If one were to ask Western heads of state about the upcoming referendum, they would grin thinly, wink, and whisper to you on background that they would prefer not to offend Ukraine.
They might even refer you to their hard-working envoys in Kyiv, who are constantly quizzed and quoted by Ukrainian media, which endlessly report on the prospects for Euro-Atlantic integration. Some media, perhaps inadvertently, have even led us to believe that Ukraine's relationship with Europe and the United States is as important to the West as it is to Ukraine.
The relationship is important, but less so than diplomats would have us believe.
Like President Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine, European heads of state preside over vast bureaucracies in their countries representing state interests. But presidents and their envoys come and go, policies change, and programs are discontinued.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the U.S. Congress, on the other hand, represent public opinion, which is eternal. Although subject to manipulation by government officials and lobbyists, public opinion is – at least in Europe and the United States – taken into account when governments make decisions.
No one believes that PACE deputies in Strasbourg will censor or expel Ukraine any time soon. Even if they did, Ukrainian democrats would likely convince Ukrainian patriots that the cost of ignoring Western public opinion would outweigh any benefits derived from preserving Ukraine's present state of national integrity.
Conversely, the West's failure to address adequately Ukraine's parliamentary shenanigans and the kooky referendum scheduled for April 16 will only add fuel to the debate on whether Euro-Atlantic institutions have mistakenly based Ukraine's integration with Europe on geopolitical concerns rather than adherence to democratic norms of civilized behavior.
Of course, questions of integration should first be debated and decided by Ukrainians themselves.
But according to observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Helsinki Federation, Committee to Protect Journalists, European Media Institute, Freedom House, and, yes, even the Belarusian Association of Journalists, coherent discussion about political issues is not yet possible in Ukraine.
Citing incontrovertible evidence that a) public opinion is greatly influenced by media and b) media are monopolized in support of one point of view, foreign rapporteurs say the facility of Ukraine's electorate to make informed decisions is 'impaired.'
This state of affairs 'concerns' Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic partners, who appear increasingly testy when they attempt to justify the billions of dollars lent and donated to Ukrainian reformers over the years.
One sad fact is that while few Ukrainians doubt the West's sincere resolve to help out in a pinch, fewer still believe that assistance has been effective. For its part, the United States, arguably Ukraine's most influential benefactor after Russia, says it intends to stay the course no matter what critics say.
Visiting public servants, such as John Tedstrom, director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, say unpublished articles by Western press are complicating Euro-Atlantic integration, and were one reason why Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko cancelled his visit to Washington earlier this month.
'You know better than I do how the dynamics of mass media work in these political contexts,' he informed readers of Ukraine's most popular tabloid, Fakty, in an interview published on March 29.
Two days later, in a letter published by Kievskie Vedomosti, U.S. Secretary of State Madelaine Albright took a swipe at 'some people,' who she said have floated the notion that U.S. support for reforms might be on the wane.
'Some people in the Ukraine and in the U.S. have hinted that the rescheduling of Prime Minister Yushchenko's visit to the U.S. was caused by a lessening of our support for the reform efforts undertaken by President [Leonid] Kuchma and Prime Minister Yushchenko,' she wrote. Who are the people writing unpublished articles?
Was Tedstrom referring to the lobbyists and Russian imperialists fingered recently by Ukrainian experts and board members of some U.S.-financed non-governmental organizations?
Did Albright have in mind anthropologists, who tell congressmen that privatization programs and economic reforms paid for by U.S. taxpayers have been more about wealth confiscation than wealth creation?
Perhaps both were thinking of Arnold Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, who last week called on the U.S. Congress to take the measure of 10 years' assistance to the region, which he characterized as one of the 'most witless, most unpoliced and most mismanaged international aid programs in modern history.'
Peter Byrne is a staff writer for the Post.
