Wrzesnewskyj travels to Ukraine, again (12/26/04)

Wrzesnewskyj travels to Ukraine, again

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - As Ukrainians prepared to vote in a presidential election for the third time in as many months, Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj was getting ready to make his sixth visit to Ukraine since August.

This time the 44-year-old grandson of Ukrainian immigrants hoped the so-called Orange Revolution - or "Orange Uprising" as he calls it - which has swept across his ancestral homeland and made opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko a globally recognized hero for freedom, would lead to a lasting democracy in that country.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj (Etobicoke Center, Ontario) is among 500 Canadians who will serve as official observers when Ukrainians vote in the second presidential run-off election on December 26.

On December 16, Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that former Prime Minister John Turner, also a Liberal, would head the Canadian mission - the country's "largest-ever contingent of independent electoral observers," according to a news release issued by the Prime Minister's Office.

The Canadian contingent - the first international mission organized by the Canada Corps at a cost of more than $3.5 million (about $2.8 million U.S.) - consists of 112 observers assigned to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said France Bureau, a spokeswoman for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which oversees Canada Corps.

The remaining 388 Canadian observers report to Mr. Turner and are attached to Ukraine's Central Electoral Commission.

CANADEM, the CIDA-funded, Ottawa-based international peace and security organization that put out the call for election observers, reported that more than 3,000 Canadians expressed interest in volunteering their time over the Christmas weekend.

Meanwhile, the Winnipeg-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress selected over 300 out of 1,100 applicants to serve as accredited election observers along with 200 Ukrainian Canadians living in Ukraine.

As for the Canadian mission's Parliament Hill contingent, Ms. Bureau said that Ontario Liberal Sen. Jerry Grafstein would participate.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said that at least five of his colleagues from the House of Commons would join him in Ukraine. They include: fellow Liberals David Kilgour, who represents the federal riding of Edmonton-Beaumont and happens to be Mr. Turner's brother-in-law, and Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario); Conservatives Peter Goldring (Edmonton East) and Joy Smith (Kildonan-St. Paul, Manitoba); and Hamilton Center MP David Christopherson of the left-of-center New Democratic Party.

Taras Zalusky, chief of staff to Fisheries and Oceans Minister Geoff Regan, would also serve as "chief of staff" for the Canadian delegation, said Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Prior to departing on a charter flight from Montreal to Kyiv on December 21, observers from across Canada met in Ottawa and were briefed by the Center for Intercultural Learning, which is part of the Canadian Foreign Service Institute.

Undoubtedly, they would all benefit by talking with Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, who has already witnessed the rampant corruption at work in Ukraine's electoral system this fall.

"You name it, you saw it," he said in an interview prior to leaving for Ukraine.

"You have to remember this is a criminal and corrupt regime that's enriched itself to the tune of billions of dollars. This [election] is it - the end game."

He explained that he had videotape from the first round of the presidential election on October 31 that shows the Central Election Commission announcing on television the results from Luhansk - an administrative territory in eastern Ukraine that's considered under the control of Kremlin-backed candidate Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych - before the votes had even been counted.

"The territorial electoral commission was telling the poll commissioners what numbers to fill in so they would match what was being announced through the Central Election Commission."

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said he had been "naively optimistic" the situation would improve when he returned as a monitor for the November 21 run-off election. But it didn't, as illustrated by his November 25 House of Commons motion, which cited "a concerted, systemic and massive fraud" and which received the unanimous consent of the House.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said that, while exit polls showed that Mr. Yushchenko was the clear winner, pro-Yanukovych supporters resorted to myriad intimidation tactics - from posting dead people on voters' lists to offering the heads of territorial electoral commissions $4,000 in bribes and threatening voters.

In Luhansk a student was expelled from university the day after being seen entering the Yushchenko campaign headquarters.

In Odesa more than 1,600 students living in residence were warned that if "a single vote appeared for Yushchenko" in their polling station, they would "end up on the street." As Mr. Wrzesnewskyj noted: "When the ballot boxes were opened, 100 percent of the votes were for Yanukovych."

In one incident, a "BMW with tinted windows" almost ran a car carrying Canadian observers off the road.

Still, the nearly 1,000 Canadians travelling to Ukraine this week for what could be the final Yushchenko-Yanukovych electoral showdown can expect to be mainly welcomed with open arms, said Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, whose family charitable foundation (Dopomoha Ukraini - Aid to Ukraine), this year contributed $250,000 (about $203,000 U.S.) to fund the Edmonton-based Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies' Ukraine Transparency and Election Monitoring Project (UTEMP).

"The amount of good will towards Canada is just phenomenal," he said. He explained that much attention was paid to Ukrainian TV coverage of his Commons motion and many Ukrainians were encouraged by the concern raised in September by Andrew Robinson, Canada's ambassador to Ukraine, that the country hold a "free and fair" election.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said he believes that Ukrainians would be impressed by the size of the Canadian observer mission - the largest from any country - and the fact that a former prime minister would head it.

"When I'd go out into crowds and someone would say, 'There's a Canadian parliamentarian,' I'd get swarmed by people saying 'Please pass on a thank you to the people of Canada' or [they] would start chanting 'Ca-na-da.' "

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