But a week prior to the election “The Financial Times” endorsed Viktor Yanukovych for president. I was confounded not only by the sheer endorsement but by the reasoning which was incongruous. FT painted a picture of a thug who tried to steal the 2004 election, said nothing positive about the thug, and concluded its editorial by endorsing him for the sake of political stability
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And then came the election itself and within 24 hours the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe having monitored barely 6% of the polling stations and despite loud protestations of fraud leveled by the other candidate, declared the election free and democratic. The Americans did as well. President Obama congratulated Yanukovych. Something definitely was going on, but I could not recognize it.
At last there was the denouement. On Monday, April 12, 2010 Yanukovych came to Washington DC in the role of President of Ukraine and on the very first day of the Nuclear Summit everything began to make sense. Unilaterally and apparently gratuitously since no one else was making concessions, Yanukovych declared that by 2012 Ukraine would rid itself of all weapons grade nuclear material. The White House joyfully exhaled and acknowledged that it had been working on this for some time. This came in the aftermath of a new START agreement with the Russians. The Russians were pleased with the Ukrainian performance as well.
Yanukovych’s visit did not stir much interest within the Ukrainian-American community. Most remained stoic and restrained. Yanukovych’s biography was quite damning and his first 45 days in office were replete with antidemocratic and anti-Ukrainian efforts. There were a handful of photo op seekers at the Shevchenko monument, so insignificant that Ukraine’s presidential website carried a photo of only Yanukovych but not the crowd.
But Ukrainian-American students experienced a political epiphany, I suspect in solidarity with students in Ukraine. The Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations in America urged the community to participate in a two prong action plan. The second was a demonstration in front of the Ukrainian Embassy in DC protesting Yanukovych’s anti-democratic and anti-Ukrainian policies, in particular, appointing the Ukraino-phobic Dmytro Tabachnyk as Minister of Education and Science. The first item on the action plan was addressed to US President Barrack Obama marked “Re: Petition against Anti-Democratization of Ukraine by Current President V. Yanukovych and his newly appointed Minister of Education D. Tabachnyk.”
I very often sympathize with the young student idealist. I was idealistic once too. As a student I protested weekly in the 1970’s. The Soviets kept arresting Ukrainian dissidents and we kept protesting. But we didn’t expect much in the way of U.S. assistance. By the 1970’s the mantra of “land of the free and home of the brave” had been exposed as myth. Intermittently, through US efforts the Soviets released a political prisoner. President Carter boycotted Moscow and the Soviets boycotted Los Angeles. But the real message had been sent during the Hungarian revolution, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Prague Spring. In fact certain diplomatic documents had come to light following World War II that the Yalta conference was not an aberration but policy. The U.S. stood for the concept of historical Russian imperial unity and considered the national aspirations of Ukrainians as separatism. The U.S. did not really care about freedom or democracy for others and it would support thugs for the sake of political expediency.
Today the U.S. supports Ukraine’s thug Yanukovych for giving up Ukraine’s nuclear material. But Yanukovych is politically convenient today and merely a pawn. He plays well with the Russians as well. For the sake of Russian “friendship” or theoretical cooperation on such issues as Iran and the like, the US would sell out Ukraine and their current thug, Yanukovych, in a heartbeat. He could be relegated to Russia’s governor in Ukraine and there would be no Western reaction. And to think Ukraine’s independence and democracy are in the hands of Victor Yanukovych and American commitment to ideals. God help us!
Askold S. Lozynskyj is a New York attorney and former president of the Ukrainian World Congress.
