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Free nations must hold Ukraine's new leader to his word.
Analysis & Commentary: By Myroslava Gongadze and Nadia Diuk
The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, Tuesday, June 8, 2010
One hundred days after the 2010 presidential election, twin specters haunt Ukraine: One is the evil spirit of renewed authoritarianism, the other is the unquiet ghost of the Russian imperial dream.
Millions of Ukrainian patriots watched with apprehension as Russian soldiers goose-stepped through the Maydan in Kiev, the heart of the Orange Revolution, to celebrate the Soviet victory in World War II. Sevastopol, the jewel of the Black Sea, has been given over as a base for the Russian fleet until 2042. And Kremlin rulers meet with President Viktor Yanukovych's government officials almost every week, as if Ukraine were a newly annexed Russian province.
Perhaps it should have been expected. Three months ago, half the Ukrainian electorate voted for Mr. Yanukovych, who promised to renew a "lost" friendship with Ukraine's powerful northern neighbor. But the other half of the nation did not choose this path. Today they struggle to defend their identity as Ukrainians and to save their country's fledgling democracy. The outcome of this struggle could define the future of Europe for years to come.
The dash to join with Russia happened on our watch and almost overnight. When Mr.Yanukovych made his first foreign trip to Brussels, he was given a warm welcome. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso stood by his side and declared that stronger ties between the European Union and Ukraine are in the fundamental interests of both sides.
Mr. Yanukovych proclaimed too that European integration is a key priority in his foreign policy. In early April, he was greeted in Washington as the democratically elected leader of a sovereign country. The Ukrainian president's headline-grabbing promise to give up enriched uranium made him a star at the nuclear summit.
Many of us who witnessed his address to the business community at the Willard Hotel in Washington were pleased with his straight talk and promises of future reforms, stability, and economic development.
Not many could have predicted that just a few days later the newly elected leader of Ukraine would endorse Russia's denial of the historic fact of the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people committed by Stalin's regime, which undermined the last administration's years of patient research into previously closed archives and interviews with survivors who had been too terrified to speak out.
The next startling development confirmed the new Ukrainian president's increasingly authoritarian style of governing. In late April, without much explanation or public discussion, Mr. Yanukovych signed an agreement with President Medvedev allowing the Russian Black Sea fleet to be based on Ukrainian territory for the next 32 years.
Brazenly flouting the Ukrainian Constitution, which prohibits foreign armies from being based on Ukrainian land, and ignoring wide public protests, Mr. Yanukovych pushed the treaty through parliament. The ensuing fistfight and egg-throwing on the floor of the chamber was viewed on TV channels around the world as another amusing incident in Ukraine's legislative proceedings. In reality it was the desperate act of a marginalized and disenfranchised opposition railing against the government's brute force.
With the same persistence and speed Mr. Yanukovych has introduced "reforms" in other areas. He indefinitely postponed local elections, and disbanded the national commission for free speech.
His government has discussed reversing the requirement for foreign films to be translated into Ukrainian, and has canceled obligatory Ukrainian language exams in the universities; these moves can only be viewed as efforts to downgrade Ukraine's state language and growing national identity in favor of a Russian-speaking post-Soviet culture that is more amenable to resurgent authoritarianism.
Ukrainian press freedom, the main achievement of the Orange Revolution, has become the next victim. The attempt by Mr. Yanukovych's government to introduce new censorship and take control of the media has provoked protests from Ukrainian journalists and media freedom organizations worldwide. Now, there is growing evidence that Ukraine's security service, the SBU, is once more monitoring potential sources of opposition among journalists and university students.
These developments should also worry the Western world, as Russia may press a newly compliant Ukraine to merge its strategic industries and move ahead with integrating its major state gas company with Gazprom.
Leaders in Europe and the U.S. could wake up one morning to a new reality, where vast Ukrainian energy resources and crucial industries are once more being controlled by the Kremlin. Certainly, Russia's recent interference in Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, show that such a plan is the real objective of the Putin-Medvedev team.
However, all is not yet lost. Ukraine still has a vibrant civil society, a relatively free media, and some fledgling democratic institutions. These groups are now tracking the government's excesses and are mounting a resistance, holding out the hope that Ukraine could still become a civilized European nation. But the democratic forces in Ukraine need help.
Financial support from international institutions such as the IMF, and free trade agreements from the EU, should only be given under the condition that the new government promises to introduce serious economic and social reforms, establish the rule of law, and protect freedom of speech.
Maintaining a democratic and independent Ukraine is crucial for the wider region. As Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said, Russia's imperial ambitions are considerably compromised without control over Ukraine. Many of Russia's beleaguered democrats believe that the best way to promote democracy in Russia is to make sure it survives and flourishes in Ukraine.
But unless the West holds the new government to its word, Ukraine could fall back into the Russian sphere of influence and would be lost to the democratic world for many years to come, as happened in the past.
NOTE: Ms. Gongadze is a journalist at the Voice of America; the views expressed here are her own. Ms. Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy.
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