Recognition of UPA remains a controversial issue in Ukraine (05/14/06)

Recognition of UPA remains a controversial issue in Ukraine

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - It might be a post-Orange Ukraine, but Ukraine's newly elected Verkhovna Rada isn't likely to recognize the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) or its veterans anytime soon.

Although Orange political forces comprise the new Parliament's majority, the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) has made it clear that it won't support any legislative effort to recognize the UPA as a fighting force or grant its veterans government benefits.

SPU leader Oleksander Moroz rejected President Viktor Yushchenko's call for UPA recognition to be among the conditions for forming the parliamentary coalition government.

"We don't need to include an issue that will divide society," Mr. Moroz said on May 9, Victory Day, after placing flowers at Kyiv's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Park of Eternal Glory.

Without the Socialists, votes from the Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko blocs aren't enough for the majority vote necessary to pass legislation that would grant UPA veterans equal status with Red Army veterans, both on a historical and financial basis.

Party of the Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych also voiced his opposition to Mr. Yushchenko's proposal, though he didn't rule out the possibility of UPA recognition altogether, calling the matter a "very painful issue."

The Party of the Regions is more likely to support UPA recognition than the Socialist Party of Ukraine, said Serhii Taran, director of the Institute of Mass Information in Kyiv.

The Socialist Party succeeded in the March elections largely because of Mr. Moroz's charisma and the party's left-wing ideology, he said. Supporting UPA recognition would compromise the ideology that enabled its success.

Meantime, the Party of the Regions won the elections largely because it convinced eastern Ukrainian voters that it can provide for them materially, Dr. Taran said.

"At one point, the Communists were most popular in eastern Ukraine, not for the ideology of communism but for the memory of material security they provided," he said.

In the course of four years, eastern Ukrainians switched their support from the Communists to their archetypical enemies, a party representing big businessmen and bourgeois values.

"When the Regions came to power and demonstrated the ability to provide material resources, eastern Ukrainians switched their party allegiance," Dr. Taran said.

As long as the Party of the Regions continues to provide for the material needs of eastern Ukrainians, who have traditionally been poorer, its leadership may be willing to compromise on ideological issues such as UPA recognition, which are more important to western Ukrainian voters.

Ideological battles like the official status of the Russian language or UPA recognition are of secondary importance for eastern Ukrainians, he said.

"I am reminded of the Donetsk coal miner who told a television reporter, 'Kovbasa or kolbasa, as long as it's on the table,' " Dr. Taran said.

As prime minister, Mr. Yanukovych delivered a speech in 2004 in which he seemed willing to support UPA recognition: "I am sure that it's worth giving this status to all those who fought and freed our dear land. It's not necessary to separate them as 'ours' or 'foreign.' This is an issue for the nation, for city governments, and in no case should there be such animosity within a nation."

In his Victory Day address this year, Mr. Yushchenko repeated his call for Red Army and UPA veterans to reconcile.

In a May 6 radio address, the president said UPA recognition should be a condition for forming a parliamentary coalition. "This is our debt to the generation of our fathers," he said.

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