Justice? It's been stricken from the Ukrainian vocabulary

Life gets in the way sometimes, but RRS feeds keep me abreast of the happenings of a land like no other, and that land is known as Ukraine. If you haven’t heard of the place by now, maybe its time check out the CIA World Fact Book or Wikipedia; though regardless of what you read there you will never get a clear picture of the place that amazes even those who have personally experienced it and all of its nuances and often grotesque absurdities, which at times make one think that one is living in the middle ages.

Society in the country is close to a boiling point as elite politicos seem to always find ways of doling out funds for their own interests rather than dealing with segments of the population that need their help. The blatant spending carried out by the President of Ukraine and his entourage, placing him leagues above the people and nations he is supposed to be serving is by far one of the greatest absurdities if not travesties the people of Ukraine have to tolerate.

One of the groups of Ukraine’s society are those who are referred to as Chornobyltsi; this is a segment of society which during one of the worst nuclear catastrophes in mankind’s history, paid with their health, both physical and mental, in either having been involved in bringing the disaster under control, or who were children when the disaster happened and together with their families were relocated from the “Exclusion Zone” and who were often ostracized by their peers, regardless of their age. Unfortunately, the burden of supporting these individuals fell on the newly independent nation when the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991.

One of the catalysts in Ukrainian society’s boiling point are those Chornobyltsi together with veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and for the last number of months they have been most vociferous in voicing and acting out their fury against the current regime in Ukraine which, like its predecessors, has not only failed in meeting their needs, but had decided to cut their benefits. For this particular group of Ukraine’s population, I believe the breaking point took place on Sunday November 27, 2011 when the militia stormed a tent encampment in Donetsk. As a result, there was one fatal casualty! He was a miner with some disabilities by the name of Hennadiy Konoplyov, and according to Member of Parliament Mykhaylo Volynets, he was also a long time pro-trade union activist. The victim was not part of either of the above mentioned groups; but like Volynets - a member of the “BYT-Batkivshcyna” which had started the hunger strike - he was protesting the decrease in pensions.

The group which had set up its tents next to the office of the Pension Fund in Donetsk had done so in opposition to a court order, one of the organizers, Mykola Honcharov, stated, while there are still many cases, decided upon by the court, on file regarding the pensions which the state is still not acting upon. Given this fact they decided to ignore the court order forbidding them to gather. But these are trying times in Ukraine in which court orders are used to forbid so many things one would think that the current regime, thinks that it is the “king” and uses the courts to deal with all of the dissent it has to deal with.

In fact, according to Volodymyr Chemeris long-time activist and coordinator of a working group created as part of a public committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in an interview on Radio Liberty on December 2, 2011, stated that judges and law enforcement officials in Donetsk broke some laws in the storming of the peaceful protest and the tent city which resulted in the death of Konoplyov. “The Donetsk militia's management did not have enough reasons to approach the mayor of Donetsk with the proposal – to turn to the courts to forbid the protests of the “chornonbyltsi”. The activity of protest of the “chornobybltsi” is a peaceful one. “Neither the militia, nor the Ministry of Emergency Situations – in accordance with the legislation which is in effect – had no right to enforce the court's decision,” said Chemeris. After the working group had completed its own investigation of the tragic event.

This is all very fine and dandy but in a country where Rule of Law seems to mean nothing at all, who will be held accountable for these illegal actions? No one of course! Throughout this last week, there have been twenty members of this initial group that has continued its hunger strike by the Pension Fund building in Donetsk and on December 1, the Regional Administrative Court issued an order forbidding the hunger strike to continue in its current location. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Ombudsman on Human Rights Nina Karpachova has called on the Verkhovna Rada's speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to make changes to legislation that would forbid the carrying out of court orders on holidays or outside of regular working hours. The regime will probably offer Karpachova an olive branch by making such changes to the appropriate legislation, but once again, what difference will it make?

The current regime is one which works in accordance with a set of rules which the civilized world cannot comprehend. Karpachova on a different matter, that of former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, had spoken to the current Premier regarding Tymoshenko's state of health a few weeks ago. As all observers of this case can see, “humanitarian grounds” are not something that the current regime understands or wants to.

As I had mentioned a number of months ago, it would not at all surprise me if the current regime simply wants to destroy Tymoshenko. Her current state of health is quite dire, and probably needs treatment for whatever it is that is ailing her in a hospital and not in the confines of the Lukiyanvska Detention Facility, but then again, what's another life to the regime in power? Particularly when she is someone who had the courage to stand up to them, and expose the crooked schemes which caused a number of oligarchs a great deal of money. That is why they have her imprisoned now, and not because of any normal legislation or judicial process. I'm sure that the CIA World Factbook or other sources will never tell you that the word 'justice' is absent from the vocabulary of most Ukrainians.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

Travel Advisory Euro-2012

While it is completely normal that states offer travel advisories in order that its citizens can make informed decisions regarding their chosen destination of travel, in order that they be adequately prepared for what they may encounter on their trip, who out there has ever issued such an advisory regarding Ukraine? Individuals who have traveled to Ukraine both before its independence and during the last twenty years will tell you without much hesitation, “It’s not what I expected it to be!” So what should travelers to Ukraine for the Euro-2012 be expecting and what kind of advisories should be going out to the fans of one of the world’s most watched sports?

Well before getting to the copy of those potential advisories, let’s get to the perception which all of Ukraine’s politicos are trying to create. Starting with the most basic and important feature, that of preparing the police for the onslaught of fans who neither speak Ukrainian nor Russian. Will this make any difference? I doubt it, and it’s not because that they will not be able to communicate with fans, but it is probably more due to their attitudes, than their ability to learn a foreign language.

Europeans have very different attitudes towards their police forces than those which Ukrainians have. A recent survey by the Razumkov Center in Kyiv showed that only received 6.4% of respondents supported the activities of the police, and 52.5% did not support them. While the question wasn’t on how much you trust the police, one gets the picture. In reviewing similar survey results for Western democracies, it is almost the exact inverse where the level of trust in the police is often higher than 55%, and this is where worlds collide.

So what are some of the factors which cause such a low level of trust in Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies? Examples abound, but I will simply provide two recent examples.

On September 16, 2011 the lawyer of the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV reported that a young man by the name of Volodymyr died while in custody for the theft of a suit worth no more than one-hundred dollars. Volodymyr was HIV positive and while there were social workers who would visit him at the Lukiyanivsky jail to provide medication, there was only one time in which he actually received it. As his state of health deteriorated and without legal counsel, he was not even in a capable state of mind in order to formally draft an appeal – he was dying a slow and most likely agonizing death, handcuffed to his bed.

Eventually, he was transferred to Kyiv’s Hospital № 5 where he was once again handcuffed to his bed. Volodymyr lapsed into a coma though he was not transferred to the ICU because of the handcuffs. Apparently the inspector in the case of Volodymyr was expecting a bribe from the family, and because he didn’t receive one, he was left to die. The mother of the deceased is ready to speak with human rights organizations and journalists, she stated, “Maybe this will help save other people.”

The same in Kharkiv, one of the host cities for the Euro-2012 Football Championships a much greater action film type of event took place when the Alpha Special Tactical unit raided the police station in the Komintersky districted of the said city. The reason for the raid was quite simple. Those who were supposed be “serving and protecting” in fact sold twenty-five Makarov pistols, five thousand rounds of ammunition as well as Kalashnikov rifles to organized criminals in that city, which included five members of the local precinct. The equivalent of nearly a million dollars was also found in the precinct’s safe.

So is there any reason why you would trust the police in Ukraine? There are many ex-patriots and Ukrainian nationals who have had their experiences with the police in Ukraine and they will tell you it’s no fun.

So how would you word our Euro-2012 Travel Advisory after hearing of just the two simple events which happened last week?

Mine would be short and sweet:

TRAVEL ADVISORY FOR UKRAINE and EURO-2012
Travel there with extreme caution – levels of barbarity and disrespect for human life by law enforcement officials is at intolerable levels by international standards. They claim that there will be law enforcement officials that speak your language by the time of EURO-2012, but there is no guarantee that you will understand one another.

In memory of Ilko Kucheriv

Saturday May 29, 2010 was a sad day and writing about the passing of a friend is difficult for anyone. During the frenzy of phone calls and chatting with friends from all over the world about our common loss I was asked to write something in Ilko's memory for Ukraine Business, well here it is, including the Editorial note from the publishers.

[Editor’s Note: Immediately upon learning of the death of Ilko Kucheriv, we called one of his oldest friends and asked that friend, Vasyl Pawlowsky if he would be kind enough to pen an appropriate obituary. We know this was a painful exercise for Vasyl and we appreciate his efforts. Please note that Vasyl has included at the end of the obituary a note regarding funeral arrangements on June 1, 2010.]



By Vasyl Pawlowsky

On May 29, 2010, Ukraine and all those who cared about making the world a better and democratic place lost a good friend, when the life of Ilko Kucheriv, the Director of Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, came to an end. It was an end that so many saw coming, while at the same time they all tried, in every way humanly possible, to extend the life of a man, father and friend who had so many plans, for a man who was 55 years young.

On May 15, I received an e-mail from my good friend and colleague Ilko Kucheriv that he dictated to his wife.

“Hello, Bill. Thank you for your caring and troubles. Honestly, this little surprise has substantially changed my life and priorities. I remain a cocksure optimist and am preparing to fight for my life with all my strength."

Two days earlier a friend had called me from Kyiv to inform me that the surprise Ilko referred to was lung cancer a diagnosis he had received at the beginning of the month of May. The troubles Ilko referred to were my effort to rally his friends and acquaintances worldwide to help him in his battle of a lifetime.


The attitude and conviction I felt in his words were one hundred percent Ilko, the Ilko that many in Ukraine’s NGO community had gotten to know over the years.


While Ilko had graduated from Shevchenko University with a degree in biology following in the footsteps of his other family members, the events that transpired in the mid to late 1980s completely changed the direction of his life.

He became involved in the dissident movement in the mid to late 1980s and as part of that he made frequent train runs to the Baltic countries in order to print publications in Ukrainian that were not sanctioned by the authorities. He was on the organizing committee for the first meeting of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (for reconstruction) RUKH in 1989, and worked in that organization’s secretariat from 1898-1990 in 1992 under the encouragement of Vyacheslav Chornovil he started the Democratic Initiatives center, which later became a Foundation in 1996. Of all the people who would have crossed paths with Ilko in those early years, or those who worked with him or got to know him through the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, be they sociologists, NGO activists, journalists or simply friends, they all knew or quickly came to know one thing. Ilko was a man of conviction and vision and was one of the very few in Ukraine who did not sell out to the politicos in the country. He was tireless, professional and devoted to everything he tackled in order to make the world and his country a better place. In order to do this he used sociology and public opinion. He wanted the people leading the country to know what the people who were following thought, and from 1993 until the very end, he was editor of “Political Portrait of Ukraine” a bulletin that came out as number 37-38 at the end of last year.


Ilko was a pioneer in so many ways. I met him in Kyiv in the spring of 1999 and it was not long before he was asking me as a Canadian and native speaker of the English language to help him go over an funding agreement he had received from a major international donor to finance the Exit Poll his organization was going to conduct during the Presidential elections at the end of October of that year. This was only the second time Ukraine had ever had Exit Polls, the first were organized and conducted by Ilko and his organization during the Parliamentary Elections in 1998. In the international community, the word Exit Poll became synonymous with Ilko Kucheriv.


Ilko was a strong advocate on importing foreign know-how for the cause of improving Ukraine. Over the nearly eleven years that followed I became a good friend of not only Ilko’s but also of his co-workers in acquiring the required resources to carry out his projects and working towards the goals and objectives he had set together with his colleagues. On many occasions, we traveled together as part of his vision of gathering the experiences of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, Slovakia and Poland and partnering with leading organizations in those countries in order to learn from the very best.


Ilko was a man who was serious and had no problems in using unusual methods in order to draw society’s attention to issues that were important to him and to Ukraine. Being a strong advocate of Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization he made a statement that caught the country’s eye, well at least it caught the eye of the Ukrainian media. During NATO’s Secretary General Lord Robertson’s one-day visit to Kyiv on October 20, 2003 Ilko presented Robertson with his personal application to become a member of NATO. He clearly had a sense of humor and this was true to the very end of his life.

In March of 2004, Ilko and I were on our way to Bratislava on business. Given NATO by this time had a new Secretary General he said to me as our plane came into to land, “Bill, you have to make out a new application for me to present to the new Secretary General, he will be at a Minster’s conference this week.” I agreed that it was a good idea and would turns heads, and he agreed that we would have to see if would at all be possible. During one of those days in mid March from up on the hill of Bratislava’s Castle Ilko and I planned an exit poll that would be as he dubbed it “a litmus test for democracy in Ukraine”. It was an exit poll in the highly contested mayoral elections in the Transcarpathian town of Mukachevo. A month later Ilko’s “litmus test” proved to be highly acidic and a great deal of what Ilko had foreseen and witnessed, played itself out during the second round of presidential elections in November of 2004. The instrument which Ilko had introduced to Ukraine, the exit poll, laid credence to electoral fraud which led to be what the world knows as the Orange Revolution.


Ilko was well traveled, well spoken and well liked by those who got to know him. While much of his travel abroad, like his projects, was funded by international donor organizations he always tried to find a manner in which he could share his experience with his family: his wife Iryna and daughters Olesia and Bohdanka.

One such journey was when he had obtained a Regan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship and traveled to Washington, DC, as he prepared for his departure he said to me, “I have to make sure that I have my family come and spend some time with me and get to see things.” This attitude of travel did not stop with that trip. As I was preparing for my departure from Ukraine last summer, Ilko was planning a trip for his family through Europe by car. He was an avid driver, after getting his driver’s license late in life and also had to meet with colleagues in Bratislava for a project so he figured, why not make a family trip out of it.

Over the last number of years, I had consulted for Ilko and his organization, and he would often call me up on a Friday and say, “Bill, how about I pick you tomorrow morning. The family is up at the dacha and we can join them. A swim, the fresh air, it will help you think better, and we can put in a few hours of work on the project!”

The average Ukrainian probably never heard of Ilko Kucheriv but anyone who had ever met him, talked with him, asked him for his opinion or advice knew that he was passionate about what he did, and he was passionate for one single reason. He wanted to make Ukraine and the world a better place, not just for himself, but also for everyone.


Two weeks after I had received Ilko’s first little communiqué of thanks, the same headstrong and positive Ilko Kucheriv made announcement via his organization’s website. In it, he stated that he remains optimistic and shared with readers how he had come to know of his condition, his recent trip to Indonesia for a conference that I called beautiful and necessary. That conference was the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement of Democracy and he stated he wanted to share the address of President of Indonesia, the Honorable Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with his Ukrainian colleagues and he would publish the Ukrainian version soon. He closed with: “I feel colossal support from people. They call me and write to me from Ukraine, Europe and the United States…I am thankful to everyone. It is very important to me. None of us knows how much time we have. Unconditionally, there was an overestimation of all values and a personal value of time. I want to use this time in the most effective and thought out way possible. I began to practice yoga like I did in the 1980s before Chornobyl, I go to church, I think about my work and my organization and I believe, believe that people can and should change the world for the better. I remain with you, and I am sincerely thankful. Ilko Kucheriv”.

Upon hearing the news of Ilko’s passing I immediately felt a loss. Incredibly the feeling was one that I can only equate to the loss of my father that same year Ilko completed his university studies over thirty years ago. Those who knew Ilko cried out with one voice that Saturday evening, whether through statements on the support page set up on Facebook, in e-mails or in long, tearful and necessary telephone conversations of mourning.

I, together with everyone else who knew Ilko Kucheiv, will miss him immensely. May the earth of your dear country Ukraine cradle you gently and may your soul and spirit always be nearby to guide those who want the world to be a better place.

Vasyl (Bill) Pawlowsky

Consultant



From DIF’s Website…

Official Announcement

June 1, 2010

A Day of Farwell with well known civic activist Ilko Kucheriv

Program of Events of Morning

10:30 – 11:10 – відспівування, Cultural-Art Center of NaUKMA, 9 Illinska;
11:10 – 12:30 – Community commemorative service, same place панахида,
13:30 – 14:30 – Berkovetsky Cemetery, plot 87 18 Stetsenko Street
15:30 – 17:30 – A lunch of Remembrance, Shovkovhchna 1

Hadiukyny's lead man passes

Photo from Sumno.com

While I have been silent for some time, this I cannot be silent about, as it touches anyone who followed Ukrainian contemporary music back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today through various sources - but primarily by word of mouth from a friend of mine from Ternopil, that the lead man of Braty Hadiukyny Serhiy Kuzmynsky passed away today. He was 46 years young.

According to the Hadiukyny website and other sources the cause of death was a malignant tumor of the larynx. Regardless, of what the cause of death was, a loss of life is still a lost of life and particularly at such a young age.

I recall so many of the songs that the Hady gave the Ukrainian music industry, and I was first introduced to them from cassettes from the first Chervona Ruta Festival back in 1989. Yes, that was twenty years ago! How time flies...

When I arrived in Ukraine for the first time in 1990, well albeit it was still part the USSR, I was here on invitation from Studentske bratstvo of L'viv. There wasn't a place that we did not go that we would hear our fellow student's singing Hadiukyny songs. To us it was something new, but it stuck! And it sticks to this day!

Unfortunately, many musicians who acquire a certain level of fame fall into the ills of the industry. In 1994, Kuzyu, as he was know by many of his fans and friends alike, left the group to Belgium to go through rehab for drug addiction.

May he Rest in Peace!

The passing of a young man...Yuriy Pokalchuk

Yesterday, I received a phone call! I was not surprised when my editor friend on the other end of the phone asked, "You introduced me to Pokalchuk, didn't you?" Then he continued about some statement that President Yushchenko had made about what a patriot Yuriy Pokalchuk was. I then realized that he had finally succumb to leukemia, a good acquaintance of mine had died. He was 67 and looked not a day over 50!

I met Yuriy about four years ago in Kupidon on Pushkinska Street in Kyiv. Sometimes he would invite me to sit with him in the VIP section, now an antiquarian book shop, and once we even joked that we had studied in the same University, when I recalled the month I spent in Leningrad back in 1985. Some time early last fall the owner of that establishment and I were sitting with Yurko talking about a number of things. When Yuriy got up and left for a while my friend said to me, "He just found out that he has cancer, but don't mention anything to him!" I understood that Yurko didn't want people making a big thing about his illness.

Over the months I would see Yurko and he would always shake my hand, we would exchange a few words, and I would tell him to take care. His reply would be, "I'm doing the best I can!" almost hinting to me that he knew that I knew he was battling the battle of his life.

Now I must digress for a moment. Last spring I was at a pub night at the Canadian Embassy, and this stranger came in looking for me, his name: Yuriy Jendyk, Mayor of Onoway, Alberta. He had been told by a common friend of ours to find me to show him around and to meet interesting people. As we became better acquainted, the Mayor said to me.. "You wouldn't happen to know Yuriy Pokal'chuk? I would really like to see him, we met in Edmonton many years ago!"

I made a few phone calls, but Yuriy wasn't in Kyiv at the time so the Mayor never got to see his old friend. A short time later Pako was back in Kyiv and I told him that this guy had been looking for him. We sat and he recalled how they had met many years ago, and asked me to somehow pass on his regards to Mayor Jendyk. Unfortunately, all I could do was send an e-mail this morning to the Yuriy Jendyk that Yuriy Pokalchuk had passed away in his sleep after succumbing to leukemia.

While Yuriy, an extremely talented individual with a grasp of to eleven languages, six of which he spoke fluently:Polish, English, Spanish, French, Ukrainian and Russian was not a musician, it was his knowledge of languages that allowed him to make the written word sing. He had translated works by Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Rimbaud, Jorge Luis Borges , Julio Cortázar, and penned anywhere between 20 and 26 novels of his own, and over 600 articles in periodical publications.

The best know of his novels include: ”Те, що на споді” (That, which is underneath), Окружна дорога (The Ring Road), Таксі Блюз (Taxi Blues). He was to present his latest novel Озерний вітер (Lake Wind) at the L'viv book fair this weekend, and was working on its continuation under the working title Straight Love when he died.

Last year some time, as far as I can remember, he brought a recording of his reading his poetry on the backdrop of some music into Kupidon. When I asked him when he started doing this, he said he had been doing it for years. He always encouraged young people to search out the best in themselves, in fact any time I saw him with people who were clearly a lot younger than he was, you would never know he was as old as he was... He was always so positive.


Yuriy, with his kids!


If you ever visit Kupidon, back on the stage there is a big white board... Written at the top of if are the words "Зона особливої уваги" (Zone of Special Attention)... This was something that Yuriy felt very strongly about, and for at least the last 10 years he devoted much of his life of working with juveniles in a penal colony in Pryluky, in Chernihivska Oblast. He would teach them to read and write and helped them publish their works in a publication called Horizon. He referred to them as his children...

Yuriy Pokalchuk, Born on January 29, 1941, in the City of Kremenets in Ternopil Oblast
1956 — wrote his first story
1959 — Entered the Lutsk Pedagogical Institute, transferred to Leningrad University to study Eastern Philosophy, graduated in 1965
1976 — Became a member of the Writer's Union
1994–1998 — Head of the Foreign Division of the Union of Writers of Ukraine
1997–2000 — President of the Association of Ukrainian Writers
2000–2002 — Member of the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting

Вічна йому пам'ять!