Foreign policy advisor to Kerry meets with Ukrainian Americans

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Richard Holbrooke, who held key foreign policy positions in the Clinton administration and now advises Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry on foreign policy issues, says that it is up to Ukraine itself to decide if its future is within NATO and the European Union. That decision, he stressed, should receive the full support of the United States and should not be subject to any kind of a Russian veto.

Briefing a small group of representatives of Ukrainian American organizations here on July 20, following his brief visit to Ukraine earlier in the month, he stressed that the degree of transparency and fairness demonstrated in the Ukrainian presidential elections in October will be decisive in determining its European future. He called on Ukrainian Americans to help drive that message home in Ukraine and participate as election observers.

Among those participating in the Washington briefing and the discussion that followed were Michael Sawkiw Jr., president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, and Eugene Iwanciw, second vice-president of the Ukrainian National Association, who brought up some of the issues in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship that concern Ukrainian Americans. Among these was the unwillingness of the past two administrations to grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to Ukraine, dwindling U.S. aid levels to Ukraine and the continued assignment of Russian-speaking foreign service personnel to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.

Ambassador Holbrooke made the point repeatedly that a Kerry administration would serve Ukraine's NATO and EU membership plans better than would a re-elected Bush administration, which, he noted, is losing its influence in Europe and tends to side with Russian interests over those of its neighbors.

The briefing was organized by the UCCA America and McGuireWoods LLP, an international law firm, in whose Washington offices the event was held. The briefing was moderated by Mark Brzezinski of McGuireWoods.

In the administration of President Bill Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs during the first expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, and later as ambassador to the United Nations. Currently he is on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and heads the Asia Society and the American Academy in Berlin.

He also serves as president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS, and in this capacity he appealed to Ukrainian Americans to help convince the Ukrainian government that it must act now to counter its AIDS epidemic. Proportionally, the epidemic in Ukraine is 30 times worse than in China, which has been receiving a lot of press coverage recently. (This aspect of the briefing is covered in a separate story on page 8.)

Tracing the history of NATO's expansion, Mr. Holbrooke said that then, as now, the admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic required some convincing and pressure on the part of the U.S. administration to get all of the NATO partners to agree. The American foreign policy establishment required some convincing as well, he added.

When Washington first asked Ukraine in the mid-1990s if it wanted to join NATO, the administration of President Leonid Kravchuk declined, saying that it was "a bridge too far" and that it did not want to "rock the boat" in the region. Later, after the Baltic countries joined NATO, President Leonid Kuchma announced in 2002 that Ukraine wanted to join as well, Mr. Holbrooke said.

"Do you think that Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the others would be in NATO today without our pressure?" he asked. "Absolutely not. We can even exert pressure on EU membership if the administration in Washington is respected."

But that is not the case with the current administration, he said, pointing to the incident at the recent NATO meeting in Istanbul, when President George W. Bush called on the EU to accept Turkey as a member.

"He got slammed by the Europeans," Mr. Holbrooke said. "He got attacked across the board" for meddling in their affairs.

When President Clinton and he made that same call some 50 times at different venues in the past, "nobody ever attacked Clinton for interference. In fact, the Turks welcomed him as a close friend," he said.

Alienating Europeans

"What's the difference?" he asked. "We have an administration in Washington now which has so alienated and angered the European leadership that even when the president of the United States says something that is a consensus American position - and what Bush said was exactly what Clinton said - he gets an adverse reaction."

"John Kerry won't have that problem," Mr. Holbrooke said.

But the next government in Kyiv must state Ukraine's intention to join NATO "in a clear and unambiguous way," he continued, and it must understand that NATO will take into account its internal issues. "And they will be taken into account," he said, reminding the audience about how the Clinton administration "bumped" Slovakia off the list because of internal policies of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, whom Mr. Holbrooke describe as "one ugly thug."

"Therefore, we should put maximum pressure on the government to hold open and fair elections, to monitor them and to work with them on transparency and dealing with corruption," Mr. Holbrooke said.

"My own view is that Ukraine should look [toward] both East and West. They cannot remain in the future what they were for the last thousand years," he said. "The rest of Europe has to think of them as European. And they need to be part of the European Union for obvious economic, psychological and cultural reasons, and they should be part of NATO so that never again will they have to face a threat from Moscow."

"Blank check" for Putin

Ambassador Holbrooke accused the Bush administration of subordinating its support for Ukraine "to the blank check for Vladimir Putin."

"I have no objection to improving U.S. relations with Russia, but not at the expense of the neighborhood," he underscored.

When he was in Kyiv - his third trip in 21 years - Mr. Holbrooke said he met with President Kuchma, who assured him that he would not run again for president and again stated his government's intention to join NATO. His prime minister and ruling party presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, however, would not state his position on NATO membership, presumably because of political considerations in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Holbrooke said he did not have a chance to meet with the main opposition presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who was out of the country, but he did meet with Borys Tarasyuk and other leaders of his group.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 25, 2004, No. 30, Vol. LXXII

| Home Page |