Turning the pages back... September 22, 2002 (09/21/03)

Turning the pages back...

September 22, 2002

One year ago, in our issue dated September 22, 2002, we reported that Kyiv was the scene of violent protests as special forces beat protesters in the early morning hours of September 17. The militia also tore down and swept away a tent city the anti-Kuchma movement had established only hours before. The police action came after some 25,000 people had marched through the city center on September 16 and held a mass public rally in Kyiv's European Square calling for the resignation of President Leonid Kuchma.

"The protest - called 'Arise Ukraine!' - was organized by the president's political opponents to coincide with the second anniversary of the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze, the young journalist who had become the center of a protracted controversy in Ukraine after audiotapes ostensibly implicating Mr. Kuchma and his cronies in the disappearance became public several months later," wrote Roman Woronowycz of our Kyiv Press Bureau.

Three separate columns - representing three different political ideologies - marched down the streets of the city, shouting "Kuchma Out." They converged at European Square, where Viktor Yushchenko of the Our Ukraine bloc, along with leaders of opposition factions in Parliament, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Socialists and Communists, awaited them. Rally speakers cited the need to put aside ideological differences in order to oust Mr. Kuchma.

Afterwards, demonstrators set up more than 150 tents on either side of the presidential offices and in front of the Cabinet of Ministers Building. They demanded that the president accept a petition and resolutions passed during the rally and agree to meet representatives of the opposition. Only about 1,000 protesters remained when state militia officers began congregating in ever-increasing numbers around the Presidential Administration Building after midnight. By 4 a.m. on September 17 observers estimated that close to 10,000 militia had gathered at the spot. Wearing black helmets and bulletproof vests, and wielding flexible batons and metal shields, officers of the Berkut special forces encircled the tent city, taking apart tents and flaying the protesters. In less than 15 minutes the tent city was gone and the protesters were scattered.

In an interview with The Standard, a newspaper published in Austria, where Mr. Kuchma was at the time of the demonstrations, the Ukrainian president said the existence of the opposition movement and the demonstrations being held were sufficient proof that democracy in Ukraine is alive and well. "We are still learning democracy and how people can demonstrate their disagreement with state policy."

Source: "Protesters in Kyiv demand Kuchma's resignation," by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, September 22, 2002, Vol. LXX, No. 38.

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