Drivers trying to cross into Poland at this border post face a choice: Pay a $15 bribe, or wait up to 30 hours in a line they say is created by corrupt border guards.
by corrupt border guards.
Next year this will be a gateway to the European Union, and in its last progress report the European Commission mentioned border security as an important area of concern, urging Poland to do more to tighten controls.
Meanwhile, the estimated 100,000-150,000 Ukrainians working illegally in Poland fear that a visa regime set to begin on July 1 will erect a “new Iron Curtain” cutting them off from their main source of income.
Ukrainians complain of being fleeced on their side of the border and fear the visas could lead to worse treatment at the Polish checkpoint in neighboring Hrebenne.
“There’s one [Polish] shift that’s terrible … they call Ukrainians pigs, or say ‘get out of here, you stink,’” said Sasha, a Ukrainian who crosses the border frequently.
Spokesmen for the Polish and Ukrainian customs services say they are taking action against corruption.
“The problem of corruption exists, it’s known to us, and we’re fighting it,” said Ukrainian customs spokesman Serhy Hunko, citing the recent sackings of officials and tighter cooperation with the Polish customs service.
While figures on the number of Ukrainians in Poland are hard to come by, illegal Ukrainian housekeepers and builders in Warsaw are as unremarkable as their Polish counterparts in Western Europe.
With average monthly pay just $65 in Ukraine and more than $500 in Poland, it is no surprise that many Ukrainians look for work in Poland – and that Poles gladly hire them to do menial jobs.
The combination of visa-free travel, short distances – Warsaw is a five-hour drive from the border – and the similarity of the Polish and Ukrainian languages also makes things easier.
The migrants include many highly educated people, such as teachers who are unable to support themselves on meager salaries in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet education system.
“It happens quite often that the person cleaning the house has read more books than the owner,” said Marek Skorka, a Uniate monk who has contact with several hundred illegal workers through his parish in Warsaw.
Skorka, an ethnic Ukrainian who grew up in Poland, says migration also exacerbates social problems in Ukraine itself.
“My parishioners have told me that there are towns where 40 percent of the women are gone – and sometimes the husbands who stay behind just drink up everything their wives earn.”
And while the Polish media have often written about robberies of Ukrainians at train and bus stations, police say the victims are unwilling to file complaints as the thieves check their identity documents and threaten their families in Ukraine.
“If you’re working here you’re afraid, you can’t feel good if you’re here illegally – but back there there’s no future, because there’s no work,” said Oksana, who has worked in Poland since 1998 as a housekeeper and nanny.
Oksana hopes to save enough money to move back to Ukraine, buy an apartment and start a family, but she’s not optimistic that will happen soon. “Of course there’s always hope, but as long as our president [Leonid Kuchma] is in power, I don’t see any chance for a change,” she said.
While Poland will not immediately enter the EU’s Schengen passport-free travel area, the union has required it to introduce visas for Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in preparation for membership.
Boguslaw Dubinski, in charge of the visa program for Ukraine, Russia and Belarus at the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw, says Poland will spend about $15 million setting up the system in 2003 and 2004.
“We as Poles have our share of experience with walls. And we don’t want to build a wall to keep out people that are historically and culturally close to us,” he said.
While visa regimes have yet to be agreed upon with Russia and Belarus, and Russia and Lithuania continue to bicker over travel to and from Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, Poland’s relations with Ukraine look better.
Poland has announced that visas will be free of charge for Ukrainian citizens, and for the first time Ukraine has chosen not to impose a retaliatory visa requirement for Poles.
Poland and Ukraine share a long but often tortured history, including bloody battles between ethnic Polish and Ukrainian resistance groups during and after World War II.
Already in NATO and heading for EU membership, Poland has said repeatedly that it wants to help Ukraine in its stalled transition from Soviet rule, though as a former imperial master, it must tread carefully to avoid charges of paternalism.
