NEWSBRIEFS

'Internal consolidation' before NATO

KYIV - Yevhen Marchuk, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told television interviewers on May 12 that his country must travel "a rather complicated path to internal consolidation" before entering NATO, Interfax reported. "This must not be only a presidential or a government decision; it must be one backed by Parliament and, most important, it must be backed by at least half of the Ukrainian population," Mr. Marchuk said, suggesting that NATO currently perceives Ukraine as an "unpredictable partner" because of weak support for NATO membership among Ukrainians. Mr. Marchuk also reiterated that Ukraine should deploy stabilization forces to Iraq. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Former central banker sentenced

KYIV - A district court in Kyiv on May 13 sentenced former National Bank of Ukraine Vice-Chairman Volodymyr Bondar to five years in prison for abuse of authority and embezzlement, Interfax and UNIAN reported. "When an election campaign starts in Ukraine, the authorities again resort to far-fetched criminal cases," Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko commented on the Bondar case. "Opponents of Our Ukraine use all kinds of dirty tricks in the struggle against political rivals, since they have not gotten used to civilized methods of struggle." Mr. Bondar served as vice-chairman of the NBU in 1995-1999, when Mr. Yushchenko headed the institution. Mr. Bondar's trial is seen by some analysts as an attempt to discredit Mr. Yushchenko ahead of the upcoming presidential election campaign. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Case against Tymoshenko halted

KYIV - The Kyiv Appeals Court on May 13 ordered the closure of all criminal cases launched by the Procurator General's Office against opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and four former executives of Unified Energy Systems (EES), which Ms. Tymoshenko headed in 1995-1997, Interfax reported. Prosecutors accused Ms. Tymoshenko, her husband, father-in-law, and two other EES colleagues of misappropriating state funds. The Procurator General's Office said in a statement that it will appeal the ruling. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv invited to conference on Iraq

KYIV - U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Pifer said in Kyiv on May 13 that Ukraine has been invited to a conference on the reconstruction of Iraq that will take place in London later this month, UNIAN reported. Mr. Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, reportedly said the United States wants to help Ukraine apply for subcontracting work for domestic firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Mr. Pifer met in Kyiv with Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, with whom he also discussed Ukraine's possible participation in the stabilization effort in Iraq. "At the moment, Ukraine needs time for internal consideration of this issue," UNIAN quoted Mr. Pifer as saying. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Aviation in a 'catastrophic state'

KYIV - A Ukrainian airline-industry publication reported recently that the industry is in "a catastrophic state," plagued by a shortage of new pilots, and utterly distrusted internationally, Reuters reported on May 12. "After a long string of accidents, any trust in Ukrainian aviation is almost destroyed," Transpress commented. "It is no secret that Ukrainian civil and military aviation is in a catastrophic state," the publication added. "For the last two years not a single military pilot has graduated. The best schools training pilots and aviation engineers have been destroyed." According to unidentified analysts cited by the agency, the previous week's air disaster in Congo only added to growing international distrust in Ukrainian aviation. On May 8 the doors of a Ukrainian-owned Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane with a Ukrainian crew opened in mid-air, leading to the deaths of an unconfirmed number of passengers. Initial reports claimed that as many as 120 people were sucked out of the aircraft and killed, while Congolese Information Minister Kikaya bin Karubi said the death toll would probably rise above 14. In December, a Ukrainian AN-140 aircraft crashed in Iran, killing all 46 Ukrainian aviation engineers and experts on board. In July 2002, 83 people were killed in Lviv in the world's worst air-show disaster, when an SU-27 fighter jet crashed into the crowd. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Marchuk on involvement in Iraq

KYIV - Yevhen Marchuk, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told UNIAN on May 9 that Ukrainian peacekeepers should take part in the stabilization of postwar Iraq. "I personally think that we should get involved - this is not a war, this is something else," Mr. Marchuk said. Asked whether Ukraine may take part in the stabilization forces in Iraq without approval from the United Nations Security Council, he said such authorization would be "desirable." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Troops mark V-Day in Sevastopol ...

SEVASTOPOL - Some 1,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops, mostly sailors, took part in a joint military parade in Sevastopol on May 9 to mark Victory Day, a Soviet-era holiday, Ukrainian news agencies reported. It was the second time since Ukraine declared its independence in 1991 that Ukrainian and Russia servicemen have marched together. A similar march took place in May 2000, also in Sevastopol, where Ukraine and Russia maintain naval bases. (RFE/RL Newsline)

... as rightists clash with leftists in Lviv

LVIV - Some 500 people were involved on May 9 in a violent clash at the Marsove Pole memorial to the victims of Stalinist repression, which lay on the route of left-wing veterans marching to lay wreaths at a nearby World War II monument on the occasion of Victory Day, ITAR-TASS and Interfax reported. Police had to intervene, clearing a path for the veterans through a cordon of right-wingers objecting to the red flags being displayed by leftist participants in the march. "Representatives of leftist parties came today to Marsove Pole on purpose, even despite the court ban on conducting any rallies, while attempts to compromise with them were unsuccessful, since they did not agree to the main demand of rightists: no red-flag march," Yurii Shukhevych told Interfax. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Senate ratifies NATO expansion

WASHINGTON - U.S. senators voted 96-0 on May 8 to ratify protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty previously signed by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, international news agencies reported. The United States thus became the third of NATO's 19 member-states, after Canada and Norway, to formally approve the alliance's further expansion into Central and Eastern Europe. Legislative approval is required in all current member-states before the bloc may expand, which is expected to occur at a NATO summit in mid-2004. "These nations will make NATO stronger, and we need that strength for all the work that lies ahead," President George W. Bush said in an appeal the same day to other allies to approve the expansion, according to The New York Times. NATO last expanded with the inclusion in 1999 of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Meeting with the foreign ministers of the seven candidate states in Washington the same day, President Bush said those countries have "a fresh memory of tyranny." He added, "And they know the consequences of complacency in the face of danger." Mr. Bush also backed efforts to take in Albania, Croatia and Macedonia as they proceed with democratic reforms, according to the DPA news agency, saying, "Just as NATO has stood for the freedom of all of Europe, we must stand with people everywhere who strive for greater freedom, and tolerance, and development, and health and opportunity, including those in the Middle East and Africa." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv disagrees with DC on CD piracy

KYIV - The United States' inclusion of Ukraine on a list of countries that do not effectively combat CD piracy is unfounded, Viktor Lytvynenko of the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry's Department for Combating Economic Crime charged on May 8, according to Interfax. "Ukraine has adopted all the laws necessary for the protection of intellectual-property rights, and law enforcement bodies are intensively combating the manufacture of pirated media," Mr. Lytvynenko said. He said only one plant in Ukraine currently produces CDs, and its production is being carefully monitored by the authorities. Mr. Lytvynenko said the fact that U.S.-based software giant Microsoft more than tripled its sales in Ukraine over the past year is a sign of success in the battle against media piracy in the country. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick released a report in early May listing Ukraine as a "Priority Foreign Country," that is, as one "pursuing the most onerous or egregious policies that have the greatest adverse impact on U.S. right holders or products, and are subject to accelerated investigations and possible sanctions," Interfax reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Petro Symonenko is hospitalized

KYIV - Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has been hospitalized with a heart problem since April 24, Interfax reported on May 8, quoting a source in the Communist Party Central Committee. The source denied reports by some Ukrainian media that Mr. Symonenko suffered a heart attack. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Prosecutor sentenced then amnestied

KYIV - A court in Kyiv on May 6 sentenced Serhii Obozov, a former public prosecutor in Tarascha Raion, Kyiv Oblast, to two and a half years in prison for abuse of office and forgery in connection with the case of slain Internet journalist Heorhii Gongadze, whose headless body was found near Tarascha in November 2000, Interfax reported. The court found Mr. Obozov guilty of violating proper procedure and falsifying documents connected with the case. Simultaneously, the court excused Mr. Obozov from punishment, saying he was protected by an amnesty law at the time he committed his crimes.(RFE/RL Newsline)

Wiesenthal Center rates cooperation

TALLINN - Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Jerusalem Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in an April 27 press release previewing the center's third annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, ranked Estonia as a country that has made "insufficient and/or unsuccessful efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Holocaust," BNS reported on April 28. In a ranking of grades ranging from A (highest) to F (lowest), Estonia received a D along with Argentina, Australia, Austria, Great Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. Latvia and Lithuania received a C, indicating "minimal success, which could have been greater; additional steps urgently required." The grade of F, indicating total failure of prosecution, was given to Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic, Greece, Holland, Russia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Sakharov monument unveiled

ST. PETERSBURG - The first Russian monument to physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov was unveiled on a square between the main building of St. Petersburg State University and the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences on May 5, Kommersant-Daily reported the next day. The monument is the work of sculptor Levon Lazarev, who began pushing the project after the square on which the statue stands was named after Sakharov in 1996. State Duma Deputy Grigorii Tomchin (Union of Rightist Forces), a "first-wave democrat" who became involved in politics during the era of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, remarked with pleasure that the idea for the monument originated with "the citizens" and that "the authorities had nothing to do with this event." Dr. Sakharov's widow, Yelena Bonner, did not attend the unveiling and told Kommersant-Daily: "Now is not the time to deal with monuments in Russia. The mass enthusiasm for monuments attests to a superficial, unserious relationship to those to whom the monuments are dedicated." Ms. Bonner recently objected to plans to erect a Sakharov monument in Moscow. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 18, 2003, No. 20, Vol. LXXI

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