Turning the pages back...

March 9, 2001

Two years ago on this date, our Kyiv correspondent reported on a confrontation that occurred on the birthday of Taras Shevchenko. As is customary, President Leonid Kuchma and other leaders were to place wreaths at the Shevchenko monument. What was not customary was that 3,000 police and intelligence service agents swept the park with dogs and cordoned off the area.

The first major confrontation took place when police tried to move back a large crowd of about 300 young demonstrators. Mr. Kuchma, along with other top government and parliamentary leaders, quickly went through a short wreath-laying ceremony before departing. With them and law enforcement officers gone, the demonstrators proceeded to tear apart the wreaths left by the delegation. The crowd, which had swelled to nearly 2,000, proceeded to the Ministry of Internal Affairs headquarters, then to the Khreschatyk, where some 18,000 gathered for a rally, and on to another Ministry of Internal Affairs building and the presidential administration for a final showdown with the militia that ended with Molotov cocktails being lofted at officers, and the militia hurtling tear gas at the marchers.

The events had actually begun on March 1, 2001, when officials moved on the tent city erected by the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement seeking the resignation of President Kuchma in the wake of the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze and other scandals.

Source: "The Gongadze case: a murder still unsolved" in "2001: The Year in Review," January 6, 2002, Vol. LXX, No. 1.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 9, 2003, No. 10, Vol. LXXI

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