100,000 Yushchenko supporters rally for free and fair election (10/31/04)

100,000 Yushchenko supporters rally for free and fair election

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In the largest political rally since independence was declared 13 years ago, nearly 100,000 supporters of Viktor Yushchenko filled Lesia Ukrainka Square on October 23 - turning the plaza into a sea of orange banners and bandanas - to urge the Central Election Committee (CEC) to ensure that a transparent and honest vote count takes place on Election Day.

That evening the CEC, whose offices are located on the square, buckled to the demands of pro-Yushchenko lawmakers and agreed to reduce the number of voting precincts for Ukrainians in Russia from the proposed 420 to 41. [During Ukraine's parliamentary elections in 2002 there were only four polling stations in Russia.]

"We achieved our first major victory in the war against falsification of the vote," explained Mr. Yushchenko's campaign chief, National Deputy Oleksander Zinchenko, during a press conference held two days later, alluding to the successful effort to get 90 percent of the proposed voting precincts in Russia eliminated.

That success, however, came only after young thugs beat, slashed and bloodied up to 11 individuals as they ran amuck through a group of several hundred Yushchenko supporters who had remained outside the building as the CEC members inside considered the question of voting sites in Russia. It also occurred after lawmakers from the Power of the People election coalition, which supports Mr. Yushchenko's candidacy, battled special forces security personnel in their effort to re-enter the building and return to the CEC proceedings after they had left to investigate what was occurring outside.

The Berkut officers had taken positions between the national deputies and the doors to the building as the lawmakers tried to make sense of the scene. At first, when asked to move, they would not budge, nor were they ready to remove the faceplates of their riot helmets for face-to-face discussions, which led several lawmakers to lose control and attempt to tear the masks off.

The lawmakers, at least a dozen in all, including Mr. Yushchenko and his campaign chief, along with two key lieutenants, Petro Poroshenko and Yevhen Chervonenko, then manhandled security forces inside before tearing the locked doors to the CEC conference hall off of their hinges to gain re-entry to the proceedings.

The events of October 23 initially took place in an orderly manner when some of the 100,000 supporters of Mr. Yushchenko gathered for a peaceful march through the city center to symbolically encircle the state and government buildings in which the supporters of his closest opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, allegedly have conspired to taint the vote in their candidate's favor. The Yushchenko supporters called for a presidential vote free of fraud and falsification in a campaign that has been marked by extensive use of government administrative resources, smear tactics and disinformation.

Even as the rally-goers gathered, law enforcement was working to lower the turnout, carefully and slowly controlling the ingress of vehicles into Kyiv. Gates at militia outposts at the city borders were drawn down, and cars and trucks were being checked and turned away at times.

The previous evening Mr. Yushchenko had turned to Minister of Transportation Heorhii Kirpa to determine why no tickets were available for trains scheduled from the western regions of Ukraine to Kyiv. People who had found means by which to get to Kyiv by the morning of the mass rally said they had seen buses stranded on the roads into Kyiv, many with flat tires. In Kherson, university officials warned students to stay in their dormitories the night before the rally in Kyiv. A local train from Konotop filled with Yushchenko supporters was stopped under the guise of a check for explosives after a warning was phoned in. It was held for half the day before being allowed to move on, too late for the travelers to make it to the rally.

Also the previous day, law enforcement officials had conducted sweeps of civic organizations' offices in Kyiv, seizing documents and intimidating citizens (see related story, "Ambassadors of EU member-states warn Kyiv about pre-election abuses," on page 1).

Nonetheless 100,000 made it - organizers presented a figure of 150,000 - and spent the day parading though the streets of Kyiv, many waving the orange standard of the Yushchenko campaign with its simple slogan of "Tak!," which means yes in Ukrainian. Others wore campaign bandanas or t-shirts, while some went still further, painting their faces orange or dressing their pets in the campaign color.

The two columns of marchers left Independence Square along separate routes and paraded around the perimeter of the Pechersk District of Kyiv, which is home to the most important state and government buildings, before meeting at Lesia Ukrainka Square to hear Mr. Yushchenko speak.

Mr. Yushchenko, looking better since his still mysterious ailment at the beginning of September, seemed taken aback by the sea of humanity that greeted him as he alone entered the huge stage to address the crowd. A few seconds passed before he finally raised his hands in recognition of the cheers and applause. Afterwards he told his supporters that, while they needed to remain confident that he would win, they also needed to remain vigilante against both voter fraud, and civil unrest provoked by government authorities who would be satisfied if the October 31 vote was canceled because of a threat to national security.

"The fact that so many of you are here proves that we do not live in a time of national fear, but in a time of national courage," Mr. Yushchenko began.

The presidential candidate exhorted government officials to resist falsification and fraud and told his supporters that they needed to remain united. Mr. Yushchenko, who is in a dead heat with Mr. Yanukovych, told the crowd that state officials who currently hold power are trying to divide Ukraine's electorate along geographical, political and religious lines.

"They are pitting brother against brother, but we will not allow this. We can't be bought, we can't be fooled, we can't be beaten," exclaimed Mr. Yushchenko.

The leader of the Our Ukraine opposition bloc also called for support from the other political forces in Ukraine and their candidates - none of whom curries more than 7 percent support among the electorate and most of which have less than 1 percent.

Finally, he told his supporters not to succumb to provocations and told the world that his campaign would not stoop to violence or civil unrest on election day.

"Those who will attack voting precincts in orange shirts will be provoking the situation. They serve only those who want to steal your vote," Mr. Yushchenko said.

Most of the crowd calmly dispersed after the 30-minute presentation, but about 10,000 to 20,000 remained to await the results of a special CEC meeting called to decide the matter of the number of voting precincts that would be established in Russia. The CEC was forced to meet on this Saturday because by law it had to have a decision no later than seven days before the October 31 vote.

The crowd remained in full force until around 9 p.m., when lawmakers from the Power of the People election coalition, who were meeting with the CEC in what was a very hot debate, came outside to ask them to begin to disperse because it was late and no decision was imminent.

Around 10:50 p.m. only a few hundred supporters remained when several dozen young men came running from the street toward the crowd before the building, throwing bottles and rocks, and swinging objects, including knives, which cut several people. Eleven victims were treated at a local hospital.

Meanwhile, at the CEC meeting, National Deputy Nestor Shufrych of the Social Democratic Party-United, who had asked that Our Ukraine bloc representatives not take part in the CEC proceeding because they would "turn them into a circus" informed the participants that civil unrest was occurring outside.

"Shufrych said, go downstairs, your people are being beaten," explained National Deputy Viktor Korol during the press conference with Mr. Zinchenko.

Mr. Korol, who is a general in the state militia on leave during the term of his legislative appointment, said that he appealed to Serhii Kivalov, head of the CEC, to call law enforcement officials to the scene. He said that at first Mr. Kivalov ignored his request. He added that the security officials on the first floor of the building watched the entire incident develop but never attempted to intervene.

The 10 troops that arrived in response to Mr. Korol's request were not an adequate response to the situation, explained the lawmaker, who added that law enforcement officials would have sent a much larger force if the intent was to restore order and not simply to bar pro-Yushchenko lawmakers from re-entering the building as he alleged.

Mr. Korol also noted that three of the thugs who had taken part in the attack before the CEC building were caught by supporters of Mr. Yushchenko as they fled in vehicles. The lawmaker said that National Deputy Volodymyr Bondarenko and a group of supporters chased down the vehicle and cornered the assailants, two of whom turned out to be members of the Titan special forces militia unit.

On October 26, three days after the incident Mr. Bondarenko's car was firebombed as he drove to his cottage outside Kyiv.

On October 27, the Our Ukraine bloc issued a statement in which it warned of the possibility of additional civil unrest being planned for election day in which organized gangs of thugs dressed in orange t-shirts, many from the mining towns of Donetsk Oblast, would rampage through the streets of major Ukrainian cities breaking windows and assailing voters.

The statement warned that Our Ukraine had also received information that a series of terrorist acts could be carried out in the major cities of the eastern regions at voting precincts, which would involve bloodshed and fatalities. The ultimate aim of such attacks, which could come in the form of explosions, would be to discredit the candidacy of Mr. Yushchenko in a second round of elections and could even lead to a state of emergency and the cancellation of elections.

Our Ukraine further noted that it had received information that 5,000 soldiers had been stationed at resorts and sanitariums on the outskirts of Kyiv, a number that would grow to 15,000 by October 31, and stated the soldiers would be outfitted with electric shock devices and flash grenades.

On October 25, Channel 5 television broadcast footage on its evening news of state militia training exercises in Crimea in which officers were shown breaking windows with sticks, throwing gas bombs and turning over a bus. Channel 5 said it had received the video from an anonymous source.

| Home Page |