News from and about Ukraine & Ukrainians:Ukrainian Community Press Releases
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Addressing the two articles on Ukraine titled "The Ukrainian question" and Charlemagne: Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's dismal president" (The Economist, 11/20/99) indeed things are dire, but:
The President of Ukraine is elected to a five year term, not four as stated on page 19.
With respect to joining the EU (European Union) it is not Ukraine which is not living up to its promises but rather the EU:
the EU (along with the Group of Seven) has not fulfilled its commitment per the 1995 Ottawa Memorandum to finance, in the general interest, the closure of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.
the EU is reluctant to conclude an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine; an associate status, already enjoyed by a number of Central-East European countries, would enable Ukraine to overcome some of the restrictions on exports to EU markets
the EU has failed to consider Ukraine for a partial moratorium on her external debts, even as the EU and Group of Seven has discussed that possibility with the Russian Federation (RF) (at a time when the RF continues to engage in abhorent brutality against the people of Chechnya, and has even bombed its own parliament)
Ukraine's economy wouldn't be so dismal if the West (Western Europe and the U.S.) worked as hard at helping Ukraine as they did destablizing the Soviet Union. Case in point -- in 1997 Ukraine had an opportunity/need to export steel to the U.S.; this was a singular chance to maintain production, gain some foreign reserves, and significantly affect it's GNP.
In pretty tough negotiations at the trade rep/ambassadorial level, the U.S. insisted that no steel imports were to come from Ukraine into the U.S. This was the last in a chain of events which furloughed 60,000 Ukrainian workers from plants, among them Azovstal (the largest steel plant in Ukraine). Knowing that from towns such as Stryj' in recent years the vast majority of the male work force is (often illegally) employed in places such as the Czech and Slovak Republics in menial construction and cleaning jobs, not to mention living in sub-standard conditions, trying to keep the steelworkers employed, even in old smokestack industries, cannot be overemphasized.
faulting Kuchma for "imidzhmekeri" (p.64)? C'mon, take the U.S. to task for this. With poll-takers abounding and excessive amounts spent on political advertising in the U.S., expense ratios frequently reach as high as $400-500 a vote in some low voter-turnout elections (it might be more efficient just to stand outside of the polling places and directly hand out this sort of money).
applauding the West for catching Ukraine's crooks (p.20), as in former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko? Mr. Lazarenko fled Ukraine in July 1997 when he was about to be arrested for his alleged financial wrongdoing. Since that time he has been held in a California detention center by the U.S., all the while delaying extradition and thus far preventing justice from being served by Ukrainian courts. Mr. Lazarenko purchased a $6.1 mansion for cash there, no questions asked – an irony when set against the fact that President Clinton can hardly afford his $1 million plus home in New York state.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," and hardly a worthy example to set for Ukraine.
