NEWSBRIEFS (12/16/01)

NEWSBRIEFS

Crackdown decreed on money laundering

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has signed a decree on combating money laundering, Interfax reported on December 10. The decree, which will take effect on January 1, 2002, introduces obligatory control over all financial transactions that are termed as "considerable" or "dubious." The decree will remain in force until an appropriate law is passed. (RFE/RL Newsline)

New evidence on Soviet executions

LVIV - Officials have found evidence that Soviet forces executed 513 people whose bodies are found in a mass grave near Lviv. The bodies were buried in July 1941. Municipal archives yielded information on the mass grave in the registry of the Yaniv Cemetery. Authorities have not yet decided whether they would carry out exhumations. (Agence France-Presse/The New York Times)

Minister denies charges of arms sales

KYIV - Ukrainian Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko on December 10 rejected accusations made by Russian State Duma Deputy Viktor Iliukhin earlier the same day that Ukraine has been selling arms to Chechen fighters and Afghanistan's Taliban since 1996, STB television reported. In particular, referring to sources in Russia's Defense Ministry and secret services, Mr. Iliukhin said Ukraine supplied more than 200 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers and 30 light aircraft to Afghanistan via dummy companies in 1996. Leonid Rozhen, the head of Ukraine's Committee for Military-Technical Cooperation Policy and Export Controls, told Interfax that Mr. Iliukhin's allegations are "absurd," and aim to "discredit Ukraine in the international arena, put Ukraine at loggerheads with Russia, and remove our state from the international arms market." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv expects explanations from Moscow

KYIV - Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Ihor Dolhov said on December 11 that Kyiv does not view the recent allegations by Russian State Duma deputy Viktor Iliukhin of Ukraine's illicit arms trade with Afghanistan's Taliban and Chechen fighters as Russia's official stance. "We firmly repudiate accusations of this kind and anticipate explanations from official representatives of the Russian Federation in the near future," the UNIAN news service quoted Mr. Dolhov as saying. He added that because Mr. Iliukhin cited sources in Russia's Defense Ministry and secret services, "it is logical that the appropriate explanations should come from those departments." The same day, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Cher-nomyrdin dismissed Mr. Iliukhin's charges as "nonsense," New Channel television reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

U.S. trains Ukrainian election officials

KYIV - U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual told the UNIAN news agency on December 11 that the United States has provided technical experts for Ukraine's Central Election Commission to train and teach members of local election commissions "to understand their role and functions better." Mr. Pascual said the experts will hold training sessions for some 25,000 members of election commissions, adding that representatives of all the major parties in the Ukrainian Parliament have already been taking part in such sessions. The envoy noted that this U.S. assistance provides for cooperation with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which will coordinate the activity of foreign observers in the March 31 parliamentary election, as well as with Ukrainian NGOs, such as the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lawmakers regroup before election

KYIV - The Labor Ukraine deputy group has reorganized itself into a parliamentary caucus of the Labor Ukraine Party, thus completing the process of transformation of deputies' groups into party caucuses in the Ukrainian Parliament, the Interfax and UNIAN news services reported on December 11. In accordance with the new law on parliamentary elections, political parties possessing their own caucuses in the Verkhovna Rada are entitled to have representatives on election commissions. The current array of caucuses in the Parliament is as follows: Communist Party, 113 deputies;Labor Ukraine, 39; Social Democratic Party (United), 33; Fatherland, 25; Ukraine's Regions, 24; Ukrainian National Rukh, 22; Solidarity, 21; Socialists and Peasants, 17; Popular Democratic Party, 16; Unity, 16; Democratic Union, 15; Greens, 15; Yabluko, 15; National Rukh of Ukraine, 14; and Reforms-Congress, 14. There are also 48 non-aligned deputies. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Symonenko wants second official language

KYIV - Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko said in Moscow on December 10 that Russian should become an official language in Ukraine, ITAR-TASS reported. Following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and participants in a congress of Ukrainians in Russia, Mr. Symonenko said it is necessary to adopt "a new law on languages" that would give Russian official status in Ukraine along with Ukrainian. Last month, the Ukrainian Parliament considered on first reading four bills on languages: three of them proposed Ukrainian as the state language, while one gave this status to both Ukrainian and Russian. Parliament Chairman Ivan Pliusch said in Kyiv on December 11 that the language problem has been raised prior to upcoming parliamentary elections by "some political forces that are looking for something to win votes." (RFE/RL Newsline)

No major privatization before election

KYIV - Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh has announced that the Ukrainian government will not offer strategic enterprises for privatization in the first quarter of 2002. Inter television commented on December 9 that Mr. Kinakh's announcement makes pointless allegations that privatization revenues may be used for election purposes in the March 31, 2002, parliamentary ballot. Mr. Kinakh explained that the government's decision was due to the upcoming ballot and a global economic downturn. "During election-related political campaigns, as is the case now in Ukraine, investors take a wait-and-see attitude. They wait for election results. Given the slump on the global market and the lack of investor interest due to the high risks involved in elections, nobody will think we are clever if we offer a great number of strategically important enterprises for privatization. In this situation, all those enterprises would be sold for a song," the prime minister said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Anti-corruption forum emerges in Ukraine

KYIV - A number of NGOs and government officials on December 10 set up a nationwide anti-corruption forum, New Channel television reported. Mykola Azarov, leader of the Party of the Regions and chief of the State Tax Administration said the country needs to fight corruption at all levels of power and establish public control over corrupt groups. According to Mr. Azarov, who was an initiator of the forum, the body can initiate a code of good practice for bureaucrats, expose officials' corrupt actions, and help establish closer contacts between Ukraine and Western anti-corruption organizations. (RFE/RL Newsline)

World Bank approves $100 M for Ukraine

KYIV - The World Bank on December 9 decided to disburse $100 million to Ukraine, Interfax reported. The sum is the second part of the first tranche of the bank's $750 million adjustment loan. Ukraine received the first tranche of $150 million in September. According to the bank, its adjustment loan provides substantial support for the government's program of reforms, which may result in 8 percent economic growth in Ukraine this year. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Moscow woos Ukrainians in Russia

MOSCOW - In his opening remarks to a congress of ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia, presidential administration head Aleksandr Voloshin said in Moscow on December 9 that President Vladimir Putin's administration is interested in creating a "Ukrainian lobby" from the more than 4 million ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia, ORT and NTV reported. Deputy Prime Ministers Viktor Khristenko and Valentina Matvienko, and Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi, who are all ethnic Ukrainians, sent greetings to the congress. In addition, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Semynozhenko told the audience that "the way of Ukraine into Europe goes through Moscow," and that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has announced that 2002 will be the "Year of Russia in Ukraine." (RFE/RL Newsline)

CORRECTION: "The Year of Russia in Ukraine" will be in 2003, and not 2002 as reported in a previous item from RFE/RL Newsline.

Russia and NATO set up joint council

BRUSSELS - At a joint session of foreign ministers from Russia and the 19 NATO members in Brussels on December 6, the creation of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council was announced, Russian and international media reported. NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson said the new council will not be a consultative organ, but an independent decision-making body for areas of joint concern, especially in the international fight against global terrorism, the BBC reported. However, Lord Robertson stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted NATO's condition that it retains its right to make decisions independent from Russia in other areas. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Crimean paper cited for anti-Semitism

SYMFEROPOL - The Procurator's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has launched criminal proceedings against the Russkii Krym newspaper in Symferopol in connection with anti-Semitic material it has published, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported on December 6. Procurator Oleksander Dobroriz said a motion will soon be submitted to court to ban the newspaper. An RFE/RL correspondent reported that Russkii Krym, which is published by the Russian Movement of Crimea, carried an article that claimed to reveal "tricks of the Jews and their ominous role in the contemporary fate of the Russian people." The proceedings against Russkii Krym, which were initiated under the Criminal Code provision that prohibits stirring up interethnic enmity, is the first criminal case against a media outlet in Crimea. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ostroh completes construction projects

OSTROH, Ukraine - The construction of 15 buildings to house faculty has been completed at the National University of Ostroh Academy in the Rivne Oblast. The construction was made possible with the support of the oblast administration headed by Mykola Soroka. The school also refurbished a stadium and five tennis courts and renovated a church on its grounds. President Leonid Kuchma visited Ostroh Academy on November 23, meeting with students and faculty and greeting the school on the occasion of its 425th anniversary. The president presented a 22-passenger bus (valued at $28,000) to the academy. (Ostroh Academy)

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