www.ukrweekly.com INSIDE: • Ukraine’s economic crisis: interview with noted economist – page 3. • Premiere of Yurij Luhovy’s documentary on the Holodomor – page 13. • Twin Cities welcome Ukrainian American astronaut – page 16. THEPublished U byKRAINIAN the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profitW associationEEKLY Vol. LXXVII No.22 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2009 $1/$2 in Ukraine Long-promised children’s hospital It’s Tymoshenko vs Yekhanurov turns into public relations mess in latest government scandal by Zenon Zawada by Zenon Zawada Kyiv Press Bureau Kyiv Press Bureau KYIV – What might have started out as KYIV – The Ukrainian government a well-meaning project has become a pub- was wracked by its latest scandal after lic relations mess for First Lady of Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Kateryna Yushchenko. accused Defense Minister Yurii After raising funds from the nation’s oli- Yekhanurov of money laundering and garchs and leading Ukraine’s first telethon fraud, demanding his dismissal at the marathon – which involved all the major May 20 Cabinet of Ministers meeting. television networks – for the Children’s Under Mr. Yekhanurov’s direction, the Hospital of the Future, not a brick has been ministry allegedly bought food and fuel at laid despite Ms. Yushchenko’s assurances double their market prices from fake that it would be treating patients by March intermediary enterprises, then pocketed 2009. the difference. He also forged documents “We want to build it in three years with to misappropriate real estate, the prime Official Website of Ukraine’s President money from Ukrainian and foreign corpo- minister alleged, based on Control UNIAN/Oleksander Yurchenko Kateryna Yushchenko rations,” Ms. Yushchenko told a press Review Administration documents. Defense Minister Yurii Yekhanurov briefing in early March 2006, as reported “I will personally establish control so by the daily newspaper Den (Day). The that the guilty face the most radical pun- for Humanitarian Affairs Ivan Vasiunyk. hospital is one of many projects of the ishment,” Ms. Tymoshenko thundered in After Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Ukraine 3000 International Charitable front of television cameras. “The morality Lutsenko was recently accused of drunk- Fund. and spirituality which the members of the enly brawling with German police at That same year her timeframe was con- Orange team promised is degraded, Frankfurt international airport, the prime firmed by Andrii Myroshnichenko, who defamed and discredited. And, unfortu- minister placed him on temporary admin- monitors the project’s fund-raising, nately, this is all occurring under the larg- istrative leave on May 18, before restor- “Ideally, the building, equipment, person- est cover.” ing him to his post at the May 27 Cabinet nel and the first rooms of the all divisions Ms. Tymoshenko’s government has of Ministers meeting. will be ready in three years.” been besieged by conflict and controver- It’s no coincidence that Ms. Ever since Ms. Yushchenko participated sy, currently lacking ministers of the Tymoshenko made her accusations and in the capsule-burying ceremony on March finance and foreign affairs after their dis- dismissal demands at the weekly 16, 2006, to launch the ambitious $120 Wednesday meeting of the Cabinet, where million project, critics had doubted the hos- missals. National deputies have prepared bills the television cameras of all the major pital would ever be built, arguing that such networks are present. projects take a minimum of 10 years and to dismiss Industrial Policy Minister Zenon Zawada Volodymyr Novytskyi, Health Minister Observers believe her attack against Andrii Myroshnichenko (Continued on page 8) Vasyl Kniazevych and First Vice Minister Mr. Yekhanurov, a close ally of President Viktor Yushchenko, was retaliation for the campaign to dismiss Mr. Lutsenko and shift the media’s camera lens away from her own ally to the president’s col- Selfreliance UAFCU donates $10,000 to digital archives project league. WHIPPANY, N.J. – Selfreliance Ms. Tymoshenko needs Mr. Lutsenko Ukrainian American Federal Credit as her internal affairs minister so that they Union, which is based in Chicago and has can have authority over the nation’s branches in other locations in Illinois, 300,000-plus police force during the pres- Indiana and New Jersey, has donated idential election. $10,000 to support the ambitious project “There are real scandals, such as in to digitize the archives of the Ukrainian Frankfurt, and there imagined scandals National Association’s two newspapers, which are used by the government’s lead- The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda. ership for certain reasons,” said Vadym The presentation was made by Michael Karasiov, director of the Kyiv-based R. Kos, chairman of the board, and Institute of Global Strategy and advisor to Bohdan Watral, president/CEO, during the Presidential Secretariat. “In a situation the Chicago-based credit union’s annual of pre-catastrophic economic conditions, meeting with the New Jersey community it’s necessary to find guilty persons.” held on Saturday, May 16, at the President Yushchenko refused Ms. Ukrainian American Cultural Center of Tymoshenko’s request to dismiss his New Jersey in Whippany. defense minister, accusing her of “politi- The two newspapers’ editor-in-chief, cal attempts to usurp more power and Roma Hadzewycz, gratefully accepted create chaos, because that’s the best envi- the donation, thanking Selfreliance ronment to conduct an election cam- UAFCU for its multi-faceted support of paign.” countless Ukrainian organizations and Paul Hadzewycz Upon being accused by the prime min- projects, many of whose representatives ister, the flustered defense minister retort- were present at the annual meeting that At the annual meeting of the Selfreliance Ukrainian American Federal Credit ed, “I want to say that … they’ve begun day. Ms. Hadzewycz underscored that the Union, representatives of the credit union are seen with the editor-in-chief of The to demand all the documents at the credit union’s generous donation would Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda, Roma Hadzewycz. In the photo (from left) are: Defense Ministry … I very much plead Yaroslav Zaviysky, Walter Kovbasniuk, Michael R. Kos, Michael Szpyhulsky, help make it possible for community with you, I understand your emotions and Bohdan Watral, Daria Twardowsky Vincent, Orest Ciapka, Ms. Hadzewycz, Ihor (Continued on page 4) Laszok, Andrew Hrechak and Michael Dziman. (Continued on page 17) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2009 No. 22 ANALYSIS NEWSBRIEFS Medvedev forms commission Experts expect 8% drop in GDP author of one of the appeals on the basis of which the Security Service of Ukraine to protect Russian history KYIV – Ukraine’s gross domestic prod- (known by its Ukrainian acronym as SBU) uct (GDP) will decrease by 8 percent in instituted criminal proceedings. Dr. 2009 as compared to the previous year, said by Pavel Felgenhauer high-ranking bureaucrats as well as a num- Yukhnovskyi, who is chairman of the the executive director of the International Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Eurasia Daily Monitor ber of pro-Kremlin spin-doctors and nation- Bleyzer Foundation, Oleh Ustenko. alistic lawmakers. said on May 26: “We want the Ukrainian Speaking at a roundtable during the last Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has Two commission members - Sergey court to confirm that the Holodomor of week of May, he noted that this is related to recently made public comments about “the Markov and Konstantin Zatulin – have been 1932-1933 was a crime against humanity a drop in export volumes, restriction of con- falsifiers of history” attacking the country banned from entering Ukraine for allegedly and that a terror-regime reigned in Ukraine sumer crediting and reduction of the popula- and its heritage. This was a serious political promoting the transfer of Crimea to Russia. at that time.” He added that today the tion’s incomes, as well as enterprises’ prof- statement of strategic importance – not Mr. Zatulin has been accused of being one Ukrainian Institute of National Memory merely a rhetorical proclamation, made just of the organizers of the mass distribution of its. As a result of a drop in the GDP and the possesses hundreds of thousands of pieces before the World War II Victory Day mili- Russian passports in Abkhazia and South aggregate demand, inflation in 2009 will be of evidences about the criminal actions of tary parade on May 9: “We will not allow Ossetia that was used as a justification of the lower as compared to 2008, and will be the Communist authorities, a part of which anyone to undermine the sacrifice of our Russian invasion last August. Fear has been about 15 percent. Experts of the Bleyzer have already been handed over to the SBU. people” (Eurasia Daily Monitor, May 13). expressed that the commission may punish Foundation forecast that the government’s At the same time, Dr. Yukhnovskyi noted Mr. Medvedev’s statement was followed liberal historians or dissidents (Kommersant, external debt will make up 28 percent of the that the present criminal case will most by the creation of a special presidential Vedomosti, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 20). GDP in 2009, and the private sector’s for- probably not concern any concrete persons. inter-departmental commission “to counter- “There are only three historians there, eign debt will be 58 percent. In addition, the “We will not be able to do it, since thou- act attempts to falsify history that under- and even they are not recognized among state budget deficit is forecast at 4 percent of sands of persons were involved in those mine the interests of Russia.” The presiden- professionals,” prominent historian Roy the GDP. Earlier, President Viktor events and some of them became victims of tial order to set up this “historic truth” com- Medvedev told Kommersant. “I am afraid Yushchenko had stated that he expects the that regime,” he explained. On May 25 the mission was signed on May 15 and pub- that the commission will be used for witch- GDP drop to be 20 percent in the first quar- SBU instituted a case on the basis of the lished on the Kremlin website on May 19, hunts and the settling of scores,” the military ter of 2009.