LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (08/06/06)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Stop blind support of Yushchenko

Dear Editor:

I never thought that I would agree with anything that the Socialist Party of Ukraine had to say. However the time has come. The article "Oleksander Moroz's Surprise" (July 16, 2006) quotes Socialist Yosyp Vinskyi as stating: "President Viktor Yushchenko was the most responsible for this turn of events, which resulted in the collapse of the democratic Orange coalition."

I agree with the sentiment that Mr. Yushchenko is responsible for what happened. He paved the way for Mr. Moroz's "surprise" betrayal of the democratic coalition. The handwriting was on the wall back when Mr. Yushchenko fired Yulia Tymoshenko. He betrayed the very essence of the Orange Revolution. His actions demonstrate his blatant caving into and subsequent support of oligarchs, Communists and Socialists - the very essence of the pro-Russian Anti-Crisis Coalition (ACC) that was smart enough to grab power, or should I say, be handed power, by Mr. Yushchenko.

The ACC is made of the clans, criminals, corrupt elements, oligarchs, Communists and Socialists that have only their own selfish goals in mind: their own personal political and financial advancement. They are not working in the best interest of the people of Ukraine. They proved this because their actions are in direct violation of Ukraine's Constitution and they show no regard for or remorse to the people.

This group of thugs is pro-Russian, pro-"business" as (long as their bloc leaders personally benefit from it), anti-Western, anti-democratic, anti- European Union, anti-NATO, anti-WTO, etc. The ACC is more interested in pleasing the oligarchs who control them so that the oligarchs' investment interests are protected. Sounds just like the special-interest-laden and lobbyist-controlled U.S. Congress. Perhaps it is intellectually naive to expect that politicians could ever be capable of representing the best interests of their average constituents.

President Yushchenko has essentially been manipulated to destroy Ukraine's democracy. It has been evident for a long time now that Mr. Yushchenko is supreme puppet master Vladimir Putin's prize puppet and that Viktor Yanukovych is Mr. Putin's local puppet master. Just days after his election, Mr. Yushchenko paid homage to the puppet master in Moscow. Later, Master Putin and his Ukrainian mob did not want the reform-minded Ms. Tymoshenko in power, so he pulled on the puppet strings and he got his way when Mr. Yushchenko did his bidding and kicked Yulia out of office.

Mr. Yushchenko decries the secret political deals that were made under the table to get ACC into power. Yet he expects the world to accept his secret political deals that were made under the table to get Ms. Tymoshenko fired and Mr. Yanukovych back into power. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Now the diaspora is no longer enchanted by his hollow espousing of the ideals of the Orange Revolution. Mr. Yushchenko has shown that he is not capable of being a guardian of the democratic values for which the Ukrainians on the Maidan stood.

The time has come for the Ukrainian diaspora to stop its blind support of Mr. Yushchenko. Time and time again, his actions are in direct contradiction to the values that are the core of the Orange Revolution. Ukrainians the world over did not wait this long for Ukraine to become democratic just to see it go back to the bad old oligarch, Communist and Socialist-controlled days.

I especially take exception to the Orange Circle's view stated in the July 16 issue "For the record" that "those in Ukraine who supported the Orange Revolution need to set aside personal ambitions and consolidate around the president as the guardian of democratic values."

It is unreasonable to expect Ukrainians to profess blind faith in a president who has let them down by aligning himself with the oligarchs, Communists and Socialists who do not support the ideals of the Orange Revolution. Ukrainians worldwide need to hold Mr. Yushchenko accountable and force him to answer for his actions. If it takes another uprising, I say bring it on. It may not be so peaceful this time since the ACC is in control.

In the same "For the record," the Orange Circle also states that the "effects of the Orange Revolution are permanent." How permanent will they be when the ACC changes laws in Ukraine and undoes all that has been accomplished since the success on the maidan? It is obvious that ACC types will enact laws to permanently squelch democracy. Once they get their way, the ACC won't allow groups like the Orange Circle to work toward promoting investment in Ukraine.

Perhaps President Yushchenko has not surrounded himself with a Cabinet and staff that are capable of sustaining, evolving and enacting the ideals of the Orange Revolution. The people spoke on the maidan and during the elections. Now their wishes are being ignored. Now the thug Mr. Yanukovych is likely to become prime minister and all Mr. Yushchenko can do is sit back and "stay out of the fray." He refuses to declare the actions of the ACC illegal even though they blatantly violate Ukraine's Constitution. Ukrainians around the world are not fooled by the president's calculated or puppet-string-controlled inaction.

Chrystyna Wynnyk-Wilson
Austin, Texas

A psychiatrist's response re PTSD

Dear Editor:

I read the letter by your reader Larisa Shevchenko in response to Dr. Myron Kuropas's column "DP, not PTSD." I am a psychiatrist, and I just had to respond. I also enjoy Dr. Kuropas's columns and find him courageous, informative and entertaining, most of the time.

First of all, people with PTSD or who have been traumatized by war do not necessarily wear it on their sleeves and are not necessarily so dysfunctional that they do not work or are not successful. What is true about them is they suffer emotionally. Both writers proceed from the fallacy that if it didn't happen to them or their parents it does not exist or is rare, infrequent or overblown. "My parents went through hell and came out ok, so what is the big deal?" Now imagine saying "my parents smoked and ate whatever they wanted and they never had a heart attack, so what is the big deal?"

It is a gross oversimplification to assume that everybody in the war is exposed to similar events or experiences them similarly. It depends on what you see, what you do, who you are to begin with and why you are there.

There is another side to this discussion: the lack of humanity and compassion. Whatever happened to "there but for the grace of God go I," or "walking in the shoes of others?" What are sons and daughters of war survivors with PTSD supposed to feel? Are they supposed to be ashamed that their parents aren't good enough to have made it through? "Lets pretend we are OK so no one knows" is the likely response.

The emotional toll of witnessing and experiencing the horrors of war and terror are real, and some of us do not handle it well. Those of us who do should consider ourselves lucky and blessed, and help those less fortunate and be very careful with the pride we feel at how well we have endured.

That there are those who try to exploit PTSD for their own personal gain is true, as it is with any malady: "elixirs" that don't work; pharmaceuticals that are over promoted; doctors who overdiagnose; patients looking for disability benefits; activists, politicians and administrators exaggerating the prevalence of funding, etc.

The problem with mental illness as opposed to physical illness is that it threatens the very core of who we wish to think we are. But the costs of the pretense can be very high.

Bohdan Czartorysky M.D.
Randolph, N.J.

About the news from Ukraine

Dear Editor:

Imagine a conversation that goes as follows.

A: "The news from Ukraine is not so good. Supporters of the Orange Revolution's democratic values should unite around President Viktor Yushchenko, who retains significant powers ..."

B: "Asking Ukrainians to rally behind Viktor Yushchenko is like urging the Russians to stand up for Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr. Yushchenko is an non-person in Ukraine. And how can we again dismiss Yulia Tymoshenko, who won most of the Orange vote in the March election, carried 13 out of 25 oblasts (versus Yushchenko's three), and according to the polls, is now the standard-bearer of the Orange Revolution?"

A: "The news from Ukraine is not so good. Supporters of the Orange Revolution's democratic values should unite around President Viktor Yushchenko, who retains significant powers ..."

The "A" side of the conversation is basically the position expressed in the statement issued by directors of the Orange Circle in New York on July 10 and published in The Ukrainian Weekly's July 16 issue. The statement also says that the Orange Circle is a non-partisan organization, although it sounds much like a trans-Atlantic faction of Mr. Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine. It is safe to bet that it would not carry a single oblast in any new fair election.

The Orange Circle's well-respected chairman is Adrian Karatnycky, formerly of Freedom House, an American think-tank with a neo-con tinge, from which President Yushchenko may have rented the slogan, "Private property is sacred." It was unfurled when Ms. Tymoshenko attempted to investigate some of Ukraine's privatization details shortly before she was sacked in August 2005.

Respect for private property in Ukraine does not extend to entrepreneurs who acquired it by stealing from the public domain. President Yushchenko's failure to dissociate himself from the shadowy elements was at the core of his political collapse. Subsequently, the tendency among some diaspora "hard-liners" to blame the Socialists and Communists, rather than Mr. Yushchenko's own foot-dragging and his myopia with regard to Ms. Tymoshenko, for the disintegration of the pro-Orange parliamentary majority on July 6 is badly misplaced.

The 11th-hour details of the coalition negotiations showed a continuing pattern of obstruction by President Yushchenko. All the players knew that the nomination by Our Ukraine of the president's close friend, the very controversial Petro Poroshenko, for the post of Rada chair - an obvious move to hamstring Yulia Tymoshenko, the new prime minister - was unacceptable to Oleksander Moroz, Socialist Party leader.

According to Walter Parchomenko, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council of the U.S.A. who is now stationed in Kyiv (as per the Kyiv Post, July 20), Mr. Moroz appealed to the president with the reasonable request that he nominate any other, non-confrontational leader from the Our Ukraine bloc in place of Mr. Poroshenko. In return, he guaranteed to deliver his party's votes for the new nominee.

Mr. Moroz received a cold shoulder. Even though Mr. Poroshenko, realizing that the votes for his election were not there, withdrew his candidacy, Our Ukraine's chief negotiator, Roman Bezsmertnyi, insisted that Mr. Poroshenko's candidacy still stands.

If at that point Mr. Moroz concluded that Mr. Yushchenko is not someone he can reasonably deal with, he could also see that the president had either no clue or no desire for a winning strategy. Also, as the stage was rapidly becoming a free-for-all, Mr. Moroz could figure that he might as well salvage the chairmanship of the Verkhovna Rada for his own party.

Boris Danik
North Caldwell, N.J.

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