INTERVIEW: Askold Lozynskyj, president of the Ukrainian World Congress (PART I) (12/21/03)

INTERVIEW: Askold Lozynskyj, president of the Ukrainian World Congress

by Andrew Nynka

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Several months have passed since the 8th Ukrainian World Congress was held in mid-August, the first of its kind in Kyiv. The congress brought together 247 delegates and nearly 400 guests, including participants representing 109 organizations and 24 countries. The Ukrainian Weekly contacted New York-based attorney Askold Lozynskyj, who was recently elected to a second five-year term as the president of the UWC, with questions on a variety of topics regarding the UWC and its changing role as a representative body for diaspora Ukrainians throughout the world. The following is the first of a two-part edited telephone interview with Mr. Lozynskyj conducted on December 5.

PART I

Q: Recently there was some criticism of statements you made while on Kontakt TV regarding the opposition leader in Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. Also, there was some criticism regarding remarks you made about President Leonid Kuchma and the Kuchmagate scandal. The criticism implied that you sought moral equivalency between the U.S. and Ukraine. It mentioned, for instance, your saying that even in the United States there is no complete democracy. Those comments, it should be noted, were the subject of an open letter that was published in several Ukrainian media outlets, including on the Brama website. How do your comments on these topics square with your role as the UWC president?

A: Let me first address the Yushchenko matter. I do not agree, necessarily, 100 percent with everything that Mr. Yushchenko says or does. But at the same time, so that there is no ambiguity, in my opinion Viktor Yushchenko is the best hope for Ukraine. He is in my opinion the best presidential candidate and if I were in a position to vote in Ukraine he would certainly be my candidate for the presidency.

My criticism of him was predicated on the fact that he came to Canada and he criticized Ukraine, which I suppose he can do. But he essentially said that there is nothing good in Ukraine; that everything is bad.

Regarding Mr. Roman Wolchuk [the author of the open letter], I did read his letter but I frankly don't know who he is and I've never come across Mr. Wolchuk in the community. So I don't really know where he's coming from.

But let's take the position of the U.S. experience. You would have to be naive to believe that U.S. foreign policy is predicated on some moral ground. In fact, in terms of democratic processes and corruption, the United States not so long ago, maybe 30-40 years ago, had a similar situation to the one now in Ukraine. Ukraine has only been independent for 12 years and, while Ukraine certainly has its problems, because it doesn't have a democratic background, it has to create democratic institutions, and it has a corrupt oligarchy.

I think Ukraine needs to be considered within the context of some of the other countries in the former Soviet Union. In fact, if you were to eliminate or not include the Baltic countries, Ukraine would probably be the least offensive of the 12 republics of the former Soviet Union. Becoming a democracy and fighting corruption is a difficult process. The proof of that is in this country. Even after more than almost 250 years of democracy we have vast problems with campaign financing, we have incredible abuse of administrative resources.

One of the arguments against Ukraine in terms of not being democratic is that the so-called "vlada" uses its resources in order to elect its candidates. Well, talk about treasure troves of incumbents in the United States. My God. Talk about fund-raising that the president does. My God. Why are congressman [in the U.S.] generally re-elected over and over and over again? Because no possible candidate can get enough money to unseat a sitting congressman.

If politics were just and fair, then the Ukrainian people would have always gotten a fair shake from the U.S. government. And the fact of the matter is that the United States was something like the 125th country in the world to recognize Ukrainian independence, and that's only because the United States was politically opportunistic. They waited for the Soviet Union to disintegrate, for their buddy [Mikhail] Gorbachev to resign, and then the United States decided to recognize Ukraine. So, my response to Mr. Wolchuk and the like is that you're either being disingenuous or, really, open up your eyes. Unfortunately, in politics there are very few morals.

Q: The UWC recently released the Ukrainian-language text of its congress resolutions, which deal with a variety of issues, from language to Church to the status of Ukrainian citizens living outside of Ukraine. What was the main priority for delegates during the congress?

A: There were a number of focuses. One is that we focused on the elections in the year 2004 in Ukraine. The people who are citizens of Ukraine have the right to vote. In the past there have been serious abuses in this regard by the presidential administration in particular, and by the powers that be in Ukraine, because most of those people don't necessarily vote for the powers that be. The law, "vyborchyi zakon," says that, provided they are in a foreign country on a legal basis, they still have a right to vote. The legal basis refers only to legality as far as Ukraine is concerned - meaning, if you have a valid Ukrainian passport, irrespective of whether you've overstayed your visa in the United States, for example, you still have the right to vote in Ukraine. But in the past they [the powers that be] would not allow them the right to vote. So we're going to have to make sure that those people - irrespective of whether they're legally or illegally in the country where they reside - as long as they have a valid Ukrainian passport, have a right to vote.

Another aspect is the status of Ukrainians living in foreign countries. This is particularly true of these burgeoning communities in Spain, Portugal and Italy - where in Italy there is no agreement thus far between Ukraine and that country regarding status. Italy has passed a law, but they're very slow in actually implementing the law.

Anyone who had arrived in Italy prior to, if I'm not mistaken, October 1, 2002, was automatically legalized provided they had submitted their applications. Unfortunately, legal documents have not been given out to them and only 10 percent of the people who are qualified have received legal documents. What that means is that, if you're not legal, there are basically two matters that you cannot take care of. One, is that you cannot open up a bank account. And, second, you cannot travel back to Ukraine.

A lot of people who are in Italy, or in Spain, or in Portugal, have left their families in Ukraine, in particular children, and spouses as well. But they would like to be able to travel, for example, for the holidays to Ukraine and then come back. But they can't do it until their status is legalized. So we're trying to get the communities to put pressure on the respective governments - I mentioned three countries - to legalize these communities.

I'll give you an interesting case in point. While the community in Greece was represented at the convention, the chair of the community could not come because her status had not been clarified. So we need to address those issues.

Q: You said during a press conference after the congress: "When I say that this congress is a turning point, I will not be exaggerating. I call it a turning point because, whereas we had one delegate from the Eastern diaspora at the Toronto convention, this time there are more than 100." How has this change in the delegates' make-up affected, first, the congress itself; and, second, the UWC as a whole?

A: Well, in the past we were concerned strictly with Western problems - assimilation, Ukrainian language, the dwindling communities, which remain very much problems - but now we addressed issues which we never addressed in the past. Instead of assimilation, we addressed discrimination, human and civic rights violations, issues of burgeoning communities and what to do with them.

These were problems that we never faced in the past when we were strictly dealing with Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. In the past we had no way of understanding what the problems were for the communities in, for example, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, or even in many of the new communities in Europe.

And it's not just the Eastern diaspora, because at this particular convention we had, as guests, representatives of communities that never existed in the past. I'm talking about Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece - Greece is now a member of the UWC. And others have just taken the first steps toward UWC membership. For example, Italy, where conservative estimates say there are 500,000 Ukrainians, and more flexible or liberal estimates say there are more than 1 million, is moving toward membership.

Someone used the phrase that - in fact I think it was a representative from the Our Ukraine political bloc - more than 7 million citizens of Ukraine, currently reside or work outside of Ukraine. And that is a number we have never taken into account, and, in all honesty, we didn't foresee.

Now we have to deal with these issues by trying not only to show the Eastern diaspora how Western communities were organized, but we need to give them a helping hand initially, in terms of social services, education and Ukrainian schools.

Q: What would you say is the top priority right now for the UWC?

A: What we need to do now is we need to implement what we call the world Ukrainian community. Basically, what the UWC did in the first five years was open the doors to the communities in the Eastern diaspora and the new arrivals. It's meaningless if all we're going to do is just say that we have Ukrainians in Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. We need to establish a network of mutual assistance, mutual communication, different programs where people will travel back and forth, where people will be in constant communication. If they are in any way either offended or if any of their rights are violated, they have to feel secure that the communities outside of that country, the Ukrainian communities, will do something to support them. We'll put pressure on international organizations, or even on their own governments.

We want to make the concept of world Ukrainians more than a concept. To make it a functioning structure that mutually benefits all of its members. If we can create a community we feel is a viable community, and one that is in constant touch with each other, then the sum will be greater than its parts. Something similar to the World Jewish community, which essentially shakes the entire world despite the fact that it's not particularly populous.

Q: How has representation from the Eastern diasporas on the UWC governing body changed how the UWC conducts its affairs?

A: I think primarily everything is done by e-mail. Most of our communication, for example, coordinating the Tuzla activities, was done by e-mail. Coordinating the demonstrations against The New York Times' offices was done by e-mail. The smallest body, an executive committee, is much more manageable. It's only six people and we are in daily communication via the phone or electronically by e-mail.

Q: Regarding the needs of the Western and Eastern diasporas, are there any similarities or differences between the two, and how does that affect the UWC's role as a representative body for all diaspora Ukrainians?

A: Well, language assimilation issues are very similar and, frankly, the textbooks that we use in our schools are probably more useful to them than the books that are being used in Ukraine.

I think we're very much alike. The only issues that are not similar are the discriminatory policies and human rights violations which we're not aware of in the United States or Canada, but they certainly exist in Russia and in some of the other communities.

There are demographic issues, for example, in Germany. The headquarters of the Ukrainian community there used to be in Munich. That's no longer the case. There is a huge Ukrainian community, albeit not organized well, in Berlin, which is the capital of Germany. So the demographic shifting that's taking place, probably less so in the Western diaspora, is much more prominent in the Eastern diaspora.

One of the major differences, and I think that we're trying to impart our experience in that regard, is the role of the Church in community life. I think that anyone who lives in the United States or Canada will state unequivocally that the Church has played a very significant role in building our diaspora communities and this is so evident in what's going on, for example, in Kazakstan.

Q: Regarding the UWC's finances: how does the organization now stand financially? How do Eastern diasporas manage to pay their dues? How are the dues determined and do those dues suffice to support the UWC's work, especially now that it has grown to represent more countries than ever before?

A: Basically, the dues that are paid by the Eastern diaspora are symbolic in nature. The bulk of the money to the UWC comes from the United States and Canada. That's in terms of both dues and what we call "finansove obtiazhennia" - it's a kind of taxation or levy which is imposed on the larger organizations like the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council and the like.

But a sizable portion - and more and more so with each year - comes from Ukrainian financial institutions in the West, the credit unions. If it weren't for the credit unions like Self Reliance (N.Y.) Federal Credit Union, SUMA (Yonkers) Federal Credit Union, Buduchnist (Toronto) Credit Union and a bank like First Security Federal Savings Bank of Chicago, we would be hard pressed to continue the work we're doing.

We also periodically get a bequest or we'll get a substantial contribution from individual donors. But mostly the money comes from the Unites States and Canada, from the financial institutions and from the three organizations in the United States - primarily the Ukrainian American Coordinating Committee, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. We're planning to shift that more towards Europe.

Regarding our assets: we don't have any real property so we don't even have a building we can call our own. Financially we do have a certain amount of assets, in terms of money, which are tied up in endowment funds.

We have in the vicinity of about $400,000 to $500,000, which isn't very much for an organization. In the past we unfortunately never paid any attention to financial issues and legal issues, I might add. We weren't organized as an institution, as an organization. We were not chartered anywhere until the last term. As a result, we couldn't receive money, substantial money. We couldn't receive grants. We couldn't receive real property bequests. We made a lot of mistakes in the past, and it was unfortunately largely due to the fact that we weren't particularly concerned with legal aspects and financial issues. I think we're much more tuned in to this now.

PART I

CONCLUSION

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