As I write on Jan. 18, the Supreme Court is close to recognizing the results of the Dec. 26 presidential re-vote with Viktor Yushchenko as the winner. The court will mark the end of the Orange Revolution, the peaceful and wonderful revolution that transformed Ukraine.
In retrospect, the Orange Revolution went almost too easily. In response to the fraudulent election, Ukrainians of all stripes pulled together. From that point, it was just a couple of weeks of camping out in the street and rock concerts on Kyiv’s Independence Square before boom, the good guys won.
But though it seems like it went easily as we look back, there was nothing inevitable about the Orange Revolution and its peaceful ending. Yushchenko and his allies, like Yulia Tymoshenko, were clearly prepared with a civil disobedience strategy, and executed it perfectly. Thousands of Ukrainians, at great personal risk to themselves, made strong and principled decisions to protest publicly against the election fraudulence. And, perhaps most importantly, Ukraine’s outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, did something admirable: he chose not to defend his position with force and ensured that others in his administration – most notably Presidential Administration head Viktor Medvedchuk and then-prime minister and presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych – would themselves refrain from violently suppressing the Kyiv demonstrators.
In an extended article in the Jan. 17 New York Times, C.J. Chivers documents the tense backroom negotiations that went on in late November among high-level members of the government, the Interior Ministry and the State Security Services (SBU). According to his reporting, which is confirmed by other sources, both Yanukovych and Medvedchuk vigorously supported calling up the armed forces to suppress the demonstrators. But at a meeting in Koncha Zaspa on Nov. 27 with Yanukovych, Interior Minister Mykola Bilokon and SBU chairman Gen. Ihor Smeshko, President Kuchma silenced Yanukovych and ensured that no violence would be used against the Orange Revolutionaries.
This may seem a small and obvious step, but recent history clearly shows that it is not. Take Belarus, by comparison. This fall, after a rigged referendum set off protests, Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko sent in troops to crush them. In 2000, before his regime was toppled, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic used violence against protestors, too. Eduard Shevardnadze, in Georgia, called out the troops. And leaders in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgizia, Russia and Turkmenistan have in recent years unleashed force on peaceful protesters who threatened the regimes.
Or let’s recall the collapse of the Soviet Union. On several occasions, Mikhail Gorbachev authorized the use of force in Tbilisi, Vilnius and other cities to squelch threats to his rule. People died.
Throughout Kuchma’s presidency, we have consistently and openly criticized him, first in Kyiv Post and later in the Post’s Russian-language sister publication Korrespondent as well. In these publications, we’ve rallied against the persistent corruption and crony capitalism that plagued Ukraine and enriched Kuchma’s inner circle. We called attention to breaches of international law, including the alleged sale of Kolchugas to Iraq. We harped on infringements of press freedom. As allegations of high crimes, including complicity, in the Gongadze affair snowballed, we called for Kuchma’s resignation, and were the only Ukrainian newspaper to do so. And we castigated the president for his attempts to undermine the Constitution with his talk of a third term and a referendum.
As a result of this, I had the mixed honor of being declared persona non grata in Ukraine in 2000, and was only grudgingly allowed to return here.
But despite my concern over the failures of Kuchma’s presidency, I believe he should be regarded as a hero, and be allowed to go off to his retirement peacefully and quietly. Not simply because he is truly leaving Ukraine a stronger and better country than it was when he assumed office, but because he – as much as any one – ensured that there would be no bloodshed in Kyiv, and that the Orange Revolution would attain its goals without loss of life.
Maybe Yushchenko would still be the next president of Ukraine if the troops had been called out. Maybe the troops would have disobeyed orders. Maybe the protesters would have successfully resisted an attack. But I, for one, am glad these scenarios were never put to the test.
I hope all of those who were on Independence Square, and therefore would have had to face down an attack by armed troops, agree that by preventing bloodshed in November, President Kuchma earned the right to the most pleasant retirement he can contrive for himself.
Jed Sunden is the Kyiv Post’s publisher.
