Pora coordinator Vladyslav Kaskiv addresses Edmonton audiences (05/01/05)

Pora coordinator Vladyslav Kaskiv addresses Edmonton audiences

by Dr. Bohdan Klid

EDMONTON - Those who followed events in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution observed the critical role played by activists associated with Pora (It's Time) in ensuring its success. Vladyslav Kaskiv was a coordinator of Pora's 2004 civic campaign, which included overseeing the founding of the tent city in central Kyiv and other direct actions taken by the group's activists following the November 21, 2004 vote.

On Apri 21 Mr. Kaskiv spoke in Edmonton at the University of Alberta (in English) and at the Ukrainian National Federation Hall (in Ukrainian) before a community audience. Both meetings were organized by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, while the community meeting was co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Professional and Business Club of Edmonton.

Mr. Kaskiv, who was a Ukrainian student leader in the early 1990s, began his talk by explaining the reasons for Pora's founding. Although Ukraine had become independent in 1991, the freedom gained at the time was hijacked, he claimed, by the old Communist elite who - now cloaked as patriots and democrats - continued to rule the country in the authoritarian and corrupt ways of the past. National democratic forces and former dissidents proved ineffective in opposing the old elites, while student leaders of the early 1990s did not enter into the political process.

Despite this mistake on the part of the younger generation, Mr. Kaskiv noted that, during the Kravchuk-Kuchma years, students and other young adults did learn about building civil society, democratic institutions and public service, and participated in creating a new economy in Ukraine - today the fastest-growing in Europe.

When some of the contents of the Melnychenko tapes were made public following the death of the journalist Heorhii Gongadze in 2000, it became clear, Mr. Kaskiv said, that Ukraine was threatened with the loss of its independence. This triggered the activation of those involved in the student movement of the early 1990s, who subsequently founded the committee For Truth! which, according to Mr. Kaskiv, became a prototype of Pora.

Pora, which began its activities in early 2004, was a coalition of groups and individuals that came together for the purpose of ensuring free and fair presidential elections in 2004 - elections that offered an opportunity for democratic change in Ukraine.

Taking into account the weakness of Ukraine's independent media and the need to strengthen oppositional political forces, Pora focused part of its efforts on conducting informational and educational activities. It also began to plan on how to counter the possibility of electoral fraud.

Based on its experience in the field, initially during the mayoral elections in Mukachiv, Zakarpattia Oblast, in spring 2004, and afterward monitoring by-elections to the Verkhovna Rada in the Poltava region and Odesa, Pora developed a system for counteracting falsifications in the forthcoming presidential elections.

Mr. Kaskiv noted that the administrative resources, organizational structure and pool of volunteer-activists of Pora was to a great extent based on the network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of Ukraine, the most important of which were the regional member-organizations of the Freedom of Choice coalition, comprising more than 350 NGOs. On the eve of the presidential campaign, Pora had 73 territorial substructures with tens of thousands of participants, thereby becoming the largest, most influential and active civic movement of the last decade in Ukraine.

According to Mr. Kaskiv, during the course of the campaign, Pora activists distributed more than 70 million copies of printed materials, met with over 25 million people, held more than 750 demonstrations and public events, and created the website www.pora.org.ua, which became the fifth most popular website in Ukraine. Mr. Kaskiv viewed these accomplishments as more important than Pora's spearheading of the establishment of the tent city in central Kyiv and other actions taken in the wake of the rigged November 21 presidential vote.

Question-and-answer sessions following both of Mr. Kaskiv's presentations, yielded interesting questions and commentaries on Pora, its future and contemporary politics in Ukraine. Asked about the existence of two Poras - one labeled black and the other yellow - and the future of Pora, Mr. Kaskiv explained that Pora was more a movement than an organization, and that it was composed of distinct forces, tendencies and individuals. They did, however, work together within Pora for the common goal of ensuring free and fair elections in Ukraine.

Now that this has been achieved, Mr. Kaskiv said that there was no longer a reason for Pora to continue to exist in its current form. That is why he was an advocate of Pora's transformation and was heading efforts to found Pora a political party.

Mr. Kaskiv acknowledged that some leading figures or activists in the Pora movement might disagree with him, but he said he hoped they would use their experience and contacts in Pora to form new bodies, such as NGOs, to continue their civic activities.

When queried about the need for establishing yet another political party in Ukraine where more than 120 already exist, Mr. Kaskiv replied that the new party he envisioned would provide a vehicle for talented people under age 40 to enter political life, not so much on the national as on the local level. Young people, he explained further, were not able to find a place for themselves in the established political parties.

Mr. Kaskiv also cautioned that the Orange Revolution did not represent a definitive victory over the old regime and its policies, but rather provided Ukraine with an opportunity to consolidate its freedom. A political party composed largely of patriotic young people who have acquired experience and knowledge in step with the outside world and its practices, Mr. Kaskiv believes, could make a notable contribution in achieving this.

Mr. Kaskiv was also asked about the role of foreign agencies and aid in the Orange Revolution and Pora. He emphasized that the Orange Revolution "was a Ukrainian product," and that foreign assistance was minuscule in relation to Ukrainian resources committed to the Orange Revolution. He did thank the Canadian International Development Agency for its support, donors from the diaspora and those who went to Ukraine as election observers.

While Pora developed its own methods of action and organizational models based on the experience and practice of similar movements in Central European countries and Serbia, these were also based on the experience of previous civic activities by the campaign's leaders, he explained. Ultimately, the key factor in Pora's success lay in the sincere motivation of its participants, composed of a new generation of Ukrainians under the age of 40.

Mr. Kaskiv, who at age 31 appears poised to enter mainstream Ukrainian politics at the national level, has already had much civic and professional experience, albeit outside of traditional political structures. This began in 1990 when, as a first-year university student, he joined the Kyiv tent city protesters and hunger strikers. In 1990-1992, he was a correspondent for the newspaper Molodyi Bukovynets (Young Bukovynian). In 1992-1994 he served as deputy director of Tsentralnyi Soiuz Ukrainskoho studentstva (Central Union of Ukrainian Students, known as CeSUS), the world coordinating body of Ukrainian student organizations. In 1994-1998 he was program coordinator at the International Renaissance Foundation.

He gained further civil society building experience in 1999-2004 while working in the secretariat and as head of the governing board of the Freedom of Choice coalition of Ukrainian NGOs. Since 2002 Mr. Kaskiv has served as an electoral affairs consultant with the Open Society Institute. On April 20 he was appointed advisor to President Viktor Yushchenko.

Mr. Kaskiv's opening remarks in English, and a summary of his presentation in Ukrainian, can be read on the CIUS website www.cius.ca/ (scroll to News and Events and then to Media Releases).

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