Ukraine Imposes Travel Ban on Former Prime Minister
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INSIDE: • Taras Kuzio on Ukraine’s vicious cycle – page 2. • Commentary: Canadian Museum for Human Rights – page 8. • The UNA’s 2010-2011 scholarship recipients – special pullout section. THEPublished U by theKRAINIAN Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal Wnon-profit associationEEKLY Vol. LXXIX No. 6 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2011 $1/$2 in Ukraine Ukraine imposes travel ban Verkhovna Rada amends Constitution on former prime minister to push back parliamentary elections by Zenon Zawada Indeed the parliamentary elections Kyiv Press Bureau were supposed to be held on March 27 of this year based on the 1996 Constitution. KYIV – The Party of Regions plunged What made the vote particularly outra- Ukraine deeper into legal nihilism when geous, from a legal viewpoint, was that leading Parliament on February 2 to vote the Constitutional Court had ruled on in favor of parliamentary elections for September 30, 2010, that the 2004 October 2012, ignoring the provisions of Constitution was invalid, though it left the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine that are intact the five-year terms that national currently in effect and require the elec- deputies wanted. tions to be held this year. So, the Parliament had to amend the There was even more cause for alarm, 1996 Constitution to cherry-pick those as opposition deputies alleged that the conditions of the 2004 Constitution that it parliamentary coalition – also widely favored, namely terms of five years, believed to have been formed illegally – instead of four. Meanwhile President falsified the February 2 vote by casting Viktor Yanukovych widely expanded his ballots on behalf of several deputies who authority with the cancellation of the weren’t in Parliament and didn’t give 2004 Constitution, most notably gaining their voting cards to anyone. the power to nominate the prime minister. Oleksandr Prokopenko/UNIAN The vote was held strictly out of politi- President Yanukovych is widely Supporters of Batkivschyna party leader Yulia Tymoshenko picket the cal expediency, experts said. The Procurator General’s Office on February 2, when the former prime minister was believed to have ordered the Court to Ukrainian government is currently pursu- cancel the 2004 Constitution in order to once again called in for questioning in relation to criminal cases launched against ing social and economic policies that are her under the Yanukovych administration. gain the wide authority offered by the widely unpopular, and an election this 1996 Constitution. The Party of Regions year could have resulted in the pro-West- by Zenon Zawada Kyiv. “Looking bad and getting condemna- is essentially engaged in a game of ern opposition retaking control of the manipulating any laws to its advantage, Kyiv Press Bureau tion from European politicians is a tangen- Verkhovna Rada. experts said. tial issue that doesn’t compete with their “A strong degradation of Parliament is KYIV – The Ukrainian government for- “If the 1996 Constitution is renewed, overriding concern.” occurring,” Ukrainian Barometer bid former Prime Minister Yulia then all of its clauses are supposed to be It wasn’t the only international embar- Sociology Service Director Viktor Tymoshenko to travel to Brussels on an in effect,” Viktor Musiaka told the rassment for Ukraine during the past week. Nebozhenko told the UNIAN news wire. invitation to meet with European Union UNIAN news wire. He was among the leaders, igniting sharp international criticism “The Verkhovna Rada’s voting reflects (Continued on page 4) (Continued on page 14) of the administration of Viktor Yanukovych their fear of losing their seats.” and dealing Ukraine the latest blow to its international image. European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek “was disappointed to learn that he LOVING UKRAINE: Two poets collaborate won’t have the possibility to meet with Ms. Tymoshenko,” European Parliament Press Secretary Robert Golanski told the Interfax- on a book about their beloved homeland Ukraine news service. by Zenon Zawada “He was ready to meet with her during Kyiv Press Bureau her time in Brussels and discuss the situa- tion in Ukraine and the current state of “Loving Ukraine”: This is the first Ukraine-EU relations in the context of her article in a series in which The leadership of the largest opposition party,” Ukrainian Weekly highlights Ukrainians he added. doing something positive for Ukraine. Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Bildt called the ban “unacceptable, which KYIV – Myroslava Kapitanova, a wouldn’t have been possible in any Halychyna native who spent her adult European country from the conditions I can life in Kyiv, always had deep emotions tell.” about for her native Ukraine, but it was The travel ban was imposed by the only after she immigrated to the U.S. in Procurator General’s Office of Ukraine, the early 1990s that she was stirred to put which stated that Ms. Tymoshenko was them in writing. needed for further questioning that day. The Kyiv native Victoria Ivchenko, 48, opposition leader has been called in for also had much on her mind, but it was questioning more than a dozen times during only in 1997 that she adopted the the last several months. Ukrainian language and unlocked her Experts said the Yanukovych administra- soul’s depths in the process. tion wants to send a message and is not the The two poets on either side of the least bit concerned about what Europe Atlantic crossed paths on the “KhaiVei” thinks. Zenon Zawada (Highway) website, a forum for “Pressuring the opposition and putting Ukrainian writers and thinkers. Poetesses Myroslava Kapitanova (left) and Victoria Ivchenko expressed their fences around Tymoshenko is its overriding love for Ukraine by publishing a book of poetry, “That Native Home in concern,” said Ivan Lozowy, president of (Continued on page 5) Dreams…” in December 2010. the Institute of Statehood and Democracy in 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2011 No. 6 ANALYSIS NEWSBRIEFS Ukraine must break vicious cycle Ukrainians evacuated from Egypt the negotiating positions had lost their by Taras Kuzio become Ukrainian-speaking and the last urgency. For example, Kyiv is no longer two decades would have seen a different KYIV – One hundred twenty-seven interested in some facilities that Russia was In the last 100 years, Ukraine has political class emerge in independent Ukrainians working for Ukraine’s state oil ready to transfer to Ukraine in African coun- experienced three cycles of national re- Ukraine. In 2004 all of Ukraine would and gas company Naftohaz have been evac- tries. Mr. Yelchenko said that it was also birth and democratization followed on have supported the Orange Revolution – uated from Egypt, according to Ukrainian necessary to update the bilateral agreement each occasion by conservative not just western and central Ukraine. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman regulating the activities of diplomatic mis- Russophile counter-revolution. The tragedy is that Ukraine’s Russian Oleksander Dykusarov. He said that on Ukrainians were deluded into thinking sions, which will help improve their work. speakers and Russian minority have January 31 it was decided to evacuate the “We will return to this subject as soon as we that the cycle had run its course in 1991 voted for counter-revolutionary political staff of the national joint stock company when the Communist Party of Ukraine understand that the parties have developed forces, whether the CPU in the 1990s or Naftohaz Ukrainy and the families of diplo- new approaches,” he said. In May 2010, the (CPU) was banned, as the party had by Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of mats who are in Egypt. At 7:20 a.m. on then shrunk to a small coterie of “imperi- Russian president’s managing director, Regions since 2004. In Eastern Europe, February 1, a Boeing-737 aircraft leased by Vladimir Kozhin, expressed hope that al Communists” who supported the national minorities have supported demo- Naftohaz was sent to Egypt to bring August 1991 putsch in Moscow. But they Ukraine would agree to transfer to Russia cratic revolutions against autocrats and Ukrainian citizens from Cairo. The aircraft were sadly mistaken. all property of the former Soviet Union strongly backed their country’s integra- is designed for 156 passengers. Mr. Although only 5 percent of its Soviet- abroad. “Our position was and remains tion into Europe; in Ukraine they have Dykusarov said that the Foreign Affairs era 3.5 million members re-joined the re- unchanged: Russia assumed all the debts of done the opposite. Ministry had sent to Cairo two employees legalized CPU after 1993, a more serious the former Soviet republics, and paid them From the early 1930s until the mid who speak the Arabic language in order to threat emerged eight years later in the in full. And the entire property abroad was 1950s, the height of Stalinism was provide maximum assistance to Ukrainian form of the Party of Regions. The CPU also transferred to Russia,” he said. accompanied by a massive counter-revo- citizens. He also said that the Embassy and the Party of Regions have both inher- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych lution against everything Ukrainian, with would continue to receive lists of citizens ited the Russophile, conservative “impe- said later that he supported the division of the teaching of history returning to the wishing to leave Egypt. As of the afternoon rial Communist” ideological wing of the property of the former USSR among all of glorification of imperial Russia. The of January 31, about 50 people had contact- Soviet CPU. its member-republics. Commenting on the Stalinist counter-revolution began with ed Ukraine’s diplomatic mission in Cairo. As we approach the anniversary of two position of Russia, which defends its right to the Holodomor (Famine-Genocide) that Simultaneously, citizens in Egypt for tour- decades of Ukrainian independence, it is retain all the property of the former Soviet ism, mainly in the cities of Hurghada and the Party of Regions that is Ukraine’s led to the deaths of between 3.5 million Union, he said: “We currently see no solu- Sharm el-Sheikh, did not ask the Embassy most disciplined, best financed and most and 4 million Ukrainians in 1933.