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<title>News and opinion</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/</link>
<description>Last news and opinion from the site activist.org.ua</description>
<language>en</language>

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<title>Public Initiative "Army of Liars" </title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/army_of_liars.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[On Saturday, August 16 2008, from 18 till 19 pm dramatized march &quot;Army of Liars&quot; will take place in the center of Kyiv. Participants aim to attract Ukrainian and international public attention to the problem of disinformation in highlighting of the war in Georgia by Russian mass media.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[While the military operations on the Georgian territory have been ceased, a large-scale informational war continues on television, in the newspapers and on the Internet. We believe that Russia is using mass media as a strategic weapon for escalating confrontation between the parties of the conflict, ethnical hatred spin and for devastating reputation of all countries whose position differs from what Kremlin promotes. In informational war Russian media use not validated information, false concepts, severely biased statements, exaggerations, discrimination of facts. This as a result harms first of all nations of the Russian Federation. March participants want to express their deep concern that consequences of the information war can be as threatening, massive and long-term, as actual armed conflict. The action is organized by the ordinary citizens, not affiliated with any political parties or movements. We are united by one goal &ndash; strive for the truth and protest against manipulating public opinion, brainwashing at the state policy level and attempt to hide disastrous consequences of such actions. Organizers and participants of the action express their condolences to all victims of the military conflict, independently of ethnicity or nationality. The march starts at the Besarabska square and continues along Khreshchatyk to the Maydan Nezalezhnosti.Contacts:Dana Vereshchagina 8 066 147 7368Andriy Horbal 8097 223 3204]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>A Just Society</category>
<pubDate>2008-08-15 09:48:44</pubDate>
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<title>LA Times Op-Ed: "Egypt's Facebook showdown"</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/facebook_egypt_latimes_sherif_mansour.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[The online gathering place for young people poses a challenge to authorities.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[The June 2, 2008, Los Angeles Times published the following op-ed by an Egyptian civic activist Sherif Mansour. The full article is published here.Right now, the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is considering blocking Facebook, the social networking website that has become a popular hangout for twentysomethings worldwide and a favorite venue for Egypt&#39;s disaffected youth. The reason: In April, one group of young citizens mobilized 80,000 supporters to protest rising food prices. Facebook networking played a crucial role in broadening support and turnout for an April 6 textile workers&#39; strike and protest. The Egyptian government, which has governed for 25 years under emergency law and doesn&#39;t allow more than five people to gather unregistered, hit back hard, jailing young dissidents and torturing Ahmed Maher, a young activist who tried, unsuccessfully, to organize a second demonstration in early May. Despite these setbacks, the &quot;Facebook movement&quot; in Egypt is significant for several reasons. First, it challenges the perception that there is no prospect for independent, secular opposition in the country. The majority of Egyptians are under 30 and have known no other ruler than Mubarak. They have not seen real political parties because the government has long restricted opposition parties and free media. The Facebook movement engaged large numbers of youth for the first time. Second, the Web offers a safe political space -- a role the mosque has traditionally played in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood has for decades been the only viable opposition. With Facebook, young secular people can communicate, build relationships and express their opinions freely. (Significantly, the Muslim Brotherhood opposed the successful April demonstration but supported the unsuccessful May event.) Every member in the 100,000-strong online community could be, at any given moment, a leader of a movement. Third, engaging Egypt&#39;s youth is an important item on the agenda of Mubarak&#39;s son, Gamal, as he works to gain support for his succession to power. As a young politician, Gamal established the Future Generation Foundation in 2000, which incubated many of the current leaders of the ruling National Democratic Party and the new Cabinet. Facebook activists and their supporters should be able to turn to this group for support. A few weeks ago, Belal Diab, a 20-year-old college student, interrupted one of the Egyptian prime minister&#39;s speeches to protest the arrests of Facebook activists, shouting: &quot;Look who are you fighting; it is us, the younger generation who stood with you and supported you!&quot; Nevertheless, Facebook activists are being targeted by government-based media campaigns defaming the website and the youth activists who use it. The government also warns media not to talk about the phenomenon. I saw the heavy-handed efforts of the government while recording a TV show with Maher. During the taping, Egyptian police broke into the studio, threatened the station manager and forced the guest outside the room. What can be done to help this movement? The international community and the U.S. government should pressure the Egyptian government to support Internet freedom and keep Facebook accessible to Egyptians. One young activist, Ahmad Samih, is campaigning to gain local and international support to prevent the Egyptian government from blocking Facebook. So far, nearly 20 Egyptian human rights organizations are supporting this cause. International human rights organizations should publicly join in that show of support. Egyptian democrats are &quot;Facebooking&quot; their advocacy in order to escape heavy recriminations. It would be shameful for the international community not to stand up on their behalf against a government that seeks to deny them even that small space to express themselves. Otherwise, Mubarak&#39;s self-fulfilling prophesy as the only alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to hold Egypt back from the democracy its people deserve. Sherif Mansour works at Freedom House, a human rights organization that has been monitoring political rights and civil liberties in Egypt since 1972. He can be reached at smansour@freedomhouse.org.]]></fulltext>
<author>Sherif Mansour </author>
<category>Rights and Responsibilities</category>
<pubDate>2008-06-02 07:14:28</pubDate>
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<title>Stop Hate Crime in Ukraine</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Non-whites_are_murdered_in_scores_while_Ukraine_becomes_breeding_ground_for_Nazi_admirers.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Non-whites are murdered in scores, while Ukraine becomes breeding ground for the neo-Nazi and Nazi admirers.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Several weeks ago, yet again a dark-skinned person was attacked on the streets of Kyiv. This time it was Marcus Faison of Basketball Club Kyiv. A day earlier at a bus stop, Charles Asante from Ghana was hit over the head with a bottle. At present, he is in the hospital. And a day later, a university student from Cote d&#39;Ivoire was beaten up in the metro. Similar incidents were reported dozens of times recently. Several offenders who were caught admitted to being skinheads, it was revealed. Nevertheless, many victims did not go to the police since there&#39;s scant hope of finding protection from them.On Oct. 19, 2007, I attended a funeral for an Indian national, Abdura Roba, who was killed because of his racial features.I don&#39;t understand why the Ukrainian government, which is so adamantly striving towards Europe, doesn&#39;t want to recognize racism as a problem, especially when it is on the rise.Acknowledgement of this problem could only lead to earning Europe&#39;s respect. Many countries have laws that protect people of other races and nationalities on their soil. An analogous law exists in Ukraine, it seems, but to have someone punished for breaking that law is virtually impossible. But in the eyes of Themis, racist manifestations are transforming into plain hooliganism.Thus in France, a tactless public racial expression could get you fined 5,000 euros. A racially motivated attack costs 50,000 euros and two years in jail. At that, all a judge needs for making a conviction is the testimony of two eyewitnesses. Skinheads in Ukraine are still tried for hooliganism. I have a question for skinheads: How would you react to beatings of Ukrainians in Turkey or Egypt, for example? After all, many Ukrainians vacation in those countries.The Ukrainian government tries skinheads for hooliganism and this is absurd. Football fans who throw snow on the field can also be tried under the same law. But here throats are cut in just the same way as is done in Iraq.This is why I want to turn to Raisa Bohatyriova, chair of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, a person who I respect and know is not indifferent to suffering and violence. Raisa Vasylivna, take this issue under your wings, for the beating and killing of foreigners in Ukraine directly relates to the country&#39;s national security. I appeal to Stepan Havrysh, the President&#39;s advisor on legal issues. Call Viktor Yushchenko&#39;s attention to the problem. Many countries around the world have already passed laws on racism. But in contrast to Ukraine, their laws function properly.I also call on First Lady of Ukraine Kateryna Yushchenko. I deeply respect you for being a very tolerant person. You grew up in America, in a place where many races and nationalities live peacefully together. Are you dispassionate to the kind of Ukraine your children will grow up in? I say this because a country that equates racism with hooliganism is a country that supports racism.I would like to appeal to Ukrainian members of parliament too. It is entirely up to you to pass more severe, yet just, laws to combat racism with appropriate instructions and mechanisms for their implementation. All of Western Europe has this law. How many more people need to die on the streets of Ukrainian cities before you start to seriously address this problem? Should this problem not worry you, then think about the country&#39;s image, which the local skinheads are ruining. Many in Ukraine believe racism to be freedom of speech, freedom of thought. It is true that every person is free to their position in relation to people of other races and nationalities. However, when freedom of speech escalates into verbal assaults towards people with non-Slavic appearances and beatings of foreigners, then it ceases to be freedom and becomes fascism. Aside from passing laws, the authorities today take the following steps above all:- put a stop to racist attacks on citizens of other countries, refugees, people without citizenship, and minorities - anyone who cannot be considered an ethnic Ukrainian; - conduct fair and open investigations into all attacks of a racial bent in cooperation with international experts and observers, and also ensure the safety of victims; - halt the shameful police practice of humiliating document inspections of racially different people under the guise of fighting illegal migration; - effectively counter the rising number of neo-Nazi and radical groups, especially among the youth; - encourage the conduct of public awareness campaigns on xenophobia and racism in the mass media, schools, universities, and target youth. In addition, what is particularly important is that all of the aforementioned be controlled by a corresponding government body that would be held directly accountable to the president. My friends from the nongovernmental organization, SOS! RACISM! (that we founded in Ukraine) are confident that only these kinds of comprehensive measures will create favorable conditions on par with global standards of other countries. We submitted all of these demands last year to the President of Ukraine, however the situation hasn&#39;t changed. It has even gotten worse. I, along with many foreigner friends, chose Ukraine as the country in which we would like to live, work, rear our children, and perhaps our grandchildren. It is a country that has given us a lot and one which we love. Valid Arfush is secretary general of SOS! RACISM!, a non-governmental organization. Source: ACTIVIST]]></fulltext>
<author>Walid Arfush</author>
<category>A Just Society</category>
<pubDate>2008-02-07 00:12:00</pubDate>
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<title>Gas games in the Kremlin and an inadvertent favor for Tymoshenko</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Gas_games_in_the_Kremlin_and_an_inadvertent_favor_for_Tymoshenko.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Sergei Kupriyanov, Gazprom&#39;s spokesman, shocked Ukrainians and other Europeans on Oct. 2 when he declared that Ukraine owed Gazprom $1.3 billion and threatened that unless this debt was paid by the end of October, gas deliveries to Ukraine would be reduced. ]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[The message was not delivered to the Ukrainian government in advance by the Russian Ambassador, Viktor Chernomyrdin, as protocol dictates, but was announced on Russian television. Official Kyiv, however, had never signed a gas purchasing contract with Gazprom or the Russian government and Ukrainian officials immediately questioned not only Gazprom&#39;s motives, but its right to demand any payment whatsoever from the Ukrainian government. The website of RosUkrEnergo clearly states: &quot;ROSUKRENERGO is financial guarantor for Gazprom, to which it makes the appropriate payments for natural gas supplied to Ukraine.&quot; The next shock came on Oct. 8 when Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov announced that the debt had grown to $2 billion by early October.Russian President Vladimir Putin had to jump in and correct his new prime minister by saying that the Ukrainian portion of the debt was only $1.3 billion.If any money was owed to Gazprom, it was by UkrGazEnergo, a joint venture established in 2006 between RosUkrEnergo (RUE) and Naftogaz Ukrainy (NAK) and by RUE, Ukrainian officials stated, distancing the government from the financial machinations by the two middlemen companies. RUE was created in 2004 by Gazprom with the active participation of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yuriy Boyko, the then-head of Naftogaz Ukrainy and a Ukrainian businessman, Dmytro Firtash. Soon after Kupriyanov&#39;s announcement, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych&#39;s Energy Minister, Yuriy Boyko, was dispatched to Moscow to sort out the issue with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev, who is also chairman of the board of Gazprom.One can only imagine the tone of the conversation that took place between Boyko and Gazprom officials. Boyko announced after his meetings with Medvedev and Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, that the entire debt would be paid by Nov. 1. The following day he assured European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs that Ukraine is pledged to remain a reliable transit country for gas exports to the EU.Piebalgs, however, has proven to be a very knowledgeable commissioner. It is doubtful that he would believe everything he hears from Boyko with the latter&#39;s soiled reputation. Since the Ukrainian government had never agreed to underwrite any debts incurred by either RUE or UkrGazEnergo, it was difficult for the Yanukovych government to come to the rescue of UkrGazEnergo. They would need to find the money elsewhere.RUE spokesman Andriy Knutov told the press that &quot;UkrGazEnergo has failed to pay us more than $1 billion for gas supplied.&quot; RUE owns 50 percent of UkrGazEnergo (making Firtash a 25 percent owner in the company), while Naftogaz owns the other 50 percent.UkrGazEnergo meanwhile stated that &quot;Naftogaz failed to pay a significant sum for gas supplies. This is the nature of the debt to Gazprom.&quot; How large is Naftogaz&#39;s debt to UkrGazEnergo? According to Delo, Naftogaz Ukrainy&#39;s communal customers owed the company $150 million. It is possible that Naftogaz had not been paying its partners for some time and might have accumulated a far greater debt than what their customers owed them. Later it was revealed that NAK owed UkrGazEnergo about $700 million. The mystery deepened when RUE spokesmen claimed that their part of the debt was for gas being held in Ukrainian underground storage facilities. RUE, it seems, was having difficulty in obtaining credits from banks to pay Gazprom for some 8.5 billion cubic meters it had accumulated in Ukrainian underground storage facilities. Presumably, this gas would be sold in the coming months and they would pay for it in cash. The agreement signed on Oct. 8 required that the 8.5 bcm of gas belonging to RUE in Ukraine&#39;s underground storage facilities be returned to GazpromExport. This would absolve RUE of its debt. Many questions have arisen not only over the agreement signed in Moscow by Boyko - an agreement which has not been made public - but the main question is why such a large debt was so suddenly discovered by Gazprom? Putin, was quoted by ITAR-TASS as saying: &quot;The large debt was totally unexpected.&quot; It seems highly unlikely that Gazprom, Boyko or Putin would be surprised that RUE owed Gazprom over $1 billion. RUE is a company where three powerful members of Gazprom&#39;s management committee serve on the board. One is Alexander Medvedev, the deputy head of Gazprom&#39;s management committee and the head of GazpromExport. The others are Valeriy Golubev, in charge of sales to CIS countries, and according to sources in Russia, a moneybag man for the Kremlin for many years and Konstantin Chuichenko, the head of Gazprom&#39;s legal division and co-director of RUE. Both men are former KGB operatives. It stretches the imagination to believe that they did not report RUE&#39;s growing debt to Gazprom. It appears that Boyko knew of the debt months in advance and understood that it had to do with ownership of gas stored underground. He remained silent, knowing that any sunshine on this would only benefit the election campaign of Yulia Tymoshenko, and instead tried to preempt criticism by boasting that Ukraine&#39;s old salt caverns were full of gas which, he claimed, could only be sold to Ukraine. But most of this gas belonged to RUE, and to Firtash, and not to Naftogaz Ukrainy. Nothing would prevent them from selling this gas to their European customers. Firtash&#39;s Hungarian company, EMFESZ for example, is a major buyer of gas from RUE, which it then resells to Poland and on the Hungarian domestic market.RUE spokesmen placed the blame for their portion of the debt on the world credit crisis, but another factor that might have prevented them from obtaining credits is the reputation of the company and its creditworthiness.German business crime expert Helmut Gorling recently told Stern magazine: &quot;When a company&#39;s structure becomes overly complicated, there has to be a reason. If you can&#39;t see any necessity for it, it starts to look suspicious.&quot;Behind the scenes, another drama was being played out. Reliable sources in the Russian gas industry claim that Gazprom and others are highly upset at Firtash and want him out of the business. These sources maintain that Firtash-owned companies had accumulated a $2 billion debt to RUE and that he was avoiding payment. This is not the first time that Firtash has had problems of this sort. He is alleged to owe Itera, a Russian gas company, some $28 million dollars. Firtash&#39;s firmest supporters in Kyiv - Boyko, his deputy at the energy ministry Vadym Chuprun and Serhiy Lyovochkin, Viktor Yanukovych&#39;s chief of staff - apparently fear that if Firtash is removed from RUE, their lifestyles would undergo a substantial change. If Firtash pays his debt, the reasoning goes, the RUE money flow would continue - unless Yulia Tymoshenko puts an end to it all. Yanukovych himself has officially stated that RUE is &quot;fully transparent.&quot; The prime minister appears to depend more on Boyko and Lyovochkin, and not on law enforcement organizations, for his information about RUE. It might not be pure coincidence that the debt issue arose after Germany&#39;s Stern magazine in mid-September described the murky apparatus set up by Gazprom managers to transfer huge amounts of cash from various operations in Europe through Cyprus-registered companies. Stern named a member of the RUE board, Hans Baumgartner, a Swiss lawyer, as one of the key participants in the scheme. The irony of the situation is that Gazprom did a great favor for Yulia Tymoshenko by exposing its anger at Firtash, and strengthened her hand in her campaign to rid the Ukrainian gas business of Firtash and his lobby. Roman Kupchinsky is the former director of the Ukrainian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.Source: Kyiv Post, October 17, 2007.]]></fulltext>
<author>Roman Kupchinsky</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-10-20 00:00:00</pubDate>
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<title>Elections: Primaries Would Bring Voters Closer to Politics</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Elections_primaries_would_bring_voters_closer_to_politics.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Ukraine should follow the Western example of forming party lists on the basis of preliminary elections in order to make its political parties &quot;more effective and democratic&quot;, according to Natalia Shapovalova of the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kyiv.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Political parties in Ukraine are &quot;key players&quot; in the formulation and implementation of government and local policies - and the &quot;main focus of public demand for democracy&quot; following the reform of the electoral system in 2004, argues the paper, published on 3 September.&nbsp;The paper identifies three main obstacles to the democratisation of Ukraine&#39;s political parties:A shortage of human resources - including the absence of large-scale parties with &quot;well-developed&quot; grassroots organisations and lack of &quot;competent public individuals or well-known politicians&quot; - complicates the organisation of election campaigns at the local level.&nbsp; A &quot;regionalised and limited&quot; voter base - parties dependent on the financial and human resources of specific regions or ideological projects find it &quot;difficult&quot; to expand their electoral base and &quot;stop being parties that represent only one part of the country.&quot;&nbsp; Undemocratic procedures that lack transparency - closed electoral lists force voters to choose a party &quot;brand&quot; rather than individual candidates. ICPS believes that increasing the effectiveness and democratic credentials of the political parties will mean &quot;getting closer to voters at all levels and gaining their trust&quot; and argue that this could be done by democratising the candidate nomination process by basing party lists on primaries, states the paper.&nbsp;ICPS gives several reasons for instituting primaries:&nbsp;To strengthen party lists in order to win elections.&nbsp; To increase party membership and voter support.&nbsp; To make the election process more democratic.&nbsp; To strengthen the link between a party and civil society.&nbsp; To counteract the party leadership&#39;s determination to &quot;reduce the power of mid-ranking officials.&quot;&nbsp; Despite there being &quot;no ideal model of primary&quot;, the paper concludes that primaries are an &quot;effective political technology&quot; that parties can use to democratise as well as either increase or decrease the role of ideology in their identity.&nbsp;Source: EurActive, http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/ukraine-elections-primaries-bring-voters-closer-politics/article-166591. accessed September 27, 2007.&nbsp;]]></fulltext>
<author>EurActiv.com</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-09-27 00:54:00</pubDate>
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<title>Trends and Opinion Polls Reveal Shifting Voter Preferences in Ukraine</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Trends_and_Opinion_Polls_Reveal_Shifting_Voter_Preferences_in_Ukraine.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Ukraine&rsquo;s parliamentary elections on September 30 are unlikely to bring overwhelming victories for either the &ldquo;orange&rdquo; camp of Our Ukraine-Self Defense and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc or the &ldquo;blue&rdquo; camp of the Party of Regions. Ukraine&rsquo;s regional and linguistic divide makes such a landslide unlikely; instead, both camps will remain in the 45-55% range. Nevertheless, there are trends that do reflect changes in electoral geography and voter intentions.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Ukraine&rsquo;s regionalism means that no political force has country-wide support. Thus the winning side in a Ukrainian election is unable to put the other side out of business, making it impossible to institute an autocracy.A narrow win for either camp precludes the formation of a huge parliamentary majority. In addition, the defeated camp will be in a position to establish a powerful opposition bloc with, at a minimum, 45% of the seats in parliament.As thresholds make it more difficult for many parties to win seats in parliament, the political field has consolidated into a limited number of parties and blocs. Twenty parties and blocs are registered this year, down from 45 in 2006. Ukraine&rsquo;s 3% threshold for parties and blocs to enter parliament is the lowest in Europe and Eurasia. Nevertheless, it has not led to a large influx of small parties into parliament. Eight groups received seats in 1998, six groups in 2002, and only five last year.Left-leaning parties, which dominated politics in the 1990s, have dwindled and only the Communist Party (KPU) is likely enter parliament this fall. The Socialist Party (SPU), won four parliamentary elections between 1994-2006, but its current popularity stands at 1-2%. The KPU has fallen from 24.65% in the 1998 to 3.66% last year. Support for the far-left Progressive Socialist Party, which last won a seat 1998, has declined to less than 2%.The 2007 elections are also changing Ukraine&rsquo;s electoral geography. The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT), which came second in a majority of eastern and southern Ukrainian districts in 2006, is replacing the left as a viable alternative to the Party of Regions in these districts. The Party of Regions will likely still take first place in eastern and southern Ukrainian districts, but by a smaller margin and therefore taking fewer seats than in last year&rsquo;s elections. BYuT is particularly growing in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and even the Crimea. After Tymoshenko&rsquo;s rally in Kharkiv earlier this month, one poll gave BYuT a narrow lead over the Party of Regions in that key oblast.Our Ukraine-Self Defense (NUNS) remains unable to break out of its western Ukrainian base, and polls show that it has barely improved on last year&rsquo;s poor performance of 14%.The Party of Regions leads in all polls, but this does not guarantee that it will head a majority coalition and government. Three out of four recent polls show the two orange forces beating the Party of Regions. Still-undecided voters tend to be from the orange camp and they could still improve orange results.Polls show a narrowing gap between the Party of Regions and BYuT, which finished first and second last year, respectively. The Kyiv-based Concorde Capital reported that the Party of Regions has 26-28% and BYuT 20-26%. The gap between them last year was 10% and is now narrowing to 5-7%. A poll by the T. Shevchenko Political and Sociological Institute gave only a 1% lead to the Party of Regions over BYuT. Therefore, Ukrainian analysts believe Yulia Tymoshenko is poised to head of the next government.Polls show that three political forces will enter parliament: Party of Regions, NUNS, and BYuT. They may be joined by the KPU and former speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn&rsquo;s bloc.Full article: Jamestown Foundation.]]></fulltext>
<author>Taras Kuzio</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-09-19 00:23:00</pubDate>
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<title>Commerzbank Buys 60% Of Ukraine's Bank Forum</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Commerzbank_AG_said_it_bought_a_60_percent_stake.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[FRANKFURT -- Commerzbank AG said it bought a 60% stake in Ukraine&#39;s privately controlled Bank Forum for $600 million, in a move to strengthen its position in Central and Eastern Europe.The German bank also affirmed its earlier outlook over exposure to the risky subprime market and potential charges.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Commerzbank, which has a strong focus on midsize German companies and has made several purchases in Central and Eastern Europe, said it has an option to buy as much as 25% more of Bank Forum after 36 months.The Ukrainian bank has about 12,000 corporate customers, of which 9,500 are small and midsize businesses. The bank has 230,000 retail customers.Address of the article: Wall Street Journal OnlineTechnorati Profile]]></fulltext>
<author>RAGNHILD KJETLAN, Wall Street Journal Online</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-09-19 00:18:00</pubDate>
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<title>What Ideology Does BYuT Need?</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/What_Ideology_Does_BYuT_Need.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;The only political forces interested in fundamental change and in upsetting the corrupt status quo in Ukraine are BYuT and the national democratic wing of Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona. These are Ukraine&rsquo;s closest equivalents to the anti-status quo Thatcher or Sarkozy.&quot; Reply to Oleksandr Sokolovsky (Ukrayinska Pravda, 9.08.2007)]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[It is interesting to see such a lively debate in the Ukrainian media on the ideological orientation of political parties. That Ukraine is gradually evolving towards a more ideologically structured political system was the aim of those political forces (primarily the opposition) who supported the April 2004 changes to the election law that made parliamentary elections fully proportional. The evolution towards fewer and more ideologically drive political parties is a medium term process. The 2006 and 2007 elections will assist this evolution but the process will take time, just as it does in any democracy. What is surprising is to what degree there is so much focus in this discussion on the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). While I would never deny the need for such a debate one wonders why there is far less focus on the other main political parties in Ukraine.In reality, the ideological orientation of all Ukrainian parties (and not just BYuT) are in flux. Many parties have long not adhered to their ideological principles (i.e. the Communists who are ready to collaborate with the oligarchs) or those who have betrayed their orange voters (i.e. the Socialists) in exchange for state positions. The Communist Party was always a virtual opposition party during the 1990s. Today, after the Communists and Socialists joined the Anti-Crisis coalition, what remains of any left-wing ideology in them?The Party of Regions is the most confusing &quot;party&quot; of all in parliament. The very term &quot;party&quot; is an incorrect definition of what it constitutes the Party of Regions. The &quot;party&quot; unites ex-Communists, pan-Slavists, trade unionists, centrist reformers, corrupt ex-Kuchma officials, disaffected defectors from the orange camp, Donetsk regional nationalists, big businessmen and billionaire oligarchs. The Party of Regions resembles more an anti-orange popular front than a &quot;political party&quot;. Such a popular front could never hope to create a single ideological profile.Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona is likewise a symbiosis. Our Ukraine itself was always composed of a national democratic wing that had grown out of Rukh and other national democratic parties who were closer in spirit to BYuT. It also included a pro-business wing that defected largely from the Kuchma camp after Viktor Yushchenko&#39;s government was removed in April 2001. Since 2002 Yushchenko has fluctuated between these two wings of Our Ukraine, supporting at times cooperation with Arise Ukraine! protests while at other times seeking a parliamentary coalition with pro-Kuchma centrist parties. This fluctuation reached its apogee after the March 2006 elections when one wing of Our Ukraine negotiated a coalition with BYuT (through Roman Besmertny) and another wing negotiated a coalition with the Party of Regions (through Yuriy Yekhanurov). Our Ukraine went into the 2006 elections headed by its business wing (Yekhanurov). This year it is fighting the elections headed by its national democratic wing (Yuriy Lutsenko and Vyacheslav Kyrlylenko). Our Ukraine&#39;s long standing multi-vectorism is compounded by the addition of Lutsenko&#39;s Narodna Samooborona to the Our Ukraine bloc. Lutsenko&#39;s anti-corruption and anti-oligarch rhetoric is close in spirit to the program of BYuT. Yet, the president seeks to have close relations with big business and oligarchs, as testified by his second meeting with them in July.Our Ukraine and Rukh have, it is true, long had observer status in the EPP. At the same time, their ideological profile is not clear cut. Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona has set for itself the task of building a center-right party by merging its constituent parties after the elections.Why then is the Kongres Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv (KUN) a member of the Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona bloc? KUN is closer to the populist nationalist right found in Austria, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Poland and Slovakia than to the center-right parties that belong to the EPP. If KUN had deputies in the European Parliament they would be members of the Union for Europe of the Nations faction, not the EPP, where they could sit alongside similar parties, such as Italy&#39;s Alleanze Nationale.Mr. Sokolovsky also takes too narrow a view of Conservatism in Western democracy. In reality there are many differences and nuances. The US Republican Party, for example, has little in common with most parties in the EPP. Americans are far more religious than Europeans: sixty percent of Americans regularly attend Church compared to only 20 percent in Europe. Little wonder therefore that religion plays such an important role in American political and social life, including in the Republican Party. There were close similarities between the old Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and that of Margaret Thatcher&#39;s Conservatives. Today, there is little that the high government spending neo-Conservative US Republican and the Thatcherite, British Conservatives have in common except that they are both labeled as &quot;Conservatives&quot;.The British Conservative Party was a status quo party until the 1970s. But, this fundamentally changed with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Thatcher was very against maintaining the status quo. She represented a wing of the British Conservative Party that wished to change the status quo in a very radical way. Nicolas Sarkozy is a contemporary adherent of this radical Conservatism that is against the status quo and seeks deep reforms. Both Thatcher and Sarkozy believe such fundamental change would reinvigorate Britain and France&#39;s national identity.Both Thatcher and Sarkozy were opponents of those who represented the status quo wing of the British and French Conservatives (Edward Heath in Britain and Jacque Chirac in France). In Britain the status quo Conservatives were labeled &quot;Wets&quot; and the reformers &quot;Dry-es&quot;.The Socialist International (SI) unites mainly unreformed center-left parties. The British Labor Party (&quot;New Labor&quot;) is a member of the SI because of long standing tradition. Nevertheless, the policies pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have more in common with Bill Clinton&#39;s Democratic Party than the constituent parties of the SI. The Labor Party became New Labor in the 1990s because it had to change if it wanted to win an election, which it did in 1997 when New Labor came to power.The only political forces interested in fundamental change and in upsetting the corrupt status quo in Ukraine are BYuT and the national democratic wing of Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona. These are Ukraine&#39;s closest equivalents to the anti-status quo Thatcher or Sarkozy. Those millions of Ukrainians who stood on the Maidan in winter 2004 also stood for change and against the status quo. The business wing of Our Ukraine and the Party of Regions are the adherents of status quo politics in Ukraine. It is they who do not seek any fundamental changes of the political-economic system introduced under Kuchma.Ukraine needs fundamental change, just as did the &quot;sick man of Europe&quot; that Britain was called in the 1970s and France is called today. The Orange Revolution promised Ukrainians change. Fundamental change and reform is what one wing of Western European Conservatives represented by Thatcher and Sarkozy stand for. It is this tradition, which represents one wing of the EPP, that best fits BYuT - not the stagnant Socialist International. BYuT made the right choice in opting for the EPP and not the SI.Source: Dr. Taras Kuzio.]]></fulltext>
<author>Taras Kuzio</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-08-14 00:27:00</pubDate>
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<title>Back to the Brink in Ukraine</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Yanukovich_is_prepared_to_do_anything_to_remain_in_power.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[The absurd, partisan-instigated problems with registering BYUT candidates by the Central Election Committee proves that, this time, Yanukovich is prepared to do anything to remain in power.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[The campaign for Ukraine&#39;s parliamentary election of September 30th is scarcely underway and yet Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is already trying to steal it. Yanukovich was the man who sought to falsify the result of the presidential election of 2004, inciting the Orange Revolution. Back then, a peaceful and honest result was reached in the end because Ukraine&#39;s President Leonid Kuchma refused to heed Yanukovich&#39;s call to use violence to defend his rigged election. This time it appears that Yanukovich is prepared to do anything to remain in power. The dirty tricks began in the midnight hours of August 11th, when Ukraine&#39;s Central Election Commission (which is packed with Yanukovich placemen) refused to certify the largest opposition party, the bloc of former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, to participate in the election. The technicality the commission cited would be absurdly funny if its potential results were not so incendiary: the CEC objected to the fact that the Tymoshenko bloc candidates listed only their home towns on the party list, not their precise street address. But Tymoshenko&#39;s party successfully submitted its list in the very same format at the March 2006 election, which demonstrates the glaringly partisan nature of the election commission&#39;s ruling.By seeking to cling to power by hook or by crook, Yanukovich is likely to bring on the deluge. In Ukraine that means not only violent unrest, but economic decline and renewed repression. At the end of the day it could lead to the sort of huge street protests that marked the Orange Revolution, and their attempted violent suppression. Recent history is replete with alarming examples of dictators and would be dictators who refuse to recognize when their time has run out. But for the past twenty years their blatant political chicanery has been met with a potent new force: the massed voices of ordinary people who refuse to be cowed. From the &quot;People Power&quot; revolution that toppled Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986 to Boris Yeltsin&#39;s defiance of the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev of August 1991, to the Rose, Orange, and Cedar Revolutions of recent years, dictators have been forced to admit defeat when enough people stand up to them.Will it really be necessary for Ukrainians to repeat the Orange Revolution by again gathering in their millions to shame Yanukovich (a twice convicted violent felon before he entered politics) to change course? There is a person who might compel Yanukovich to retreat to democratic norms and thus hold off such protests -- Russia&#39;s President Vladimir Putin. It is certainly in Russia&#39;s national interest to prevent chaos in the country&#39;s big next door neighbor. But Putin&#39;s idea of what constitutes Russia&#39;s national interest makes that type of intervention unlikely. Weak neighbors are states that the Kremlin can control, so why not expand Russian power by letting Ukraine slide into protest and anarchy if by doing so it brings that country back under Putin&#39;s thumb? Moreover, Putin himself is in the business of sterilizing Russia&#39;s democratic processes by handpicking his successor and having his courts and electoral commissions block his opponents from political participation, often tarring them as traitors. Someone with such contempt for the democratic rights of his own people is unlikely to champion them abroad. As is usual with this ex-KGB man, Putin is being cunning about Ukraine, but he is deluding himself if he thinks that siding with Yanukovich will bring back effective Russian overlordship of Ukraine. The days of empire are over, no matter how much wealth oil and gas is bringing to Russia. Only if Ukraine maintains its independence will the imperial nostalgia of Russia&#39;s elites be shattered.So other pressure will need to be applied, primarily by the European Union and the United States. In 2004, both the EU and US were tardy in speaking in defense of Ukraine&#39;s democrats. Only when the courage of millions of ordinary Ukrainians gathered in central Kyiv galvanized world opinion did the US and EU marshal the courage to stand up for an honest election result. And the one state that did stand with Ukraine from the start back then, Poland, has now antagonized much of EU opinion, particularly in Germany, because of the paranoid behavior of its current leaders. So Polish influence in Union councils is at rock bottom. Luckily, the leaders of Europe&#39;s three biggest states are different people than in 2004. Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Gordon Brown appear to have a clearer appreciation of the Union&#39;s security problems to its east, and so may find the will to act decisively now, rather than dither as their predecessors did when Ukraine moved into crisis in 2004.Unless Ukraine&#39;s democratic opposition is allowed to take part in the election, a new crisis is certain. Tymoshenko, who has survived three assassination attempts, is not the type of woman to surrender her campaign on a technicality. While the Orange Revolution made ordinary Ukrainians more conscious of their rights than ever before, this alone cannot guarantee that they are certain to see those rights vindicated in the coming weeks. However, it will make the job of repressing them much harder. And isn&#39;t that what the battle for democracy is all about?Nina Khrushcheva, who teaches at The New School University in New York, is the author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.projectsyndicate.org )]]></fulltext>
<author>Nina Khrushcheva</author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-08-14 00:19:00</pubDate>
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<title>Summer courses for international journalists in Prague. Grants available.</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/prague_courses_tol.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Transitions Online (TOL), a non-profit media development organization based in Prague,&nbsp;will organize&nbsp;the next set of&nbsp;the journalism and media courses this summer.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[The dates of the courses are:- Investigative Journalism (July 21-30)- Foreign Correspondent Training Course (July 21-30)- New Media Essentials (July 7-13)The courses are attended by journalism students and young journalists from around the world, and all have a firm emphasis on practical training by experienced journalists from respected publications and broadcasters such as the BBC, The Economist and The Guardian.More information about the courses can be found at http://journalism-courses.tol.org. Alternatively, please contact me on zhmakos@tol.org if you have any questions.]]></fulltext>
<author>Sergei Zhmako</author>
<category>Personal Development</category>
<pubDate>2007-06-09 08:24:00</pubDate>
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<item>
<title>Where Next or What Next?</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/reclaiming_democracy.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;Democratization will not be what it used to be and it is time to face up to it.&quot;]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[The beginning of the 21sl century was marked by an explosion of electoral revolutions item Europe. A &quot;bulldozer&quot; revolution put an end to the criminal regime of in Milosevic in Serbia. The Rose Revolution changed the color of the political me in Georgia and the Orange Revolution brought an end to kleptocratic rule in Kyiv. All three revolutions were nonviolent, liberal and pro-western. They looked the second coming of 1989. The color revolutions captured the imagination of the West with the promise that liberal democratic revolutions can even be successful in countries with troubled pasts, post-conflict presents and where institutions are weak and incomes low. At the very moment the idea of liberal democratic revolution was both defeated and edited in the Middle East, true-believers of universal democracy found their hopes fulfilled and spirits lifted by events in Georgia and Ukraine. Georgia and Ukraine were viewed as leaders of a new wave of democratic change in the world. The anti-Syrian electoral revolution in Lebanon further strengthened this impression. In the view of many democracy activists the only relevant questions were how many more weeks in power Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Minsk would survive and where the next color revolution would take place. Political theorists and democracy activists were convinced that color revolutions were a pattern for democratic change that would spread all over Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Replicating color revolutions is the winning strategy for the future.At the time, these color revolutions were varyingly conceptualized as a) liberal revolutions, b) EU inspired revolutions, c) NGO revolutions and d) a model for the generation of democratic revolutions. Two years on, all these ideas about color revolutions require profound rethinking. It could turn out that, in their nature, these color revolutions have more in common with the recent populist revolutions in Latin America, than with the liberal revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe of 1989. NGO-centric interpretations of the color revolutions have so far tended to be a marriage of ideological convenience and I institutional self-interest, more than a fair reflection on the real strength of the civil society actors involved. And, the notion that color revolutions represent a model of democratic change that can be replicated might not only be incorrect, but even dangerous, if considering how to develop strategies for assisting democracy in the post-Soviet space.In accepting color revolutions as the new paradigm for democratic change m runs the risk of making the same mistake as when one universalizes Central European political experience. It took the democratic community the failure in Iraq, Hamas&#39; victory in Palestine and the wave of populist revolutions in Latin America to see the obvious. The end of the Cold War and the emergence of a western liberal democracies and market economies in Central Europe are events that cannot simply be &quot;replicated&quot; in regions like the Middle East or Central Asia. As Francis Fukuyama, the disillusioned prophet of &quot;the end of history&quot; bitterly remarked in his latest book, &quot;(...) the democratization of Central Europe was a miracle. And, one can react to a miracle either by dramatically raising expectations for a repeat-effect or by being grateful, pocketing one&#39;s luck, and reflecting on the uniqueness of circumstance. Unfortunately, the democracy promotion community shared the first reaction, and tried to turn the miracle into a natural law&quot;.Is this mistake to be repeated? Is it not wiser to pocket one&#39;s luck and to reflect on the uniqueness of circumstance when it comes to drawing lessons from the color revolutions that have already taken place, instead of raising expectations of repeat-effects? Has the music stopped playing, without the dancers realizing?The central argument of this chapter is that in their nature color revolutions are not liberal democratic revolutions. What has been witnessed in the post-Soviet space was not a new wave of democratic revolutions, but the collapse of the hybrid regimes that emerged out of the ruins of the partial democratization of the 1990s. This collapse took the form of democratic breakthroughs in Georgia and Ukraine, but it led to the consolidation of authoritarian trends in Russia and Central Asia. The failure of the revolutionary strategy in the case of Belarus was just the first warning signal for the limits of the color revolution as a model for breaking authoritarian regimes and promoting democracy.In the view of this author, therefore, the real question is not where the next color revolution will take place, but how the new post-revolutionary strategy for democracy promotion in Eastern Europe should be articulated.Liberal Revolutions?What most political observers registered, but failed to emphasize sufficiently was that color revolutions were revolts against semi-autocratic and not autocratic regimes. In 1989 the people on the streets of Budapest and Prague demanded free multi-party elections, freedom of speech and a free market economy. The slogans on the streets of Tbilisi and Kyiv were different. They protested against regimes that called themselves democracies, looked like democracies, but were anti-democratic in their nature. These were regimes where citizens had the right to vote, but the governments reserved for themselves the privilege of counting the votes and announcing the results. Ukrainians and Georgians protested, not against totalitarian regimes, but &quot;democracy&#39;s doubles&quot;. Disappointment and disillusionment with postcommunist democratization from the above was the major underlying cause for the eruption of the protests.Color revolutions had more in common with the wave of populist revolutions that e in Latin America than with the velvet revolutions of Eastern Europe. The color revolutions expressed a strong desire for change, but not necessarily a desire e democracy, let alone more capitalism. The people on the streets of Kyiv, unlike the people on the streets of Central Europe in 1989 (but, like populist voters In America today), were asking for the revision of the privatization process, not for more privatization. They were fighting corruption, not communism. Democratic ideals played only a limited role in mobilizing support for the color revolutions, whose victors won power as opposition movements rather than as democratic movements. As Michael McFaul has observed, their &quot;main message was a cry of &#39;Enough!&#39; hurled f the incumbent power-holders&quot;.Surprisingly, the similarities between Eurasia&#39;s color revolutions and the recent dramatic changes in Latin America have remained largely unnoticed or neglected. Observers have been blinded by the fact that the Orange Revolution was led by a market liberal like Yushchenko, while Latin America&#39;s electoral revolutions have been led by leftists sympathetic to Fidel Castro. The similarities between Ukraine and Latin America were also obscured by the fact that anti-elite rhetoric in Ukraine spoke in anti-Russian tones, while in Latin America anti-elitism speaks the language of anti-Americanism.But, regardless of these and many other differences, the color revolutions stand closer to their Latin American relatives than to their Central European forebears. Claims about fraud and not about the future were at the core of political discourse. Ukrainian voters contested the fraudulent elections and, therefore, took to the streets during the Orange Revolution. The angry electorates in Latin America protested not against the neo-liberals and their policies, but against the fraud and the &quot;violin politics&quot; of the establishment. As Jose Maria Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain once said, exercising power in Latin America during the last decade and a half has been playing a violin. One takes the violin with one&#39;s left hand, but one plays it with one&#39;s right.The distinctive feature of the new politics is that the new populist majorities do not have a clear project for transforming society. They are inspired, not so much by the hope as by a sense of betrayal. They are moralistic, not programmatic. They represent the crisis of traditional political identities. In their view, social and political change is possible only through a sea change in the elite. The absence of new ideas and of a new vision for society has resulted in rising pressure to put new people into power. The war cry of the new protest politics is Hugo Chavez&#39;s electoral slogan: &quot;Get rid of them all!&quot;.The color revolutions, unlike the velvet revolutions, are not manifestations of the victory of liberal ideas, but are symptomatic of the emerging tension between the concept of people power and the representative institutions of liberal democracy. Like the Latin American revolutions, the color revolutions represent protest against the disempowerment of the people, but in a democratic context. They were revolutions demanding democracy, at the same time as rejecting &quot;the real-fife democracy&quot; they experienced in the last decade. The populist nature of the color revolutions Is at least part of the explanation for the difficulty the new leaders have had to consolidate revolutionary gains in the post-revolutionary period.Today, two years after the Orange Revolution in Kyiv and seven years after anti-Milosevic &quot;bulldozer&quot; revolution in Serbia, the time has come to face reality of post-Orange society. It is, of course, fair to say that Ukraine today is more democratic than it was two years ago. There is a free and lively media environment, the government is more accountable than ever before and the separation of p1 functions better than previously, but the euphoria that accompanied the revolution and the hopes that it raised have dissipated. The popular mood ranges from despair, anger and cynicism among the revolution&#39;s supporters to confusion, d and disillusionment among the revolution&#39;s opponents. Increasingly, Ukrainians a giving up on all their leaders and treating their promises as empty. In geopolitical terms, Kyiv is creeping back into Russia&#39;s sphere of influence, while the reformist momentum has stowed to a crawl. Georgia, in contrast, is firmly anchored in the West and its government strives for NATO and EU membership. But, the authoritarian tendencies in the Georgian government are too obvious to be neglected and some NGO leaders claim that the new government is less open to criticism than the &quot;authoritarian regime&quot; it has overthrown. Serbia, for its part, has failed to reconcile its nationalistic past, and while competitive political processes exist, liberalism is on the rise.Meanwhile, contrary to the colorful logic of revolutionary-minded democracy promoters, Lukashenka in Minsk continues to survive, while Moscow has undergone regime change in the opposite direction to that expected. As Jean Cocteau once remarked, &quot;Every revolution begins standing and ends seated&quot;.The Myth of the NGO RevolutionIt is hard to understand what makes revolutions so engaging. The story unfolding has been witnessed so many times before: excited crowds, vague slogans and charismatic leaders flicker on the television screen, in a familiar sort of heroic (melo) drama. But, no one is ever prepared for the disappointment that follows. And, it is so tempting to believe that what is being witnessed is a new kind of revolution. The color revolutions were believed to be a new phenomenon, the &quot;NGO revolution&#39;. Wikipedia, the bible of the information society, insists that color revolutions were notable for the important role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and particularly student activist organizations in organizing creative nonviolent resistance. The concept of civil society was as fundamental to the color revolutions as the concept of the &quot;third estate&quot; was for the French revolution. The role played by NGOs was deemed as important for the success of the color revolutions as that played by the Bolshevik party in the success of the 1917 revolution in Russia.&quot;NGO revolutions are revolutions in the age of globalization and information. It is meaningless to protest against this reality&quot;, wrote Kremlin political technologist, Sergei Markov, &quot;(...) everybody who wants to take part in the politics of the 21st century has to create his own networks of NGOs and supply them with ideology, money and people&quot;. NGOs have been conceptualized as the major protagonists of poltical change in the new century. They are viewed as more important than political parties, trade unions or charismatic political leaders. The question, however, is how well-founded this NGO-centric interpretation of the color revolutions actually is.The birth of the NGO-centric interpretation of the color revolutions was a happy accidental encounter between ideological convenience and institutional self-promotion. If one wants to be written about in history textbooks, it is necessary to ensure that one has something to do with writing them. This is what the NGO leaders did. They were not only among the leaders of the color revolutions, but, more importantly, they have been the most active interpreters of the events. They were the ones fluent in English and in democracy-speak. The anti-political mood, railing in both East and West, has contributed to the success of this NGO-centric interpretation. Political parties have been labelled as representatives of special interests, whereas, the NGOs were the voice of civil society. And, in one of those ironic twists of fate so dear to historians, the prominence of the NGO-interpretation of the color revolution was achieved by the inadvertent collaboration of democracy activists and Kremlin political technologists.Western pro-democracy foundations were the salesmen of the NGO-centric I interpretation of the color revolution. For them, public acceptance of the critical role played by the NGOs was also recognition of the critical role played by agencies and foundations engaged in democracy assistance in bringing about democratic change. In other words, western foundations cannot be considered disinterested parties, when it comes to the interpretation of the color revolutions. This is also true for the academic centers affiliated to them.The packaging of the color revolutions as NGO revolutions was also ideologically convenient. The western-funded NGOs were the only openly liberal, pro-democratic and pro-capitalist constituency in the revolution. NGO-centric interpretations of the revolutions made it easy to argue for the primacy of the liberal nature of the political change. The emphasis on the role and the potential of the NGOs as leading actors in the democratic revolutions also drew attention to the transnational nature of the political change in the context of color revolutions. It is no accident that political theorists have devoted much more attention to the role played by the Serbian activists that turned out in Georgia, or the Georgian activists that turned out in Ukraine, than to the social inequality and ethnic tensions these societies demonstrated in the run-up to their democratic breakthroughs. Marketing has overtaken Marxism when it comes to defining the meaning of revolution. But, the revolutionary handbook that was written on the basis of the experience of the color revolutions encourages the democracy promotion community to seize the opportunity for change in places where they lack local knowledge and genuine democratic movements are not available. The existence of an unpopular semi-autocratic regime, splits among the &quot;guys with the guns&quot;, an independent media, a unified opposition, a civic sector skilful in the art of popular mobilization and election monitoring capacities were all classified as factors sufficient for the success of a liberal revolution. The new mantra of democratic change has become &quot;all we need is NGOs&quot;. Kremlin political strategists were the other fervent advocates of the view that color revolutions were NGO revolutions. This version of events justified their claims that what the West called revolution, was, in fact, an electoral coup, a covert operation designed and implemented by the western intelligence agencies and their NGO based infrastructure behind the backs of postcommunist societies. NGO-centric interpretations of the color revolutions perfectly fitted the deep belief of the Kremlin&#39;s strategists in the primacy of political technologies over political representation. The pages of this book provide a thorough analysis of NGO activity in each of the countries in the run-up to and during their color revolutions. The case studies provided document what the NGOs did, how they did it and why what they did was important in the course of the revolutions. Nobody can credibly cast doubt on the fact that NGOs were critical in articulating an alternative view of their societies, mobilizing the people, especially young people, and international solidarity for protestors on the streets of Eastern Europe. Their role in election monitoring was also critical. The purpose of this chapter is not to cast aspersions on these analyses. It would be a grave mistake to ignore the role of the NGOs in the success of the color revolutions. But, the intention of this author is to question the belief that NGOs are the central actor in opening up societies. It is this author&#39;s conviction that is a clear tendency to overestimate the role of NGOs as agents of democratic changes and to overlook the limits of their influence. The strategy of overselling NGOs can easily backfire, by creating expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Moreover, there seems to exist a shared conviction that the importance of the role of NGOs actors in democracy promotion shall inevitably grow. This, however, contradicts increasingly obvious signs that the NGO moment in democratic politics is in democratic politics is in the process of passing. In the case of Eastern Europe, most of the politically active NGOs are not membership-organizations. As a rule, most of their funding comes from abroad and they are much more liberal and pro-western than the mainstream of society. The attempt by OTPOR and PORA to enter national politics in the aftermath of the color revolutions in. their countries ended in fiasco. These failures demonstrated the limits of NGO influence. NGOs were important, but they were not the major protagonist of change. What was consciously or unconsciously underestimated by the NGO-friendly analysts is the power of nationalist and populist sentiments in any of these revolutions and the importance of the role played by their political leaders.&quot;The anti-elite and anti-political language that was critical for the popularity of NGOs in the &quot;long 1990s&quot; has been captured by the populists. In other words, the rise and success of populist parties and the populist agenda presents a direct challenge to the public role of the civil society sector. Liberal ideas were very attractive to societies that were fighting totalitarianism. But, in the age of failed democratization, liberal NGOs are less attractive than the populist alternative. What liberals promise is institutional change. What populists promise is revenge on incumbent political elites. NGOs promote civic participation and deliberation as correction mechanisms for the failures of democracy, while populists promise strong leadership and an unmediated relationship between the leaders and the people. The other factor contributing to the new context, in which pro-democracy NGOs are forced to work, is the strategy of non-democratic forces adopting democracy promotion rhetoric and creating their own NGOs as an instrument for promoting their foreign policy agendas. The creation of Russia-dominated NGO networks, including think tanks, media organizations and development centers, on the territory of the post-Soviet republics, is an essential element of Russia&#39;s new policy of domination in the region.Rethinking Color RevolutionsColor revolutions were critical events in postcommunist Europe, but they were part of a broader trend. What trie advocates of &quot;the new wave of democratic revolutions thesis have failed to grasp is that the common factor in Eastern Europe was new wave of democratization, but the collapse of the hybrid regimes that emerged from the only partial democratization of the 1990s. The color revolutions led to the opening-up of the hybrid regimes in Ukraine and Georgia, but the fuether consolidation of anti-democratic tendencies of the regimes in Russia and the countries of Central Asia is part of the same process. The preventive counter revolution designed by Moscow&#39;s political strategists, is an essential part of the legacy of the color revolution.The Kremlin basically &quot;agreed&quot; with democracy theorists that hybrid regimes are structurally unstable and are doomed to collapse. In Moscow&#39;s view the color revolutions embodied the ultimate threat: long-distance controlled popular revolt, Putin&#39;s preventive counter-revolution following the democratic breakthrough In Ukraine marked a profound transformation in the managed democratic regime In Russia. The change in Russia&#39;s policy thinking as a result of the Orange Revolution can only be compared to the change that occurred in American policy thinking as a result of 9/11. Moscow&#39;s immediate response to the &quot;orange threat&quot; was to exert total control over the media in Russia. At present, there is no single live political talk show on the major TV channels in Russia.The Kremlin also &quot;agreed&quot; with the democracy theorists&#39; analysis that splits in the elite were a critical factor for the success of the revolution. In Russia, therefore, the response has been the wholesale nationalization of the elite. The oil and gas industries have been put under total government control- And, the Kremlin has made it clear that flirting with the opposition will not be tolerated. The new NGO law adopted by the Kremlin and the creation of the Citizens&#39; Chamber were aimed at establishing control over civil society. The receipt of &quot;political money&quot; from abroad has been criminalized. More importantly, Russia has rejected the idea of the legitimacy of international involvement in the protection of basic human rights. At the same time, the Kremlin has made an effort to bring the NGO sector under control by increasing the state money available to the third sector domesticaily and by drawing a clear line between desirable and undesirable NGOs. Scared by the efficiency of the street protests and especially the political potential of student movements, the Kremlin has shifted away from the politics of de-polarization and has created youth groups trained to supply active support to the government (these include Nashi and the Molodaya Gvardia). The development of the ideology of sovereign democracy is the last element of Moscow&#39;s preventive counter-revolution. Sovereign democracy is meant to be the ideological justification of the new regime that has been established in Russia.The last and most convincing argument for changes towards anti-democracy in Russia is the renewed taste for open repression of the more radical groups challenging the regime that the government seems to have developed. Activists of &quot;The Other Russia&quot; have been beaten and arrested. The message was unambiguous. The time of nonviolent revolutions is over. The Kremlin has shown its readiness to use violence against its enemies. The violent suppression of the pro-democracy riots in Uzbekistan was the most powerful demonstration of this new trend.ConclusionThe central argument of this chapter is that color revolutions, as important as they were and as inspiring as they were, cannot serve as a model for further democratic breakthroughs in Eastern Europe. The promotion of democracy in the region has entered a new post-revolutionary stage. So, the real question is not &quot;where next?&quot;, rather &quot;what next?&quot;. A profound change in the geopolitical, ideological and .institutional contexts in which democratization efforts will take place is underway.The war in Iraq and the rise of anti-Americanism has become a major obstacle the promotion of democracy. U.S. foreign policy is shifting towards &quot;realism&quot;. What now matters for U.S. foreign policy are the foreign policies of other countries, rather than their domestic policies. The famous visit of Dick Cheney to Eastern Europe, during which he sharply criticized Russia&#39;s backlash against democracy on one day, and on the next, praised the democratic achievements of the even more authoritarian regime in Kazakhstan, is representative of the new reality. &quot;Double standards&quot; will no longer be just an &quot;accusation&quot; against the U.S. administration&#39;s approach to such issues. It will be the reality of its approach. This approach will fuel anti-American sentiment and will make U.S.-supported democracy assistance much more vulnerable to criticism and denunciation. At the same time, anti-Americanism will be cynically used by non-democratic governments to discredit pro-democracy groups. These groups will be less and less inclined to accept financial support from abroad for fear of losing their public legitimacy.The emergence of the post-enlargement European Union is the other important factor that will negatively affect not only the chances for the new wave of democratic breakthroughs in Eastern Europe, but also the chances for the consolidation of the post-revolutionary regimes. The color revolutions were the most powerful demonstration of the European Union&#39;s &quot;soft power&quot;. The democratic breakthrough in Ukraine, particularly, has revealed an extraordinary paradox: that the European Union is a revolutionary power with transformative power sufficient to overthrow non-democratic regimes at the same time as the majority of its member-states is committed to preserving the status quo. But, at the same time the color revolutions have shown that the EU&#39;s soft power, its ability to mobilize and empower people, to inspire their imagination, to affect change via civic example not superior physical force, itself derives from its soft, shifting, borders. The EU&#39;s soft power lies in the promise that &quot;If you are like us, you could become one of us&quot;. At the moment when soft borders are replaced by hard borders the ability of the EU to inspire will dramatically decline.Further, the ideological context has changed. The anti-totalitarian liberalism advocating for human rights, free market and the rule of law that was the ideological hegemon of the 1990s is on the retreat. Societies in both Central and in Eastern Europe are in an anti-transition mood. Nationalist and populist ideologies have become worryingly popular among the voting publics. One can observe severe attacks on liberalism and on representative democracy in some of the countries of the region.The institutional context has also changed. The war on terror has raised fears over the power of non-state actors. Funding of civil society from abroad now meets resistance in different parts of the world. And, the rise of populist parties directly affects the legitimacy of NGOs. Populism, as a worldview, considers society to be ultimately divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, &quot;the pure people&quot; versus &quot;the corrupt elite&quot;, and argues that politics is the expression of the general will of the people and that social change is possible only as a radical change of elite. And, ironically enough in this case, liberal NGOs are widely viewed as members of such elites, no matter how reluctant.The western-supported NGO sector has lost its monopoly on &quot;representing&quot; civil society. In Russia and other countries, a well-coordinated effort on the part of the government to criminalize pro-democracy NGOs, on the one hand, and to promote and finance a government friendly third sector, on the other, is underway. Both the legitimacy and the room for maneuver of the pro-democracy civic sector have shrunk.&quot;Nothing seems harder to understand about a great revolution than when it is over&quot;, wrote Stephen Sestanovic. In the view of this author, his observation is particularly true about the recent wave of color revolutions in Europe. The expectation that color revolutions are a model of political change that can be replicated is false. These historic upheavals signalled not a new wave of democratic revolution but the exhaustion of the &quot;liberal moment&quot; in democratic politics. This does not suggest that the democratization agenda is obsolete or that people will not go out onto the streets demanding their rights. It does, however, suggest that the role of international actors will decline and that the next protagonists of democratic revolutions will probably not be liberal-minded and western-sponsored NGOs. Democratization will not be what it used to be and it is time to face up to it.Source: GMFUS&nbsp;(with footnotes). The article&nbsp;is part of a study by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and Erste Foundation of Austria &quot;Reclaiming Democracy: Civil Society and Electoral Change in Central and Eastern Europe.&quot;]]></fulltext>
<author>Ivan Krastev</author>
<category>Rights and Responsibilities</category>
<pubDate>2007-05-29 08:41:00</pubDate>
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<title>Postraduate students to discuss the meaning of democracy in Europe</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Postraduate_students_to_discuss_the_meaning_of_democracy_in_Europe.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;Participants will have the opportunity to join sessions led by prominent European social scientists and to present their own work during the sessions.&quot;]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[CfP: THE GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH WELCOMES APPLICATIONS FROMPOSTGRADUATE STUDENTS WISHING TO ATTEND THIS YEAR&#39;S SUMMER SCHOOL IN WIERZBASEPTEMBER 16TH - 22ND 2007, ORGANIZED IN COOPERATION WITH THE EUROPEANUNION CONNEX NETWORK OF EXCELLENCEParticipants will have the opportunity to join sessions led by prominent European social scientists and to present their own work during the sessions. This year&#39;s theme is &#39;Contested Compliance - Fostering Democracy in Europe: social, political and cultural obstacles to compliance to European norms: Europeanization of the social and political areas within and outside the EU.&#39; Research question will include:What are &quot;European norms&quot; and how can democracy be fostered? Why are norms contested? Compliance: what is at stake? Abstracts (in English) of proposed presentations should be sent with a CV to:The Graduate School for Social ResearchAt the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences72, Nowy Swiat Str., 00-330 Warsaw, Polandtel: (4822) 828-32-05, tel./ fax (4822) 826-87-33e- mail: wierzba@sns. edu.pl Please watch for regular information updates at http://www.sns.edu.plFor application procedures please check our website: www.css.edu.pl. The deadline for submission of applications is May 15th, 2007. Fluency in English is required. Participants will be provided with accommodation, full-board, health insurance and transport between Warsaw and Wierzba. The School is sponsored by the Open Society Institute.]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>Personal Development</category>
<pubDate>2007-05-09 06:51:00</pubDate>
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<title>Organizations and individuals join Reporters without Borders Free Mon'em Campaign</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Abdel_Kareem_Abdul-Moneim_Mahmud_petition.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;We call for the release of Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (Kareem Amer) and of Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who have been imprisoned for expressing their opinion online. We urge the organisers of the Internet Governance Forum to intervene with the Egyptian authorities on behalf of these two bloggers.&quot;]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk. EGYPT: PETITION FOR RELEASE OF BLOGGERS KAREEM AMER AND ABDUL-MONEIM MAHMUD Six months after the arrest of Kareem Amer, Reporters Without Borders has started a petition calling for the blogger&#39;s release and that of his colleague Abdul-Moneim Mahmud.Internet-users are being asked to sign online, in which the worldwide press freedom organisation calls on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a conference organised under the UN mantle, to block Egypt from hosting the event in 2008 unless the two bloggers are freed.Sign the petition : http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21993Text of the petition:&quot;We call for the release of Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (Kareem Amer) and of Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who have been imprisoned for expressing their opinion online. We urge the organisers of the Internet Governance Forum to intervene with the Egyptian authorities on behalf of these two bloggers. It would be intolerable for a UN summit on the future of the Internet to be held in a country which imprisons bloggers&quot;.The petition will be sent, on 6 November 2007, exactly one year after the arrest of Kareem Amer, to Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, to Executive Coordinator of the IGF, Markus Kumar, as well as to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.&quot;Kareem Amer&quot;Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen name Kareem Amer, was arrested on 6 November 2006, for articles published on his blog (www.karam903.blogspot.com). He frequently attacked the authoritarian excesses of the government of Hosni Mubarak and criticised the country&#39;s top religious authorities, particularly the Sunni University Al-Azhar, where he was studying law. The blogger was sentenced on 22 February 2007, to three years in prison for &quot;inciting hatred of Islam&quot; and one year for &quot;insulting&quot; the Egyptian president. The sentence was upheld on appeal on 12 March.Abdul-Moneim Mahmud Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who runs the blog Ana Ikhwan (www.ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com), was arrested on 14 April 2007. He has been officially accused of membership of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, but his detention appears most likely linked to articles and photos he has posted online and at his work exposing torture committed by the security services.First organisations and bloggers who signed the petition:- The Free Kareem campaign (www.FreeKareem.org)- Free Monem (http://freemonem.cybversion.org/)- Alaa &amp; Manal (http://www.manalaa.net)- HAMSA initiative of the American Islamic Congress (www.hamsaweb.org)- Dalia Ziada (http://daliaziada.blogspot.com)- Milton Mueller, partner, &quot;Internet Governance Project&quot;(www.internetgovernance.org/)- Ethan Zuckerman - My Heart&#39;s in Accra, http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog- Soci of Singabloodypore at http://singabloodypore.rsfblog.org- Christophe Gr&eacute;bert (www.monputeaux.com, webcitoyen.com)- Olivier Grobet (Humanitaire.ws)- Christophe Ginisty (http://www.ginisty.com)- Cristiano de S&#39; Fagundes (www.e-squina.blogspot.com)- Nicolas Vanbremeersch (www.versac.fr)- Pierre Catalan (http://pierrecatalan.hautetfort.com)- Sami Ben Gharbia (http://www.kitab.nl/)- Solana Larsen (http://www.solanasaurus.com)- Dan Larsen (http://www.blogbyblog.dk)- Herv&eacute; Resse (http://blog-hrc.typepad.com/ressepire)- Florentine (http://www.Florentine.typepad.com)- Andriy Ignatov,Maidan International (www.activist.org.ua/eng/)- Fred de Mai (www.fdmai.com)]]></fulltext>
<author>Andy Ignatov</author>
<category>A Just Society</category>
<pubDate>2007-05-05 15:02:00</pubDate>
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<item>
<title>"Orange Revolution" movie about the events of 2004 presented to Kyiv audience</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/orange_revolution_movie_in_kyiv.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;This month, a sensational documentary about the Orange Revolution by the American director Steve York will open in Kyiv. &quot;They were nameless but not powerless,&quot; as the slogan for his documentary proclaims.&quot; (Kyiv Post, April 11, 2007)]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[April 19, 2007. Kyiv, Ukraine. - A new documentary movie &quot;Orange Revolution&quot; by American producer Steve York, YorkZimmerman Inc., was presented in Kyiv&#39;s Zhovten theater. A Ukrainian English-language Kyiv Post weekly, April 11, 2007, elaborates:&quot;This month, a sensational documentary about the Orange Revolution by the American director Steve York will open in Kyiv. &quot;They were nameless but not powerless,&quot; as the slogan for his documentary proclaims. [...]In connection with the recent political events in Ukraine, it seems to be an opportune moment for such a film. Steve York promised to introduce some previously unknown facts about the Orange Revolution. The whole film is created from footage filmed in Ukraine and lasts nearly two hours. According to a journalist at Kino-Kolo magazine, who was present at the film&#39;s pre-premier showing at the Berlin Biennale, the film documents every stage of the protest from its beginnings to the blowup. The film portrays both the factual events and the emotions as experienced by those taking part in the events. &quot;---&quot;It&#39;s exhilarating to watch what happens when ordinary people . . . recognize their own power and decide to take action,&quot; says Steve York, director of this politically charged documentary. He began tracking Ukraine&#39;s presidential campaign in the summer of 2004, before opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. In November, after an election riddled with fraud, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people filled the streets of Kyiv to express outrage at a government that had treated them with contempt. Orange Revolution tells this story in words, pictures and music and without narration. With a small digital camera, York recorded the rebellious denizens of the tent city set up in Independence Square. We hear from Yushchenko, his campaign managers, journalists, students and workers in the street. We face stony police across an orange- and flower-strewn barrier. Infectious music from local rock bands provides the score and enlivens scenes of social uprising. GreenJolly&#39;s political rap, &quot;Together We Are Many,&quot; blasts through loudspeakers and is chanted throughout the tent city as the uprising&#39;s unofficial anthem. Culled from more than 300 hours of original and archival material, including footage never before seen even in Ukraine, this is an invigorating, emotional call to action. Most moving are the faces of unnamed people who brave exhaustion, snow and freezing temperatures: young people with orange hair, old women in colored scarves, workers from provincial towns. Determined and exuberant, they share sandwiches, sleep on floors and escalators and dance in the streets. &quot;This is not about Viktor Yushchenko,&quot; a youth explains. &quot;It means we have moved into a whole new era.&quot;Kathleen Denny, San Francisco International Film Festival&quot;It&#39;s exhilarating to watch what happens when ordinary people, who are normally considered powerless, recognize their own power, and decide to take action. In this film, we see Ukrainians, long described even by themselves as passive and apathetic, at a historic turning point. Their choice: whether to endorse the corrupt regime they&#39;d had since the Soviet Union collapsed, or to demand a more open, responsive, democratic government.&quot;Steve York, Movie&nbsp;DirectorOrange Revolution is a York Zimmerman Inc. production, presented by A Force More Powerful Films. The film is produced and directed by Steve York. The editor is Joseph Wiedenmayer. Managing Producer is Miriam A. Zimmerman. Associate Producer is Sommer Mathis. Executive Producer is Peter Ackerman. Contact: Miriam Zimmerman (202) 337-3291 orange@yorkzim.com Images available at www.orangerevolutionmovie.com]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>Arts</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-22 09:29:00</pubDate>
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<item>
<title>Spring in Ukraine (Online photo gallery)</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/inspirational_nature_of_Kyiv_oblast.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Inspirational pictures from the forest in&nbsp;Kyiv oblast]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[1, A forest by Vyshorod, Kyiv oblast.2. A forest road.3. A tree trunk.4. A white flower.5. A colony of ants.6. Ants on leaves.7. Tree branches.8. Blue flowers.9. Forest bush.10. Blue flowers.11.&nbsp;A trunk of a dead tree.12. Trunks of dead trees.13. A forest.14. Blue flowers.15. Grass with red leaves.16. A mushroom.17. A tree trunk processed by birds.18. A tree from below.]]></fulltext>
<author>Andriy Ignatov</author>
<category>Sustainable environment</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-22 08:13:00</pubDate>
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<title>President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych define positions on pages of Financial Times</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/President_Yushchenko_and_Prime_Minister_Yanukovych_define_positions.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[President Yushchenko: &quot;There is something more important at stake than the pursuit of political power.&quot; Prime Minister Yanukovich: The crisis is &quot;an ultimate struggle for democracy.&quot;]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[April 4-13, 2007. President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych exchanged arguments on the pages of the British newspaper Financial Times. Each of the high discussants provided arguments for their stances on the issue of recent dissolution of the Ukrainian Parliament and the new elections.Issues and ideas such as Ukrainian democracy, rule of law, and fairness, have been addressed by both leaders.Below are the summaries and links to both publications. Unfortunately, the FT material is strictly copyrighted, so we are unable to post larger citations for discussion but rather we provided links to the original FT sites. A discussion of the articles is highly appreciated.Ukraine&#39;s crisis needs a firm responseBy Viktor Yushchenko Published: April 4 2007 03:00&quot;... It is quite common in advanced democratic societies for elections to produce results that oblige political opponents to govern in partnership. Germany today is governed by a &quot;grand coalition&quot; of left and right. France has experienced periods of &quot;cohabitation&quot;. The American constitution seems to invite it, with the White House and Congress occupied by different political parties more often than not.In spite of this, these societies remain stable, prosperous and well-governed. In each case the political elites understand that there is something more important at stake than the pursuit of political power.&quot;The full article is located on this Financial Times page.Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007Ukraine&#39;s democracy must rest on therule of lawBy Viktor Yanukovich Published: April 13 2007 03:00 &quot;...As it was at the end of 2004, the world&#39;s attention is again focused on events in Ukraine. Yet the widespread admiration our nation was greeted with during that time is now being substituted by overwhelming concern.President Viktor Yushchenko has attempted to dissolve the parliament under the pretext of preserving demo-cracy in Ukraine. Yet, as international reaction has proved, no one has described the crisis in terms of an ultimate struggle for democracy.&quot;The full article is located on this Financial Times page.]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>Good Governance</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-13 06:00:00</pubDate>
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<title>Activists meet in Kiyv</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Activists_meet_in_Kiyv.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Kyiv activists discussed current challenges to civil society in Ukraine]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[On April 6, 2007, Kyiv activists met in the local&nbsp;Coffee House caf&eacute; in downtown Kyiv. During this crucial time for the country, we became convinced that intensifying civic involvement in current affairs and civic mobilization is more important than ever.As a classical writer put it, &quot;you may not become a poet, but you must be a good citizen!&quot;Semen, an activist, noted that, currently, &quot;we should not make people members of parties, but rather we should help others to become a more effective citizens.&quot;Rodion expressed his wish for Activist.org.ua to provide information about &quot;self-organization of society on the territory of Ukraine in different times.&quot; For example, during the 18th century, small &quot;fraternity&quot; communities sprang in Kyiv, which were a prototype for modern-day civic organizations.&quot;In contrast to 2004, currently, really active people became even more civically active, while temporarily active people got disillusioned...&raquo; noted the participants. Yet, just as Theodore Roosevelt wrote in August 1894 in Atlantic, &quot;Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action.&quot;Pictures from the meeting]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>Personal Development</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-09 09:50:00</pubDate>
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<title>Living in Ukraine is Not a Requirement for Understanding Her</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/Living_in_Ukraine_is_Not_a_Requirement_for_Understanding_Her.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Repeatedly, the only manner in which those who disagree with my views respond by saying that I do not know Ukraine because I do not live there. ]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[This feeble attempt at engaging in debate is not only the preserve of Ukrainian citizens but also of diaspora Ukrainians who have lived in Ukraine and, as we would say in America, have &ldquo;gone native&rdquo;. The reality is very different. If it was indeed the case that one had to live in a country to understand it then the world would be faced by major difficulties. Ambassadors based abroad for 3-4 years would no longer presumably understand the country they were representing. Former US Ambassadors to Ukraine now based at Washington think tanks would no longer, if this argument was true, be able to provide good analysis on Ukraine. Meanwhile, government departments devoted to providing research and analysis for government foreign policy and their Ambassadors abroad would be also not useful as they would not be based in the country they were analyzing. And what of the countless departments in think tanks and Universities which have researchers who work on regions of the world (such as my own Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies)? Do the numerous centers devoted to the study of Eastern Europe and the former USSR really know nothing? Does the Association for the Study of Nationalities, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the Canadian Slavic Association and the British Slavic and East European Studies (BASEES) bring together people who are not really &ldquo;specialists&rdquo;. Indeed, why am I bothering to attend the BASEES conference in Cambridge later this month? Indeed, if the argument holds true why is there a Ukrainian radio in the BBC in London, Radio Liberty in Prague and Voice of America in Washington?Of course, arguments voiced from Ukraine that you only understand Ukraine if you live there are preposterous. The claim reflects an inferiority complex and a lack of countervailing arguments that they can bring forward to debates.They also show a lack of understanding of the globalised world we live in. Globalization means a psychologically smaller world and one in which information is available 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world. I will never forget a Museum of Emigration in Adelaide in beautiful South Australia (home to the Barossa valley where the best Australian wines are made). The museum painted a difficult life for Britons emigrating to Australia until the 1960s as it was so far from home. I felt a lot of sympathy for those emigrants that included Ukrainians and Italians who emigrated to Australia after World War II.Today, this is no longer the case. Cheap international telephone calls, mobile telephones, air travel, the internet and satellite television make it no longer feel that you are so cut off and isolated. We moved to Canada in 2001 and although, like all emigrants, you miss home (London and Europe) it is easier to live here because of the internet (where we read the British media), we can watch BBC Canada and BBC America, follow international news on BBC World television, listen to British radio on the internet and travel regularly to Britain and Europe.The same is true of Ukraine as one no longer has to live in Ukraine to experience and understand the country. In North America we have Ukrainian television on paid cable channels. In Toronto we have 2 free local Ukrainian channels, Kontakt and Svitohliad. We can read the Ukrainian media on the internet and in case we missed anything there are free internet web mailings of Western and Ukrainian articles. In Toronto there are at least 5 Ukrainian newspapers. In Washington DC, where I have worked for 3 years, there is a constant flow of guests from Ukraine, either for short visits or on longer fellowships. Plus, we have a large fourth wave diaspora, including Myroslava Gongadze and Mykola Melnychenko. I will be speaking for the second time to the Orange Wave in Chicago in late March, a group that was established by fourth wave Ukrainians. Personal contact with Ukraine, through visitors and visiting Ukraine, is also therefore available to keep one in touch.My father&rsquo;s house in Yorkshire, England is not untypical. He has 6 Ukrainian television channels that he watches on a daily basis. My father-in-law does the same in Nottingham.I remember watching the second television debate of the 2004 presidential elections in Yorkshire before flying to Ukraine to be an observer for the repeat second round on 26 December. It was surreal to watch the debate in my English home town with my father commenting on Viktor Yanukovych&rsquo;s un-intelligible utterances.But, my ability to follow events in Ukraine does not end there. My father is a Ukrainian citizen since 1998 and voted for the first time in an election in 1999 (it turned his stomach to travel from Yorkshire to London to vote in the second round in the Ukrainian Embassy for Leonid Kuchma). Britain is unique in the Ukrainian diaspora in that a large group of Ukrainian political refugees never took up citizenship.My father arrived in Britain in 1948 from Germany where he had been taken at the age of 15 in 1942 to be a slave labourer. Like fellow Ukrainians in Britain he had legal residency and went abroad on refugee travel documents. In 1997 the Ukrainian law on citizenship changed dropping the requirement for five years residency. One had only to prove being born in Ukraine and had not already become a citizen of another country (as Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship). My father fulfilled these requirements.Let us therefore remember that today we are all residents of a globalised world.The opinion originally appeared on Dr Taras Kuzio&#39;s blog on March 12, 2007.]]></fulltext>
<author>Dr. Taras Kuzio</author>
<category>Personal Development</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-08 09:01:00</pubDate>
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<title>Webcams of Kyiv</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/webcams_of_kyiv_and_maidan.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[There are several webcams that allow to watch Kyiv anytime]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[1. http://1plus1.tv/video/camera.php 2. http://webcam.inter.ua/ 3. http://www.vox.com.ua/webcam/ ]]></fulltext>
<author></author>
<category>Arts</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-07 09:26:00</pubDate>
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<title>Address to the Nation On New Parliamentary Elections</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/yuschenko_dissolves_rada.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Viktor Yushchenko has dissolved parliament and called&nbsp;new elections.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[Dear fellow citizens, I have signed a decree to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada of the fifth convocation today. I made this decision in accordance with Ukraine&rsquo;s constitution and my obligations as President of Ukraine. My actions are&nbsp;dictated by the crucial necessity&nbsp;to save&nbsp;the country, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and ensure the adherence to the constitution and the observance of civil rights and freedoms. I would like to say again that&nbsp;this is not only my right but also&nbsp;my obligation. The Verkhovna Rada is deliberately escalating the political crisis, which poses a threat to our country and nation. There are three dangerous tendencies in it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The first one is the unconstitutional process to form and expand the parliamentary coalition. Under the constitution, the coalition can be formed by deputy factions and not by individual or group members. Any other way is a revision of the will of the nation and the most cynical challenge for each of us. The second tendency is the practice to pass illegitimate and unconstitutional laws. The most recent example is the Law on the Cabinet of Ministers, which systemically violates the constitution of Ukraine and is an attack on Ukraine&rsquo;s constitutional order. The third tendency is their inability to fulfill obligations and fraudulent policy of intrigues and betrayals disguised as national unity slogans.&nbsp;The third tendency is their inability to fulfill obligations and fraudulent policy of intrigues and betrayals disguised as national unity slogans.In the past year, the Verkhovna Rada has not demonstrated what the nation expected from it.&nbsp;&nbsp;The parliamentary coalition does not even conceal its major goal to usurp power and preserve&nbsp;its rule. Society is tired of seeing this power struggle and how&nbsp;its daily needs are&nbsp;ignored. &nbsp;I was calling on parliamentary forces to start constructive dialogue for months. My proposals were ignored even today. Violations of the Constitution of Ukraine, among them unconstitutional&nbsp;coalition formation, created obvious legal and political reasons to dissolve parliament. A new election is the best way out. It became inevitable. Regular and early elections are a legitimate democratic instrument belonging to the people of Ukraine to control their government. There will be no shocks and confrontations. The situation in the country is under control and will be stable. The presidential decree&nbsp;to disband parliament is obligatory. &nbsp;Official translation is provided by the president&#39;s web-site]]></fulltext>
<author>President Yushchenko</author>
<category>A Just Society</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-03 02:54:00</pubDate>
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<title>President Yuschenko dissolved Verhovna Rada and called new election poll</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/10.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[The Parliament (Verhovna Rada) did not submit to the Presidential decree. The Cabinet of Ministers did not take the Decree as a legal document.]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[On April 2, 2007, 9.10 p.m., President Yuschenko announced that he issued a decree about dissolving the current Verhovna Rada and announced new elections, which are to take place on May 27, 2007.The Presidential decree was hailed by all branches of the opposition.On the night of April 2, 2007, from 9.00 to 11.00 p.m., Verhovna Rada gathered to an extracurricular meeting and issued a statement, in which they called the Presidential decree as such &quot;issued in conflict with the constitution.&quot;The Cabinet of Ministers, led by Viktor Yanukovych, met on April 3, 2007, at 00.00 a.m.In their statement, the Cabinet of Ministers called the Presidential decree &quot;unconstitutional&quot;, as well as &quot;forbid&quot; to allocate funds to new parliamentary elections. The Presidential decree will come in force after its being published in print on April 3, 2007.The current legislature will loose legislative powers after the publishing of the Presidential decree on April 3, 2007.]]></fulltext>
<author>A. Ignatov</author>
<category>A Just Society</category>
<pubDate>2007-04-02 17:58:00</pubDate>
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<title>A guide to who’s who in D.C.’s Ukraine-related activities (2005)</title>
<link>http://activist.org.ua/news/eng/dr_taras_kuzio_dejczakiwsky_diaspora_report.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[The United States has long been the most engaged Western country in Ukraine; this level of involvement has only increased since Viktor Yushchenko was elected president. Yet, little information is made public about activities pertaining to Ukraine in Washington. Little is reported in most Ukrainian American, American or Ukrainian media on these regular, if not daily, developments. ]]></description>
<fulltext><![CDATA[This article has three purposes. First, it attempts to direct a spotlight onto the high level of activity in Washington, and the U.S. more generally, regarding Ukraine. This article focuses on myriad non-governmental actors who interact with the U.S. government on Ukrainian issues, as well as provides a &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s Who&rdquo; of U.S. government officials who work on Ukraine. Second, we feel that the issues it raises &ndash; particularly the changing nature of Ukrainian affairs in Washington &ndash; requires more open discussion, especially as it relates to the Ukrainian American community. The environment in Washington has evolved in the last five to 10 years. Yet, this changing environment has largely bypassed the Ukrainian American community.Third, the election of Mr. Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution have radically altered Western images of Ukraine for the better. Ukraine-U.S. relations have now returned to the strategic partnership they were in the second half of the 1990s under President Bill Clinton.The United States will be the key Western country supporting President Yushchenko&rsquo;s reform drive and desire for Ukraine&rsquo;s Euro-Atlantic integration. To give one example of how rapidly the situation is changing, next year Ukraine will obtain a Membership Action Plan (MAP) that will provide the roadmap for Ukraine&rsquo;s membership in NATO later in the decade.Therefore, the time has arrived for Ukrainian Americans and their organizations to reassess how they can assist and become involved in these processes and take advantage of the new, more positive image of Ukraine.Washington during the Yushchenko presidency is very different from what it was under Leonid Kravchuk in the early 1990s, when Ukraine became an independent state. Two important changes have taken place. First, today, it is well-placed individuals in government or think-tanks, far more than Ukrainian American organizations, that have the greatest influence. Second, many non-Ukrainian individuals or organizations are today more active and influential than many Ukrainian American organizations.Declining community organizationsThe Orange Revolution witnessed a burst of activity within the Ukrainian American community &ndash; one not seen since independence. Ukrainian Americans acted as election observers, especially during the third round of the presidential election, provided financial resources and held demonstrations in numerous cities, including Washington. This burst of activity must be seen against the backdrop of a decline in community political activity and presence over the last decade or so. It remains to be seen whether it can be translated into a sustained, active and professional presence in Washington with sufficient personnel and resources. If one were to look at the landscape of interest in Ukraine in Washington prior to Ukraine&rsquo;s independence, one would have seen a relatively small, albeit active, universe. This universe consisted largely of the Ukrainian American community and its friends in the U.S. Congress and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), with whom various community organizations and individuals worked closely. Because Ukraine was not a separate state entity, the attention given to Ukraine by the State Department and other executive branch agencies was limited.Prior to Ukrainian independence, the U.S. Congress would pass resolutions pertaining to human rights matters in Ukraine, including on behalf of imprisoned Ukrainian political prisoners and Helsinki monitors, or regarding the Millennium of Christianity in Rus&rsquo;-Ukraine, which called for the legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox Churches. These issues were raised by U.S. delegations to various international meetings, much to the displeasure of the Soviets. There were also annual Captive Nations Week events, several large rallies &ndash; in 1983 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Famine-Genocide, in 1984 protesting the Russification of Ukraine, and in 1988 marking the Millennium of Christianity. The Ukrainian American community successfully lobbied many of these human rights-related resolutions, was instrumental in the creation of the important U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine and vocally protested the return of Ukrainian seaman Myroslav Medvid to the Soviets. With the active involvement of the Ukrainian American community, hearings were held before the Helsinki Commission on the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group, including with former dissidents who had made it to the U.S., as well as on the Chornobyl nuclear accident. The Ukrainian American community also supported efforts to establish a U.S. Consulate in Kyiv. Shortly before independence, a resolution introduced by Helsinki Commissioners Don Ritter in the House of Representatives and Dennis DeConcini in the Senate called for the administration to recognize Ukraine&rsquo;s independence. It was passed over the objections of the State Department.Few U.S. government entities published reports on developments in Ukraine, with the exception of the Helsinki Commission, which published documents of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and, later, reports on elections held in Ukraine in 1990 and 1991, which also discussed the political context of these elections, thereby helping to inform the State Department and other executive branch agencies, think-tanks and NGOs about what was going on in Ukraine. As Ukraine was a submerged republic of the Soviet Union, there was relatively little interest in political developments in Ukraine, which in large part involved pressing the Soviets to cease their repression of human rights. The media showed little interest, and it was a big deal when major newspaper articles appeared on developments in Ukraine. And Ukraine was largely terra incognita to think-tanks and non-governmental organizations, other than, of course, Ukrainian American community organizations, including the Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS) and the Washington Office of the Ukrainian National Association, as well as Smoloskyp, Prolog, Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine (AHRU) and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians, among others.The renewal of an independent Ukrainian state set up a different dynamic with respect to all this, with not only the U.S. government setting up or expanding institutions to deal with this new entity, but also foreign relations-oriented NGOs and think-tanks taking a newfound interest. This was largely unnoticed by many Ukrainian Americans. Indeed, the election of President Yushchenko suggests that this is an opportune time to re-assess why the situation has dramatically changed since the 1980s and early 1990s.The influence of Ukrainian American organizations in Washington has been on the decline for a number of years; but, the actual start of this decline is difficult to pinpoint. The Ukrainian National Association (UNA) closed its Washington Office in 1995, a move that significantly weakened the ability of Ukrainian Americans to get their message across to policy-makers. Indeed, the Ukrainian American community has never completely understood nor devoted the necessary resources for a significant, professional presence in Washington, and many efforts pertaining to Ukraine, even before independence, were done on an ad-hoc, volunteer basis by devoted and committed individuals. The Ukrainian Congress Committee America (UCCA) still has an office in Washington &ndash; UNIS. Since 2000, UCCA has held annual conferences &ndash; together with other Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian U.S. NGOs &ndash; on Ukraine which have brought leading Ukrainian officials to Washington. UCCA has recently initiated the U.S.-Ukrainian Security Dialogue as a joint project with the American Foreign Policy Council and the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. The UCCA has also initiated several congressional resolutions, notably one calling for the building of a Famine monument in Washington, and interacts with some members of Congress, particularly members of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.Surprisingly though, UCCA personnel and those of other Ukrainian American community organizations are infrequently invited to internal U.S. government events that deal with Ukraine. UCCA personnel also do not usually attend think-tank events on Ukraine, which are also typically by invitation only. Why this is the case has to do with how the U.S. government relates to Ukrainian American organizations, a subject that is beyond the scope of this article but nevertheless is worthy of further discussion.The Action Ukraine Coalition, consisting of the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council (UACC), the Ukrainian Federation of America and the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, has put on a few policy forums over the last few years with both U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The UACC was instrumental in supporting former Helsinki Commission Chairman Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell&rsquo;s resolution on the genocidal Famine in Ukraine, which garnered an impressive one-third of the Senate &ndash; both Democrats and Republicans &ndash; as co-sponsors. This action, which took place in 2003, was reminiscent of the frequent grass-roots efforts by the Ukrainian community in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, when organizations and individuals would bombard their representatives and senators with letters or phone calls on issues of concern. The Washington Group, from its establishment in 1984 until just a few years ago, provided numerous venues for the discussion of Ukrainian political developments. However, in the last three to four years it has focused on cultural and social events. Other once-active Ukrainian American organizations have simply become inactive or have ceased to exist.An exception to the general decline is the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF), which &ndash; while not strictly a community membership-based organization &ndash; has its roots in and receives support from the Ukrainian American community, as well as far more significant support from the U.S. government for its various programs in Ukraine. The USUF continues to be highly active and visible in Washington. Its personnel are regularly seen at think-tank and some closed U.S. government events, and have meaningful contacts with both the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government.The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation this year launched a highly successful policy dialogue with Ukrainian and Western experts in four fields: politics/governance, economics, media and foreign policy. Recently, report language was added to both the House and Senate appropriations legislation which cover assistance to Ukraine that indicates strong support for the USUF, with the Senate stating its expectation that U.S. funding toward various USUF projects will exceed that of previous years. The Senate also urges the State Department to consider a proposal from the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.Throughout much of the 1990s and less frequently since, the State Department and National Security Council would periodically meet with invited representatives of Ukrainian American organizations as well as individuals from the Ukrainian American community who also worked professionally on issues related to Ukraine. Such venues provided for an informal exchange of ideas and an opportunity for Ukrainian Americans to weigh in on policy toward Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ukrainian American community organizations have provided relatively little in the way of input into U.S. policy formulation regarding Ukraine. And, much of the legislation devoted to Ukraine that has been passed by Congress in the last few years was approved without much input or active support from Ukrainian American community organizations. Maybe Ukrainian American organizations need to learn from the activities undertaken by Armenian and Jewish lobbyists in Washington.A final comment should be made about an important aspect of how the U.S. government and policy-makers perceive Ukrainian Americans. During the Kuchma era an important group of influential Ukrainian Americans from a wide range of &eacute;migr&eacute; political orientations were &ldquo;derzhavnyky&rdquo; (statists, literally meaning supporters of Ukrainian statehood regardless of its domestic politics), which led them to defend some of the dubious policies and practices of the Kuchma regime. Not surprisingly, these apologists turned the U.S. government and policy-makers away from dealing with some Ukrainian American organizations.The most visible example was the president of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), who was regularly an apologist for the Kuchma regime and a staunch critic of American policies and legislative initiatives. These included congressional resolutions in 2002 and 2004 that called for free and fair elections in Ukraine, which were overwhelmingly passed by both the House and the Senate. This is a good example of one wing of the organized Ukrainian community undermining the other. The UCCA&rsquo;s work with the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus and organization of election observers in Ukraine was undermined by the UWC president&rsquo;s hostility to congressional election resolutions and U.S. policy to Ukraine. But, there were other derzhavnyky from the academic, judicial and military fields. Some, inspired by Ukrainian officials, launched spurious attacks on individuals in Washington and elsewhere who were critical of the corrupt and undemocratic practices of the Kuchma regime. An academic institution refused to host panels on Kuchmagate and the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. Ukrainian sociologists from the Academy of Sciences were castigated by Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian professors at an annual Ukrainian American academic conference in the U.S. for being too critical of domestic developments inside Ukraine (the episode was recounted in the April 2004 issue of Suchasnist magazine). These derzhavnyky were so cross-party that among them was an ex-Canadian-Ukrainian Trotskyist working in Ukraine since the early 1990s.Today, of course, they have &ndash; not surprisingly &ndash; all re-painted themselves Orange. Ukraine&rsquo;s diplomatsAlthough some Ukrainian Embassy officials did attend events on Ukraine at think-tanks and were brave in lobbying Ukrainian diplomats to support free and fair elections after the second round of the presidential election and during the Orange Revolution, other Embassy actions were disappointing. The Embassy&rsquo;s reputation was harmed during the 2004 election when it officially complained to George Washington University about visiting Prof. Kuzio&rsquo;s writings in The Ukrainian Weekly on the 2004 election. The university replied that the Embassy should write to The Ukrainian Weekly to voice its opposing opinions. With the anticipated posting of the new ambassador, the Embassy of Ukraine could improve its performance in this field. Embassies of countries that are now members of NATO and the European Union played an active role in lobbying for their countries&rsquo; Euro-Atlantic integration in Washington. The Ukrainian Embassy should follow suit. Disinterested academia The decline in the influence of Ukrainian American organizations in Washington is compounded by an academic world that has not adjusted to the emergence of independent Ukraine. &ldquo;Ukrainian studies&rdquo; continues to be understood as, primarily, culture, history and diaspora studies &ndash; not political science and the study of contemporary Ukraine. Annual prizes given by the American Association for Ukrainian Studies never go to political science books or articles.Disillusionment with the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), in part, has led to some Ukrainian Americans shifting their hopes to Columbia University. During and after Ukraine&rsquo;s 2004 election, Columbia hosted panels dealing with this historic event. Columbia hosts the annual convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, which holds the largest number of panels on contemporary Ukraine of any North American conference.It is still too early to say if Columbia&rsquo;s Ukrainian studies &ndash; unlike HURI&rsquo;s &ndash; will include contemporary Ukraine as an important and equal area of research and teaching. We can only hope Columbia does not follow HURI in not giving sufficient attention to contemporary Ukraine.Active individualsResearch, publication and teaching on contemporary Ukraine is being undertaken primarily by individuals outside of HURI or Columbia, the two locations where Ukrainian Americans have invested resources. Leading academics working on contemporary Ukraine include Lucan Way (Temple University), Alexander Motyl (Rutgers), Paul D&rsquo;Anieri and Erik Herron (Kansas), Stephen Shulman (South Illinois), Robert Krawchuk and Charles Wise (Indiana) and Taras Kuzio (George Washington). The centrality of the U.S. to contemporary Ukrainian studies can also be seen in two other ways. First, in the large number of books published by U.S.-based academics since 1992. Second, in the number of special issues of U.S.-published journals that have devoted special issues to contemporary Ukraine. In 2005 alone, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Problems of Post-Communism and Demokratizatsiya will publish special issues.Dr. Kuzio&rsquo;s courses on contemporary Ukraine attract large numbers of students, most of whom are not of Ukrainian American background. During the fall 2005 semester these will include 30 undergraduates signed up for &ldquo;Transition and Democratization in Ukraine&rdquo; and 18 graduate students signed up for &ldquo;NATO, EU Enlargement: Ukraine, Russia.&rdquo; These class sizes show the missed opportunities that established structures, such as HURI, have lost out on by not including courses on contemporary Ukraine.The growing importance and influence of individuals can be seen in many other areas in Washington. Some of the people in Washington working on a daily basis on contemporary Ukraine in, or with, U.S. government institutions and affiliated structures include: Gene Fishel, David Kramer, Karen Stewart, Marcus Micelli, Dan Rosenblum, George Frowick, Paul Carter (State Department); Damon Wilson (National Security Council); Jessica Kehl; Gen. (ret.) Nicholas Krawciw (Department of Defense); Christine Lucyk, Andrew Bihun (Commerce Department); Orest Deychakiwsky, Ron McNamara (Helsinki Commission); Nadia Diuk, John Squier (National Endowment for Democracy); and Bill Gleason (Foreign Service Institute).There are many individuals in the U.S. government, including a number of Ukrainian Americans, who work on Ukraine at the State, Defense, Commerce, Energy, Treasury and Justice departments and other agencies, such as the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), as well as entities that deal with trade and economic relations with Ukraine. Former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, particularly Steven Pifer and William Green Miller, have also maintained an active interest and involvement in Ukraine. Both are members of the USUF policy dialogue group.Key individuals working on Ukraine in the policy-making domain in Washington include: Stephen Larrabee, Jennifer Moroney, Keith Crane, Olga Oliker (Rand Corporation); Anders Aslund (Carnegie Endowment); Blair Ruble (Kennan Institute); Michael McFaul (Stanford University &ndash; Washington); Zbigniew Brzezinski, Celleste Wallander, Richard Murphy, Ambassador Keith Smith and Janusz Bugajski (Center for Strategic and International Studies); Bruce Jackson (Project on Democracy); Radek Sikorski (American Enterprise Institute); Ariel Cohen (Heritage Foundation); Jaroslaw Martyniuk (Intermedia); and Morgan Williams (Ukraine-United States Business Council and Sigma Bleyzer). [Mr. Williams also publishes the daily Action Ukraine Report distributed via e-mail.] U.S. institutionsNo other Western country approaches the level of U.S. government outreach to academic and think-tank specialists. The U.S. government and think-tanks &ndash; not Ukrainian American organizations &ndash; led the way in the last few years in organizing seminars, panels and roundtables on Ukraine. The speakers for these U.S. government and think-tank events are drawn from the academic or think-tank world. Leading the way in giving presentations from the academic community have been Profs. Motyl and D&rsquo;Anieri, and visiting Prof. Kuzio.These by-invitation-only U.S. government seminars on Ukraine&rsquo;s upcoming election took place in September and December 2003, March and July 2004 and June 2005. The U.S. government has also sponsored more in-depth daylong discussions on Ukraine at Booz-Allen consultants dealing with generation change in Ukraine. The U.S. government also draws in academic and think-tank experts to assist in the formulation of strategy and forecast documents on Ukraine. These are drawn up irregularly for strategically important countries. The U.S. government has also sponsored roundtables comparing Ukraine&rsquo;s Orange Revolution to revolutions in Serbia and Georgia. Other briefings have investigated how Ukraine is progressing since President Yushchenko&rsquo;s election. Prior to President George W. Bush&rsquo;s visit to Europe in February, the National Intelligence Council was briefed on Ukraine by Profs. D&rsquo;Anieri, Motyl and Kuzio.Within the last few years, the U.S. Congress&rsquo;s Helsinki Commission has held hearings and briefings on Ukraine, sponsored panels on the 2002 and 2004 elections, sponsored congressional resolutions, and issued numerous Congressional Record statements. The House International Relations Committee (HIRC) held a hearing on the Ukrainian elections in 2004 as well. The committee also held a hearing on Ukraine in July where Stephen Nix (International Republican Institute), Ambassador Nelson Ledsky and Visiting Prof. Kuzio testified. As mentioned earlier, what differentiates Washington from the 1980s and 1990s is that think-tanks now take an active interest in contemporary Ukraine. The greatest number of panels have been organized by the Carnegie Endowment, reflecting a high degree of interest in Ukraine by Dr. Aslund, who heads its Russia and Eurasia Program. Dr. Aslund is also the co-author of the Blue Ribbon Commission Report on Ukraine produced in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Dr. Aslund and Prof. McFaul have edited a book on the Orange Revolution that is to be published by Carnegie at the end of 2005.The Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) has also been active on Ukraine. The CSIS has had long-established working groups on Ukraine, including those focusing on the 2002 and 2004 elections. In the 1990s the CSIS organized the American Ukrainian Advisory Committee that included prominent Americans and Ukrainians and held periodic meetings in Washington and Kyiv. The United States is also the most active Western country in the field of supporting democracy in Ukraine. The National Endowment for Democracy was created in the era of Ronald Reagan, and its Eurasia department is headed by Dr. Nadia Diuk. The International Republican Institute (IRI), whose Eurasia department is headed by Mr. Nix, and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), whose Eurasia department is headed by Ambassador Ledsky, are very active in Ukraine and in Washington. In March-April, IRI hosted a talk by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and IRI-NDI hosted a reception for President Yushchenko, both in Washington. Freedom House, whose most prominent Ukrainian specialist is Adrian Karatnycky, has also played a vital role in supporting democracy in Ukraine since the 1990s. Since 1997 Freedom House has published the excellent annual report &ldquo;Nations in Transit,&rdquo; which covers Ukraine and 26 other post-Communist states. These prominent and respected NGOs interact extensively with U.S. policy-makers in both the executive and legislative branches.Numerous and various American NGOs that deal with health care, energy, agriculture, civil society, media, charitable, social and, of course, business issues also maintain contacts and interact with U.S. policymakers on Ukraine. Organizations that have USAID contracts in Ukraine have people helping to manage their programs in Washington. Also, many people such as former Peace Corps volunteers and Americans who have lived in Ukraine, including members of religious organizations, have become actors on the Ukraine Washington scene. Jewish American organizations have also taken an active interest in U.S.-Ukrainian relations. The Ukraine-United States Business Council was first organized in 1995 when a small group of companies started meeting to form an organization. The group hired Kempton Jenkins as the executive director/CEO (his title was later changed to president). Mr. Jenkins ran the Ukraine-United States Business Council until December 2004. The council, which at its peak had 35 members, did not have an active board of directors; there were few breakfast meetings, even fewer newsletters, and very little activity. During the Kuchma era the Ukraine-United States Business Council was tied to PR firms that had contracts with the Kuchma administration. Since President Yushchenko&rsquo;s election the situation has changed. In February a group of 20 key businessmen came together to revive the Ukraine-United States Business Council. The Ukraine-United States Business Council has a new president/CEO, Susanne Lotarski, a board of directors and an executive committee, which had its first meeting in July. Media resourcesThe U.S. is also a leader in the provision of media resources. The U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA) continue and have even expanded their broadcasting to Ukraine. VOA Television, which is presented by Myroslava Gongadze, Zoreslav Baydyuk, Nataliya Leonova, Andriy Hodovanec and others, has different programs that are transmitted live on Ukraine&rsquo;s Channel 5 and State Channel 1. The Internet has provided organizations with the ability to produce publications dealing with Ukraine. RFE/RL publishes 16 Internet-based publications that are free of charge. Two of these cover Ukraine systematically &ndash; the daily Newsline and the weekly Belarus, Ukraine and Molodova Report, while others, such as Media Matters, (Un)Civil Societies and especially Organized Crime and Terrorism Watch (edited by Roman Kupchinsky), provide occasional analytical pieces on Ukraine. RFE/RL in Washington also periodically holds briefings on Ukrainian issues by visiting Ukrainian or U.S. specialists. As is common in the United States, the private sector often outdoes the government. The Jamestown Foundation, which is funded by some of the numerous private foundations found in the U.S., began publication of the Eurasia Daily Monitor in 2004. During the 2004 election it had greater analytical coverage of Ukraine than did RFE/RL. Three out of the five Eurasia Daily Monitors released each week publish articles on contemporary Ukraine.Articles on contemporary Ukraine published in RFE/RL publications or in Eurasia Daily Monitor provide a sizable proportion of the coverage on contemporary Ukraine that appears in The Ukrainian Weekly and Canadian newspapers, such as Edmonton&rsquo;s Ukrainian News. These articles are also widely disseminated over Internet forums hosted by Brama and InfoUkes, as well as by t