The first victim of post-EuroMaidan lustration may be the Communist Party of Ukraine.
On May 19, Ukraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchynov accused the Communist Party of supporting the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine that has brought the country to and from the brink of civil war since April 6, calling on the Justice Ministry to ban the party from the political sphere.
In a statement posted on the president’s official website, Turchynov called on the Justice Ministry to “examine the issue of the involvement of the Communist Party of Ukraine” and to “act promptly in accordance with the law to ban” the party.
He cited the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) analysis of the Communist Party’s involvement in separatist movements, saying that the party’s leaders and rank and file members’ actions in the east have been “to the detriment of the national interests of Ukraine.”
Turchynov noted party members’ “mass participation in unconstitutional acts,” including carrying “slogans calling for the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country,” seizing state power, and obstructing the “lawful activities of other political parties and civil society organizations.”
The interim president said that the party has provided verbal support, as well as “tactical and logical assistance…to representatives of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and the People’s Republic of Lugansk, and representatives of Russian special forces and paramilitary structures.”
The list of patrons of separatism in eastern Ukraine seems to be growing faster than the list of Russian official sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.
Analysts, journalists, and government officials have accused former President Viktor Yanukovych and members of his regime of financing separatism. In a May 12 interview with Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, self-proclaimed People’s Governor of Donetsk Pavel Gubarev claimed that Donetsk billionaire Rinat Akhmetov is supporting “two-thirds of the activists” in the east, a claim that Akhmetov vehemently denied.
Tetyana Chornovol, the head of the Ukrainian government’s anti-corruption efforts, told the Kyiv Post that many members of Yanukovych’s inner circle are “still having an impact on the situation in Ukraine.”
In all, Turchynov listed nearly a dozen examples of the Communist Party’s support of separatism.
Turchynov said that the party’s members were “among the initiators and active participants in holding the May 11 pseudo-referendum[s]” in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that called for secession from Ukraine, decrying communist leaders for calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene on behalf of separatists in the east.
He accused Petro Symonenko, the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine of personally taking “part in the separatist rallies in the southeastern regions” and of “openly supporting the separatists.”
Last week, Turchynov cut off Symonenko during a speech before the Verkhovna Rada in which he called the Ukrainian government’s anti-terrorist operation to combat separatism in eastern Ukraine “fascist.” Turchynov denounced Symonenko’s appeal to parliament as an “anti-Ukrainian rant.”
In his accusation, Turchynov cited Article 2 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 5 of the “Law On Political Parties” which prohibits political parties and public organizations from undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He argued that the Communist Party has also violated Article 15 of the Law on Political Parties, which criminalizes “the funding of political parties, including companies, institutions and organizations in the property of which a share is owned by non-residents, foreign states and their citizens, enterprises, institutions, or organizations.”
The Communist Party will likely not be the only target of lustration: Yegor Sobolev, the former journalist and EuroMaidan activist who now heads the Ukrainian government’s Lustration Committee, has said Yanukovych and other top officials may be banned from Ukrainian politics for life.
At a March 12 press conference, Sobolev named former head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Klyuyev, former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka, former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakymenko, first deputy head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Portnov and former Justice Minister Olena Lukash as officials who may also face lustration.
Additionally, Sobolev said that 8,500 judges and several hundred thousand police officers will also be investigated and potentially lustrated.
Kyiv Post staff writer Isaac Webb can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @IsaacDWebb
