephone with explanations that they "were not quite sure."

Finally National Deputy Pavlo Movchan, a member of the Ukrainian National Rukh Party, came up with what may be the definitive answer as to the reason for the dearth of commemorations: "The national democratic political forces were assigning points and bartering for places on the national tickets of either the Yuschenko ticket or the Tymoshenko ticket, depending on their political preferences," explained Mr. Movchan with a sardonic smile.

And then, altogether seriously, he added: "We are completely in the wrong. We are losing this important moment in our history. We keep putting out slogans on unity, while we cut ourselves into pieces."

Quite honestly, there were in fact several commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the referendum by leading political figures prominent at the time and today - they simply were limited in scope and attendance.

President Leonid Kuchma and his predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, who became the first president of contemporary Ukraine on that historic date after he was voted into office by 61.6 percent of Ukrainians, together visited the National Museum of Ukrainian History in Kyiv.

There President Kuchma called December 1 "a historic event for Ukraine, and not only Ukraine, but for the world." Mr. Kravchuk, for his part, added that it was the passage of the referendum that led to recognition of Ukraine as an independent state by the international community.

Mr. Kuchma also asserted that the basic question answered by that referendum was that in no way could Ukraine ever return to the Soviet Union, a statement he said he had first made in Moscow earlier in the week where he had attended a grand fête marking the 10th anniversary of the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

There were other commemorations as well, but nothing striking. National Deputy Ihor Yukhnovsky, who had led the democratic forces in the Verkhovna Rada in 1991 and, as such, the vote for independence on August 24, spoke at a sparsely attended event at the historic Teachers' Building on November 30.

On December 1, the Women into Power political organization held a commemorative evening that also was lightly attended, although people like Mr. Yukhnovsky and State Secretary of the Justice Ministry Oleksander Lavrynovych had been invited.

Journalist Yurii Lukanov, one of only seven people who showed, said the lack of attention paid to the date is an injustice.

"This date in history may be even more important than the declaration of independence," explained Mr. Lukanov. "This event gave social and legal support for what the Verkhovna Rada had declared on August 24 and put to rest for all time any discussion on whether the declaration was legitimate."

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