ANALYSIS: Ukraine turns to Soviet-era tactics to subdue opposition to president (09/29/02)

ANALYSIS

Ukraine turns to Soviet-era tactics to subdue opposition to president

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies

In January 1972, a purge and arrest of dissidents later dubbed the "General Pogrom" by the samydav (samizdat) journal Ukrainian Herald, began in Ukraine. The journal's editor, writing under the pseudonym Maksym Sahaidak, was believed to be Stepan Khmara, who later suffered persecution himself and who this week attended mass demonstrations in Kyiv as a member of Yulia Tymoshenko's radical Fatherland Party.

During the "General Pogrom," which lasted through 1979, 70 Ukrainian dissidents were arrested and tried. But the real figure of those dismissed from work, forced to recant, or harassed in other ways was closer to 200 people, many of whom were involved in education and culture. Today, the detention of 1,000 oppositionists throughout Ukraine in the days preceding the September 16 protests is even higher than the Soviet-era figure and represents the largest crackdown since the Stalin years in the former Soviet region. The size of the opposition crowds, estimated by the Kyiv State Administration at 50,000, is also higher than the 20,000 during the "Kuchmagate" crisis of March 2001. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated throughout Ukraine.

The authorities are no more interested in dialogue with the opposition than they were in the 1970s. Viktor Yushchenko, head of Our Ukraine, Ukraine's largest parliamentary faction, has differentiated himself from the three radical opposition groups (the Tymoshenko bloc, the Socialists, and Communists) by continuing to support a "dialogue" with the authorities in the form of a roundtable modeled on the Polish process of 1988. Yet there is no sign that President Kuchma is meeting them halfway. As in the 1970s, this refusal to agree to any "dialogue" is pushing moderates into the radical camp; Our Ukraine now wants to launch even bigger protests later this month.

The mass detentions and dirty tricks against the opposition are two-pronged: repressive and preventive. Every effort was made by authorities to keep reports of the size of the protests to the lowest figures possible. Senior Justice Ministry and city officials argued that there would be no room for them all in central Kyiv (Tymoshenko claimed she expected 100,000 to 200,000 to attend the protests). Meanwhile, the Traffic Militia (DAI) barred buses and cars without Kyiv license plates from entering the capital, claiming they had to prevent chaos if the roads were blocked by demonstrators. Bus drivers trying to take protestors to Kyiv were stripped of their licenses. Seemingly to facilitate later court action against protesters, DAI handed out prepared complaint forms for drivers to sign.

Ms. Tymoshenko was blocked from flying to Mykolaiv after airport authorities claimed, falsely, that the airport was closed for safety checks. Fake copies of the Tymoshenko newspaper Vechirni visti were circulated, calling on Kyivites not to join the protests.

Students, many of whom would be expected to take part in the demonstration, were threatened with expulsion from their universities. (A civic group called Ukraine Without Kuchma, mainly made up of young people, was among key participants). Vasyl Kremen, education minister and member of the Social Democratic Party United said he would not allow students to disrupt their studies. The weekend prior to the demonstration was designated as "clean-up day" for student dormitories and students could not host guests. In Kharkiv, the authorities took over the central square where a demonstration was planned and substituted a carnival in its place. Other city centers were suddenly put under "renovation" at the time of the protests.

To scare the public away from the protests, television ran regular reports by the Internal Affairs Ministry (MVS) about hospitals stocking up on medical and emergency supplies. The MVS advised parents to keep children at home and issued a special leaflet outlining many different articles of the Criminal Code that could be used against protesters. Oppositionists accused the MVS and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of placing them under surveillance, which those authorities denied. The MVS claimed it had information that "criminal elements and mentally unstable people," unemployed persons, hooligans, drunks, "those with aggressive intentions" and the homeless would join the protests and cause disturbances, thereby denigrating the protesters.

The Luhansk Oblast Council demanded a referendum on the Belarus-Russia union and on the issue of Russian as a second state language, and said the protests would damage relations with Russia. The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration threatened to deal with "revolutionaries" and refused to allow oppositionists the use of any premises. In Kyiv, as in the Soviet era, those on state salaries were strongly encouraged to turn out in "support of Kuchma."

Court action was undertaken to ban the demonstration in central Kyiv. Opposition leaders were threatened with prosecution for blocking traffic and calling for President Kuchma's removal from power. Some 1,000 activists, many pensioners and middle-aged people, were rounded up throughout Ukraine from the Tymoshenko Bloc, the Socialists and the Communists just prior to the planned protests on charges of applying "psychological pressure on the authorities and, most importantly, on the Ukrainian president," according to Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of the presidential administration. The would-be demonstrators were asked to sign statements saying they would not join the protests, threatened with charges if they did, and asked to provide intelligence on how they were being organized and financed, according to an Interfax report on September 14. Opposition party offices were raided and materials confiscated.

Parallel to the massive round-up, authorities worked hard to downplay the significance of the planned rallies and tried to reduce their visibility. The opposition was blackened on state media as "extremists." A crashed car was found near Kyiv with Tymoshenko literature suspiciously next to a box of Molotov cocktails. At least one opposition leader, Socialist Oleksander Moroz, suggested he believes authorities planted hunting rifles and grenades in tents erected during the September 16 demonstrations. Mr. Kuchma and other senior figures accused the protesters of being paid to come to the protests. The State Tax Administration arrested a Tymoshenko employee allegedly with "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Two hundred young athletes were bused from Kyiv to western Ukraine ostensibly in "support of Our Ukraine" and "Tymoshenko." Rather than joining the authentic peaceful protests, they instigated fights with local people and threw paint on Soviet monuments, acts that were then replayed on Ukrainian television as the antics of the "opposition." A similar provocation had been organized during riots on March 9, 2001 in Kyiv when the extreme-right pro-Kuchma Tryzub paramilitary group attacked the police on behalf of the SBU. (Twelve members of the anti-Kuchma extreme-right anti-Kuchma National Assembly are still in jail accused of instigating this violence.) In 2001, the tactic worked, as public support for the opposition collapsed after the riots. During this week's protests, the only violence in Kyiv came from MVS special forces who demolished 126 tents and arrested 54 protesters who are now charged with "blocking traffic."

While attempting to prevent Ukrainians from exercising their right to hold demonstrations, the authorities simultaneously closed all opposition access to the media. Starting this past summer, the presidential administration sent instructions to television channels, directing them on how to cover or ignore events. Material on different television channels on the opposition was synchronized, according to the Telekrytyka website. On the morning of the protests, all television stations went off the air at once, something unprecedented in Ukraine, where maintenance is usually undertaken one station at a time. At the same time, pro-Kuchma "political scientists" and sociologists, such as presidential adviser Mykhailo Pohrebynsky, downplayed public support for the protests, which in fact appears to be growing from all accounts.

These Soviet-era tactics were undertaken on the same day that President Kuchma requested at the World Economic Forum in Salzburg that the European Union consider Ukraine for future membership. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the EU turned Kyiv down.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies and adjunct staffer at the department of political science, University of Toronto.

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