ANALYSIS: Did Ukraine's Security Service really prevent bloodshed during the Orange Revolution? (01/30/05)

ANALYSIS

Did Ukraine's Security Service really prevent bloodshed during the Orange Revolution?

by Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor

On January 17, The New York Times published a sensational expose alleging that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had been key to preventing bloodshed during the Orange Revolution. The article was translated for Ukrainska Pravda the same day and has unleashed a debate as to whether the allegations are true or an attempt at whitewashing the SBU in time for Viktor Yushchenko's presidency.

The issue of whether bloodshed was contemplated is crucial to understanding the success of the Orange Revolution. In both the Serbian (November 2000) and Georgian (October-November 2003) democratic revolutions the security forces either stayed neutral or defected to the opposition. In October Russian political technologist Marat Gelman, who worked on Viktor Yanukovych's campaign, ruled out a Georgian scenario in Ukraine, predicting that the security forces would stay loyal to the authorities (Ukrainska Pravda, October 29, 2004). This prediction was wrong, and Eurasia Daily Monitor (December 1) was the first to identify the growing defection of security forces as likely to lead to a victory for the Orange Revolution.

A majority of the SBU did prefer Mr. Yushchenko to his main opponent, Viktor Yanukovych. For example, some 80 percent of officers enrolled in the SBU Academy in Kyiv voted for Mr. Yushchenko (Zerkalo Nedeli, November 20-26, 2004). Throughout the election campaign the Yushchenko camp had excellent contacts with the SBU, which gave them (and Eurasia Daily Monitor) internal documents from the Yanukovych camp. But, this was also true of the Internal Ministry, whose personnel kept relaying to the Mr. Yushchenko camp their opposition to using force against protesters.

Elements of the SBU taped Mr. Yanukovych's "shadow campaign" headquarters and the audiotapes were given over to the Yushchenko camp immediately after the second round of the presidential election. On November 25 the SBU issued a statement affirming its opposition to the official results that had declared a Yanukovych victory and stating their readiness to defend the protesters.

Nevertheless, four factors work against The New York Times exposé's ability to improve the image of SBU chief Ihor Smeshko. Already allegations have been raised that the article was merely a public relations exercise for Mr. Smeshko (oligarch.net, January 20).

First, outgoing president Leonid Kuchma is also claiming credit for not ordering a violent crackdown. President Kuchma "guaranteed" that there would be no violent crackdown "under any circumstances" (UNIAN, November 11, 2004).

Former deputy presidential administration head Vasyl Baziv revealed that it was actually Mr. Yanukovych and presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk who lobbied for a violent crackdown. The duo are undoubtedly the same officials who attempted to move Internal Affairs troops to Kyiv.

Besides Messrs. Yanukovych and Mr. Medvedchuk, then-Procurator-General Hennadii Vasilyev issued a statement on November 22, one day after Round 2, calling upon the authorities and the SBU to "firmly put an end to lawlessness." Three days later he ordered a criminal case to be launched against Mr. Yushchenko and his ally Yulia Tymoshenko for their "seizure of power." The order was never issued, because Deputy Procurator General Mykola Holomsha refused to implement it and was removed on November 29.

After he resigned on December 8, Mr. Vasilyev was interviewed and continued to refuse to describe the protests as a "revolution," instead calling them "compete bedlam" (Donetskiye novosti, January 10). Like his close ally Mr. Yanukovych, Mr. Vasilyev believes that Mr. Yushchenko seized power in a coup d'état and that the authorities should have resisted the protests in the first week of the Orange Revolution.

Are Messrs. Kuchma and Mr. Smeshko really though, the "good guys" and Messrs. Yanukovych, Medvedchuk, and Vasiliev the "bad guys"? The Ukrainian authorities completely underestimated the number of protesters in the crucial first days after Round 2 when they could have ostensibly blocked the movement of protesters traveling to Kyiv.

Last summer President Kuchma cynically recalled how the opposition had threatened him with 200,000 protesters during the Kuchmagate protests in 2000-2003 but had never mustered more than 20,000 to 50,000 (Den, July 20, 2004). Consequently, the SBU never expected more than 15,000-20,000 protesters to hit Kyiv's streets after the election fraud. The Ukrainian authorities also repeatedly stated that Ukraine was not the same as Georgia and that no revolution would take place in Ukraine.

It would have been one thing to put down 20,000 to 50,000 protesters and another to deal with 500,000 to 1 million. The first could have been done without bloodshed through the use of truncheons, water cannons and tear gas, but the second could not. By November 28 the authorities not only faced larger protests than they had expected but also could not count wholeheartedly on the loyalty of the security forces. Unlike the smaller protests, this crowd could not be put down without bloodshed.

Ukraine's most important Western military district (with its headquarters in Mr. Yushchenko's Lviv stronghold) defected to the Yushchenko camp early on, as did much of the Internal Affairs Ministry. Sending 10,000 Internal Affairs Troops against the protesters would have been too few to deal with such large crowds, and they would have been met by overwhelming resistance from pro-Yushchenko protesters and security forces.

Perhaps then, the commander of Ukraine's Internal Affairs troops, Lt.-Gen. Serhii Popkov, is being truthful when he says the movement of Internal Affairs troops on November 28 was merely an "exercise" (Segodnya, December 16). Not surprisingly, speaking in defense of Mr. Smeshko, Vitalii Romanchenko, head of the SBU's military counterintelligence, confirmed The New York Times report that this was not a drill but a move on Kyiv (Segodnya, January 18).

But beyond civil war, The New York Times notes, a violent crackdown could also have led to a 1989 Romanian-style revolution in which the country's leader is executed.

Second, the exposé raises suspicions that Mr. Smeshko is seeking to distance himself from his former deputy chairman, Oleksander Satsiuk. Mr. Yushchenko believes he was poisoned during a dinner at Mr. Satsiuk's home; Mr. Smeshko also attended that fateful dinner. Mr. Satsiuk resigned from the SBU and has returned to Parliament, where he enjoys immunity.

Third, under Mr. Smeshko the SBU began to return to KGB-style tactics against the opposition. Instructions were sent to SBU officers stationed in Ukrainian embassies to place opposition members and even parliamentary deputies under surveillance if they visited abroad.

Long-time SBU officer Oleksander Tsvil defected in early 2004 to protest these orders, which he believed to be illegal. Mr. Tsvil returned to Ukraine during the elections and released his memoirs, "In the Center of the Cassette Scandal." Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn also complained that he and his family were placed under SBU surveillance through verbal orders issued by Deputy Chairman Satsiuk (Silski Visti, October 8, 2004).

Fourth, Mr. Tsvil had worked alongside presidential guard Mykola Melnychenko, whose illicit tape recordings had led to the Kuchmagate scandal in November 2000. Mr. Melnychenko, who is planning to follow Mr. Tsvil's example and return to Ukraine, claims that he was advised four times officially (presumably by the FBI) that his life was in danger. Mr. Melnychenko claimed that these threats "came directly from SBU head Smeshko" (Ukrainska Pravda, January 18).

The New York Times exposé brings together many different strands concerning the attitudes of the security forces toward the Orange Revolution. But it fails to make a convincing case that Mr. Smeshko saved Ukraine from bloodshed. The credit for this should go to Mr. Yushchenko and Ukraine's Orange Revolution protesters, who practiced non-violence.

Taras Kuzio is visiting professor at the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University. The article above, which originally appeared in The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, is reprinted here with permission from the foundation (www.jamestown.org).

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