Ukraine's President Downplays Euro 2012 Racism Fears

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has downplayed fears of racist attacks during the Euro 2012 football championships in the country. In an interview with the BBC, he said hooligans were known to the authorities and security services "will be watching all the matches closely". His comments follow a BBC documentary which uncovered widespread racism at Ukrainian football matches. The interview also touched on the case of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She has been jailed on charges of abuse of power. The case has caused an international outcry, with some observers arguing the trial was politically motivated. Racist hooliganism 'tiny' "We know that this issue [Ms Tymoshenko's case] hinders Ukraine's European integration," Mr Yanukovych said. "We have approached foreign lawyers... they will carry out a legal audit of Tymoshenko's case. Very soon we will hear their findings." On the issue of hooliganism during the Euro 2012 championships, which are being held in Ukraine and Poland this summer, he said the problem in Ukraine was probably "smaller" than in other countries. "We have a list of people who behaved aggressively at football matches. Their numbers are tiny, they are known to us and preventive measures will be taken," he said. Last week, a BBC Panorama documentary exposed widespread racist and anti-Semitic chanting, Nazi salutes and attacks on minorities at football matches in Ukraine. After watching the footage, footballer Sol Campbell told fans to "stay at home, watch it on TV. Don't even risk it… because you could end up coming back in a coffin". Despite the warning from the former England captain, President Yanukovych said his country had "created all the infrastructure for football fans to feel good and for Ukraine to show all its capabilities". "We are waiting for our guests with great pleasure," he said.

The Political Death Of Ukrainian Parliamentarism

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukranian parliament has boosted the practice of anti-national and anti-constitutional actions in the country. The ruling coalition has voluntarily passed over a part of its powers to the President and its administration and shown readiness to establish rigid control over the life of its citizens, argues Viktor Tkachuk, the director-general of the Ukrainian Foundation for Democracy “People First”. Ukrainian parliamentarism has died. To be more precise - its Post-Soviet oligarchic model has. A visible symptom of this is that MPs have become invisible. Many are successfully doing their business in distant places, and still are regularly "voting" in the Parliament. MPs surrender their cards to colleagues who vote for them. During the vote we can see 50 MPs present, and still, the law is passed with a majority of 226 and more votes. Communication between MPs and the people has been completely lost. Parliamentarism has turned into absurdity: with the forthcoming elections in October of this year and a rise in international pressure due to the antidemocratic policy, the Parliament has boosted the practice of anti-national and anti-constitutional actions. The ruling coalition contrary to the Constitution has voluntarily passed over a part of its powers to the President and its administration and has shown readiness to adopt laws aimed at establishing rigid control over the life of the citizens. Will Rogers, American actor and journalist, noted once, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer”. Unfortunately, now it completely corresponds with the activities of the Ukrainian Parliament. Let's take a look at the most "progressive" innovations of MPs. Apparently, the most odious one is the majority of MPs (235 out of 450) voluntarily gave up their constitutional function – they voted a draft law, according to which they granted the President and the administration the budget control rights and the endorsing of the yearly programmes for the economic and social development in Ukraine. Also, they have voted to confer the status of law of the annual address of the President to Parliament. And if the President will sign this law - all his statements in the annual address will have the status of law and should be automatically implemented by the government. Without any doubt, these decisions have definitively destroyed the balance of branches of power in favour of the President. The majority of MPs also made sure to put in place a Soviet-type control over Ukrainian citizens’ residence, train ticket purchase and currency exchange. Another "gift" from MPs to the people has also been the decision to actually renew the totalitarian system with registration of legal residence and temporary residence of citizens. A bill called "About the State Duty" was passed on first reading. It plans to impose tax on the issuance of passports, wedding certificates, residence registration and many other services to the population. An obligatory passport registration upon buying a train ticket will be added to the railway tickets price increase by between 200% and 300%. In itself it's an obvious restriction of the freedom of movement of Ukrainians. Let's also remember that in September of 2011 the National bank of Ukraine introduced a norm which foresees an obligatory entering of passport data during currency exchange for the population. According to the majority of experts, this requirement is anti-constitutional and directly infringes the privacy of citizens. Not to speak for foreigners. All these parliamentary initiatives remind us of George Orwell’s novel "1984" where "Big brother" is watching every step of the citizens. Ukraine, fortunately, hasn't yet returned to totalitarianism and we hope it never will. But the Ukrainian Parliament has recently made considerable efforts to push the country in this direction. MPs have forgotten the principle of ancient Roman legal proceedings - "if in doubt - abstain". Or maybe they are doing everything completely conscientiously? Then what does Ukraine need such Parliament for? The parliament is dead. Democracy is ill. No wonder if Europeans would fear the Ukrainian virus of corruption and double standards at its borders."

French Cabinet To Boycott Euro 2012 In Ukraine

PARIS, France -- France's sport minister said Thursday that she and her cabinet colleagues will boycott Euro 2012 matches in Ukraine to protest the treatment of jailed opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko. France are scheduled to play their three group-stage matches in Ukraine, which is co-hosting the football championships with Poland but has faced growing calls for a boycott since jailing Tymoshenko in October on charges that European Union leaders have condemned as politically motivated. Speaking before a friendly between France and Serbia in the northern French city of Reims, Sport and Youth Minister Valerie Fourneyron said "no member of government will be at the matches in Ukraine. "The foreign ministry informed the Ukrainian and Polish governments of this situation yesterday (Wednesday)," she said. "It's a position we've taken because of our concern for respecting European values and especially in light of Ms. Tymoshenko's situation." She said France's stance was shared by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU EU president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. Barroso and Van Rompuy have both said they will snub the Ukraine half of the June 8-July 1 event. Merkel has threatened to do the same but has not publicly announced a boycott. Fourneyron said France would raise the issue Friday at a meeting on security cooperation in Brussels. French President Francois Hollande had already made clear last week that he would not attend any matches in Ukraine. "I love football, but what's happening in Ukraine is a problem," he told a press conference in Brussels after an informal EU summit. Les Bleus are in Group D with England, Sweden and Ukraine. Their first match is against England on June 11 in Donetsk. The French boycott announcement came as prosecutors upped the pressure on Tymoshenko Wednesday by naming her as a witness in the 1996 murder of Ukrainian parliament member Yevgen Shcherban. The Kommersant-Ukraina newspaper reported that authorities were preparing to charge Tymoshenko for organising the murder but had to wait for her to recover from back problems that have put her in hospital. Tymoshenko, 51, is serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of power. A driving force of Ukraine's pro-Western "Orange Revolution" in 2004, she lost the 2010 presidential race to her arch-enemy, President Viktor Yanukovych.

Ukraine’s Business Class And Viktor Yanukovych

WASHINGTON, DC -- Faced by the choice in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections of Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych, the majority of Ukraine's big business backed the latter. Some, such as Viktor Pinchuk and Dmitri Firtash, supported him because Tymoshenko, as prime minister, had tried to take their business away and others, such as Rinat Akhmetov, because they feared her populist, anti-elite rhetoric. In addition, many of the 5 million middle-class professionals and businessmen who voted for Serhiy Tihipko and Arseniy Yatseniuk in the 2010 elections, who together received third and fourth places and a combined 20 percent of the vote, refused to support either candidate. Tymoshenko received 3 million fewer votes than Viktor Yushchenko five years earlier because many of these natural "orange" voters didn't like her and saw her as part of the failed Yushchenko team. Most big businessmen in Ukraine have been repaid for their support to Yanukovych in the 2010 elections and their business empires have grown. Others who earlier supported the opposition have been warned to halt their support that denies Ukraine's political forces a level playing field. The lack of political pluralism gives Yanukovych's authoritarianism a very different face to that of former President Leonid Kuchma under whom Ukraine's business elites were free to support opposition political forces. Although threatened by a tougher authoritarian regime, Ukraine's big businessmen and oligarchs are beginning to understand that it is important to not have all one's eggs in one basket. This is a rapid process of disengagement from the authorities who only came to power two years ago. Under Kuchma, Ukraine's big business elites only began to put their eggs in different baskets and hedge their bets in 2003-04, a decade after he came to power. Oligarch Akhmetov is most closely associated with the Donetsk clan and his business empire grew when Yanukovych was the regional governor. In 2011, Akhmetov began distancing himself from Yanukovych by negotiating an alliance with Yatseniuk, leader of the liberal Front for Change party. Yatseniuk inherited the pragmatic wing of Our Ukraine that which had always disliked Tymoshenko. In February 2010, Yatseniuk told the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that he had 45 Our Ukraine deputies ready to join a grand coalition with the Party of Regions in return for him becoming prime minister. Privately, most leaders of the united opposition don't trust Yatseniuk to not again jump ship after the 2012 or 2015 elections as he is cut from the same cloth as Yushchenko and like him not a revolutionary firebrand. Yatseniuk gains from Tymoshenko's imprisonment as his entry into the second round of the 2015 presidential elections is dependent upon her remaining in jail. This may be Yanukovych's game-plan all along as he could always strike a deal with the moderate Yatseniuk but never with the uncompromising Tymoshenko. Other big and medium-sized Ukrainian businessmen, aside from Akhmetov, are contemplating distancing themselves from Yanukovych by privately talking of their concerns to Western diplomats and policymakers. Akhmetov is big and powerful enough to distance himself openly while other big business leaders will seek to take this step secretly. Ukraine's business class is coming to understand that it is caught in a two-fold dilemma. Firstly, if Yanukovych wins a second term in 2015 the "Family," the name given to the clan that is from his home town of Yenakievo in Donetsk, will take over much of their business interests by 2020. The "Family's" greed is rapacious and without limits. Yanukovych's son, Oleksandr, entered Ukraine's Top 100 wealthiest people list last year. Yanukovych says, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, that the county's president should be the wealthiest person in the country. Luke Harding, former Moscow correspondent of The Guardian, wrote in his 2011 book "Mafia State: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia" that Putin has accumulated $40 billion wealth after a decade in office -- $10 billion more than Oleg Deripaska, Russia's richest oligarch. Yanukovych's aim by 2020 of becoming wealthier than any Ukrainian oligarch can only come from corporate raiding other oligarchs as Ukraine doesn't possess Russia's abundant natural resources. With few reforms to boast of and foreign investment drying up, the size of Ukraine's economy will remain stagnant. Europe's investment houses and investment banks are very depressed about Ukraine's trajectory and future under Yanukovych. The growth of the "Family's" business empire can only therefore grow at the expense of big businessmen -- not from economic growth. Ukraine's big business may suffer worse difficulties if Yanukovych remains in office. International boycotts of Ukraine began in May when 14 out of 20 countries refused to attend a Yalta summit of Central European leaders. Yanukovych himself is an international persona non grata and will never again receive an invitation for a state visit from the European Union, United States or Canada. Visa blacklists of Ukrainian officials, which are being discussed, are likely to be extended from Yanukovych to his administration and government. These lists could include some oligarchs who are perceived in Europe and the United States as being close to Yanukovych or behind the imprisonment of Tymoshenko. Boycotts and visa blacklists could be followed by the more drastic sanction of freezing bank accounts that are held by Ukrainian officials and oligarchs in many EU member states and their offshore zones. Such a radical step might be especially likely if there is violence in Ukraine's 2012 election similar to that which took place in Belarus two years earlier. Secondly, if the opposition come to power and implement their radical program not only Yanukovych and his cronies but also some oligarchs could end up in jail. The opposition program is more radical than Yushchenko's during the Orange Revolution and calls for the nationalization of assets privatized since 2010. Such actions would inevitably target leading oligarchs. Ukraine's big businessmen and oligarchs are beginning to distance themselves from Yanukovych only two years into office. They are caught between a hammer and an anvil, set to lose everything if he remains in power or if the opposition throws the rascal out.

Euro 2012 Host Ukraine Tries Stray Dogs Sterilisation Scheme

KIEV, Ukraine -- In a clinic in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, two vets lean over a sleeping puppy and deftly remove its ovaries and uterus. After a storm sparked by the Euro 2012 co-host's alleged cull of the stray dogs that plague the country's streets, animal rights campaigners have stepped in to try to control the errant canines by sterilising them. At the helm is Austrian organisation Vier Pfoten (Four Paws), which is launching a programme notably in the four cities hosting matches in Euro 2012: Kiev, plus Lviv in the west and Donetsk and Kharkiv in the east. Mindful of the expected influx of hundreds of thousands of fans, plus a global television audience of millions, ex-Soviet Ukraine has been working to spruce up its cities and burnish its image. Tackling the growing numbers of strays that roam their streets has been part of those moves, also driven by serious concerns about feral dog attacks -- which reportedly hit 2,800 in Kiev alone in 2010. Last year, according to critics, Ukrainian authorities decided to take radical steps to wipe out as many of the animals as possible before the tournament, which kicks off on June 8 in co-host Poland and ends in Kiev on July 1. Animal rights campaigners around the world condemned what they said was the extermination of thousands of dogs, claiming some were poisoned or burned alive. In the face of the protests, the authorities ordered a halt to the killings at the end of 2011. Vier Pfoten decided to come up with an alternative and in February signed a deal with Ukraine. "The idea here is to use the atmosphere, the world's focus and the European championship to develop something very, very long term," said Four Paws representative Nicolas Entrup. "Once the final is played, the football atmosphere will be gone, but we will stay in Ukraine and work with Ukrainians to help animals," he added. Working out of mobile clinics, some 520 people are being mustered for the programme, including 60 vets from Ukraine and beyond. "Our ambition is here to provide a positive solution, a positive programme where people work together with animal welfare, activists as well as veterinary experts," said Entrup. "It's a positive programme to stop the killing of stray dogs, to decline their population, so the relation between people and animals can flourish and be positive," he underlined. The programme was launched in Kiev several weeks ago and is ongoing in a dusty city district where old houses stand alongside Soviet-era tower blocks. Guided by local residents, a handful of Vier Pfoten experts, including a vet and a dog catcher, come across a pack of six dogs. Vet Cornel Stoenescu, from Romania, fires a tranquiliser dart and hits a black dog in the haunch. The animal begins to limp and then lies down, before the team cages it and drive to a veterinary school. An elderly woman asks what's going on. "We're going to sterilise it, vaccinate it and bring it back here," explains a young volunteer named Daria. "That's good, because there are people who poison them," the woman says. "That's happen several times here. It's horrible, they suffer so much." Natasha, a 13-year-old who knows and loves all the district's strays, waylays the team, concerned about a pregnant bitch. Unswayed by Daria's explanation that sterilisation doesn't hamper an ongoing pregnancy, the teenager responds: "But it's cruel!" Most locals are happy about the programme, saying they worry about dog attacks. "I worry for the kids. Everyone is afraid," said young mother Olga Gapich, watching the operation with her three-year-old daughter, adding that she opposes culls. But some are unsure about simple sterilization. "Sterilisation is all well and good, but dogs don't use their genitals to bite you," said Katya Gorchinska, a journalist who was bitten in Kiev city centre.

Jailed Ukrainian Ex-Minister Throws Book At Judiciary

KIEV, Ukraine -- Jailed former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko was expelled from Kiev courtroom after he threw a copy of Ukraine's Criminal Procedural Code at the prosecutor, who was announcing new criminal charges against him. The volume did not hit the prosecutor in the incident in the Ukrainian capital on June 1. Reports say that before throwing the book, Lutsenko interrupted the prosecutor several times with laughter and mocking behavior. Following Lutsenko's outburst, the judge adjourned the case until June 8. The new trial of Lutsenko concerns allegations that he abused his power as interior minister during an investigation into the 2004 non-fatal poisoning of former President Viktor Yushchenko. Lutsenko was sentenced to four years in prison in February after being convicted of embezzlement and abuse of office. He denies any wrongdoing and says the charges against him are politically motivated.

Ukraine’s Opposition Program Requires Another Revolution

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s united opposition, Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party and Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Front Zmin (Front for Change), held a congress on May 12 on the symbolic St. Sophia’s Cathedral Square in Kiev.

The congress released a detailed program for the upcoming October parliamentary elections.

Boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko’s UDAR (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms), which attracts voters from the former Silna Ukrayina (Strong Ukraine) party that merged in March with the Party of Regions, refused to join the united opposition.

In an April opinion poll, UDAR and the social democratic “Ukraine – Forward!” party received a combined 12.5 percent of the vote compared to 30 percent for Batkivshchina and Front Zmin.

The Party of Regions and Communists have a combined 21 percent, but the authorities plan to build a parliamentary majority coalition by attracting most of the 225 deputies elected in single-member districts.

UDAR is contemplating merging with Natalia Korolevska’s “Ukraine – Forward!” party.

If this goes ahead, Klichko’s UDAR will be viewed as a “virtual opposition” much like Korolevska, who defected from Batkivshchina and is rumored to be funded by the Party of Regions.

Klichko and Korolevska are both from the DoThe united Batkivshchina-Front Zmin opposition presented what may be considered a highly radical political program.

It states, “They [the Yanukovych camp] believe they have come to power forever and that Ukraine will always be that which it is now”.

Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tihipko already believes he knows the results of the October 2012 elections and that the Party of Regions will come first with 30 percent of the vote.

Some of the language in the 2012 opposition program is reminiscent of Yushchenko’s 2004 program, which then described the authorities as a “criminal-oligarchic regime.”

Yatseniuk has adopted Tymoshenko’s rhetoric of the need to remove the “criminal occupation of Ukraine…”.

“The entire state machine – courts, prosecutors, militia – are placed at the service of a few families and clans. Their aim is to ensure the authorities are not replaced or that an untold transfer of national wealth is not sent to offshore zones and foreign accounts”.

Some of the more radical opposition policies include:

• An “anti-corruption lustration” whereby state officials’ expenses and property values are compared with their tax declarations.

If there is a discrepancy, the officials will be criminally charged and banned from public office.nbas area in eastern Ukraine.

If this were to be implemented, Yanukovych would be criminally charged – although he has been a state official since the 1990s, he lives in one of the biggest private palaces (Mezhyhirya) in Ukraine.

Oleksandr Yanukovych – who has amassed a fortune since his father was elected president and, in 2011, entered the top 100 list of wealthiest Ukrainians – would also be liable to prosecution for pursuing business interests and corporate raiding while serving as a parliamentary deputy.

• A National Anti-Corruption Bureau modeled on the FBI will be established (which has been talked about since the late 1990s) that will undertake “anti-corruption lustration.”

• Law enforcement involved in political repression will be prosecuted.

This would directly affect many loyalists around Yanukovych from Donetsk who have been given key positions in the security forces.

• What has been “stolen” through corrupt tenders and insider privatizations will be returned to the state budget.

This will directly affect oligarchs such as Rinat Akhemtov who have expanded their business empires since 2010 through preferential privatizations.

• The “criminal-oligarchic Yanukovych regime” will be removed through a law on impeachment that would replace the “anti-people regime” and return Ukraine to the path of European integration.

• “Piano voting” – pushing vote buttons for other, absent deputies in parliament – especially common in the Party of Regions, many of whose moguls live in the EU, will be punishable.

Organizing election fraud will be criminally liable.

Nobody was punished for election fraud in the 2004 elections, and Yanukovych continues to believe he won them in the second round.

He also believes that the Orange Revolution was a US-backed conspiracy to install the US’s “puppet,” Yushchenko, into power.

Interviewed by Inter, ICTV, and State Channel 1 on February 24, Yanukovych reiterated: “We won the elections in 2004. The assertion of falsifications was a lie that was spread around. That was a lie. We went through the courts, which did not find significant violations.”

• Political reform would return Ukraine to a balanced parliamentary system with proportional elections using open lists.

• An independent judiciary will increase the role of the Supreme Court, which was marginalized in the July 2010 judicial reforms.

The Constitutional Court, “which has compromised itself with decisions that were ordered (by the Yanukovych administration),” will be liquidated.

The criminal code will be Europeanized and law enforcement will be brought under civil control.

The opposition program is vague as to what reforms would be undertaken for the Prosecutor-General’s office and Security Service (SBU), which remain neo-Soviet institutions.

Party political programs in Ukraine have traditionally been weak on foreign policy.

The 2012 united opposition program does not mention NATO, thus continuing in the tradition of Yushchenko’s 2004 and 2010 platforms and Our Ukraine’s 2002, 2006 and 2007 programs.

The opposition emphasizes its support for renewing Ukraine’s European integration into the “European business, informational, academic, educational and cultural space.”

The Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) are frozen by the EU in response to selective use of justice against the political opposition.

EU leaders have stated they will not be unfrozen until Tymoshenko and other political prisoners are released and permitted to participate in politics.

The EU’s annual report issued on May 15 reported a further deterioration in democracy and growth of corruption in 2011 in Ukraine.

Serhiy Kudelia, a Ukrainian expert, describes the 2012 opposition program as far more radical than that proposed by Viktor Yushchenko in 2004.

Eight years on, while Ukraine’s current opposition has a more radical program, the country is more divided; and Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko, who played major roles in mobilizing the Orange Revolution crowds, are in jail.

If the establishment was afraid of Yushchenko coming to power in 2004, Yanukovych and his administration are doubly fearful of being removed from power through elections or a revolution.

Kudelia believes that “Without societal mobilization it will be impossible to implement these radical policies. Without revolution it will be difficult for the opposition to come to power.”

In a discussion on whether Ukraine awaits a future revolution Kudelia predicts that the 2015 revolution will be accompanied by violence.

This is more likely if Yanukovych and the Party of Regions continue to appeal to divisive issues such as making Russian a second state language to mobilize eastern Ukrainian, Russophone voters.

Discussion of a new law that would increase the status of Russian led to a bloody riot in parliament on May 24.

In addition, the Yanukovych administration’s selective use of justice has crossed a Rubicon that could become a boomerang.

The European Parliament issued a strong resolution on May 24 and the US Congress is debating a draft law that would draw up a visa black list for Yanukovych, his administration and the Ukrainian government.