Ukrainians received a reminder of this last week when
activists from the Azov and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Kyiv sought to demolish a nine meter monument to
officers of the Soviet Union’s Cheka secret police. Uproar subsequently ensued
when a prominent Ukrainian journalist compared the attempted destruction of Chekist monument to ISIS’ demolishment of
numerous artifacts in the historical Syrian town of Palmyra. Lost in the noise
though is the fact that this incident actually raises three critical points.
First, what
does this statue represent and how should it be categorized? While art (like
beauty) may be indeed in the eye of the beholder, comparing a memorial to
Chekists with the beautiful artifacts of Palmyra represents – as one
commentator noted – a fallacious argument and poor analogy. The Cheka instigated mass
terror resulting in the deaths of tens and millions people, including several
million Ukrainians during the horrors of the Holodomor. While the memorial may
belong in a museum dedicated to Soviet history and the victims of Communism, making
an analogy to Palmyra’s artifacts is a bridge too far.
Nevertheless,
the incident raises critical rule of law issues as well. On the one hand, under Ukraine’s
decommunization law – Law 2558 banning propaganda of “Communist and
National Socialist Regimes” – the statue’s demolishment was supposed to occur by February 21. While
the law is controversial – especially among many in Ukraine’s south and east – it was
signed by the President and legally therefore the Chekist monument should be
gone.
By the same
token, it’s far from clear that activists’ actions were authorized by local
authorities. Given the spontaneous nature of the event it’s unlikely. This is
not the first time right wing battalions’ acted outside the law to enforce
their views. In December, Azov illegally bypassed Mariupol’s city council when its
soldiers unilaterally erected a monument on the town square to a tenth century
Ukrainian prince and subsequently conducted a torchlight parade through town.
Last year, armed Azov troops marched into an Odessa court to force the
resignation of local judges.
These kinds
of extra-judicial actions sometimes cause violence. Last year Right Sector and
other far right forces attacked a gay parade march in Kyiv, and in July
engaged in a running battle with authorities in western Ukraine – allegedly in
a dispute over cigarette smuggling – resulting in three deaths and thirteen
injured. Right Sector forces subsequently converged on Kyiv to declare a referendum
of no confidence in Poroshenko. In
August meanwhile, activists from the populist Radical ultra-nationalist Svoboda opposed to pending decentralization
legislation demonstrated in front of the
Rada started a fight with police. Protesters threw grenades and by the time the
violence ended three lay dead and over 100 wounded.
It goes without saying
that the attempted destruction of a monument is not equivalent to mass violence
by out of control militia groups. By the same token, illegal actions action of
any sort – particularly by militia groups – can lead down a slippery slope. As
hated as the Chekist monument may be, if Azov and OUN did not receive legal
authorization to destroy it then it’s a cause for serious concern.
Finally, there is a
troubling issue regarding what Azov and OUN stand for.
As widely documented,
the Azov’s symbol is the Wolfsangel, which – despite Interior Minister Arsen
Avakov’s protestation
that it’s merely part of the emblem in many European cities – was used widely
by the Nazis during World War II.
The OUN battalion meanwhile is named after a
controversial World War II era ultra-nationalist organization that sought
Ukrainian independence but whose members also slaughtered up to 35,000 Jews in
the immediate aftermath of the Nazi invasion of the former Soviet Union while
also forming the backbone of the UPA militia which ethnically cleansed 80,000
Poles from Western Ukraine in 1943-1944.
For both ethical as well as practical
reason organizations like Azov and OUN – no matter how effective or patriotic
their fighters – simply should not be involved in the implementation of
decommunization or any other laws.
The Ukrainian government
possesses the legal right to remove the Chekist statue from Kyiv and should do
so forthwith. However it must also make clear that extra-judicial action of any
sort will not be tolerated.
