To make a point, activist applies for NATO membership (10/26/03)

To make a point, activist applies for NATO membership

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Attempting to raise awareness in Ukraine of the positive aspects that NATO membership would give the country, one man has taken it upon himself to ask for individual membership - for himself.

Ilko Kucheriv, 42, long a political and social activist in democratic circles and the director of the non-governmental organization Democratic Initiatives, handed an application for NATO membership to a somewhat surprised NATO Secretary-General George Robertson before a conference in Kyiv on October 20.

Mr. Robertson quickly regained his stride after being unexpectedly handed the documents while shaking hands with various participants of a conference on Ukraine-NATO relations sponsored by the Ukraine-NATO Civic League. He gave a hearty Irish laugh before calling the application "very interesting."

Mr. Kucheriv later told The Ukrainian Weekly that he fully understands that membership is a matter for states, but noted that the nation, not the government, is the essential component of such an entity.

"As Lord Robertson noted, we must bring the discussion [on NATO membership] down from the elites to a discussion among the people," explained Mr. Kucheriv.

He said he believes that his symbolic request would highlight the need to get a wider spectrum of people involved in developing civil society, democratic institutions and the other Euro-Atlantic norms required for Ukraine to enter NATO.

He also said that Ukrainians needed to understand that the force which would give Ukraine the needed characteristics has to be internal because no external body would pressure Ukraine to join.

"Established Ukrainian civil society must explain to the Ukrainian people the benefits we will achieve by joining the NATO alliance," Mr. Kucheriv said.

In what he admitted was a somewhat cynical comparison, he alluded to Ukraine as a disheveled and unwashed homeless person who has been invited to attend a grand banquet. The only requirement placed upon him before he can take his seat at the table, in Mr. Kucheriv's allegory, is that he clean and wash himself.

"It is up to him and only him to decide whether he wants to do that," explained the NATO applicant.

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