Having carefully read your statement to the Ukrainian people
declining responsibility for the bloody attack byspecial forces on peaceful
demonstrators on Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosty, in the death of night on November
30, I do not accept it. More importantly, the people of Ukraine are
not absolving you from this needless brutality.
It symbolizes your complete disregard for the well being of your
people. Now the whole country is against
you. And you brought it down on
yourself.
The bloody beatings, hospitalization, cracked heads and the
unknown whereabouts of six demonstrators is untenable. It galvanized hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators on Sunday attesting to the poisoned atmosphere in Ukraine caused
by your bad leadership. The people are
fed up with the enormous gaps between your regimes’ words and deeds; between
the rich and the poor; the inability to lead what they call “normal” lives due
to oppression and corruption; and, above all,
your rejection of their will.
The last straw was your badly conceived failure to sign for European
integration in Vilnius last week. But
instead of listening to the demonstrators’ voices “sign now” you sent Berkut
agents, at four in the morning when only some one hundred kids remained on
Maidan, to brutalize them. The oldest
was just twenty. The pretext for
clearing the Square was to erect a Christmas tree: How perverse!
Shame on you for this abomination.
As president you are responsible for peace, justice and good
government but you have been misgoverning since you came to power. First, by ceding control of the defence and
security apparatus to Russia then by backsliding on democracy, disregarding the
rule of law, systematizing corruption, squashing human rights especially for
the media and organizers of peaceful assemblies. You are devoted to persecuting any opposition
to your dictates, the most significant and visible being the illegal
incarceration of your nemesis Yulia Tymoshenko who “lost” the election to you
by a mere 3%. You’re obsessed with the
need to destroy her; you have risked too much to put and keep her illegally in
jail. You even turned your back on
Europe in Vilnius despite promising the opposite. That was the last straw. She retaliated with a grand gesture calling
on the EU to choose Ukraine over her health and freedom. Then she declared a hunger strike while
calling opposition leaders to take political power into their hands and Ukraine
flared up in a revolt against you and your ilk.
The world condemns your actions. Some of your Regional Party insiders do as
well. Your Chief of the President’s
Administration, Serhij Levochkin has quit so did Inna Bohoslovska and David
Zhvannija. The chief of police in Kyiv
has submitted his resignation. Berkut,
in Lviv, refuses to stand against the demonstrators. The first secretary serving in Canada has
resigned. The head of Ukraine’s small businesses is calling members to support
a national strike. Your cities, like
Kaluzh, are declaring themselves “Non- Yanukovych zones”. Despite your odious Minister of Education’s
decree –you failed to heed the people’s repeated demands for Dmytro Tabachnik’s
resignation–that striking students will lose their scholarships, university
rectors are supporting their protests.
Throughout Ukraine universities are closed and students are on the
street with those hundreds of thousands fed up with your bad government. Imagine how many more are still at home.
Many believe that you betrayed Ukraine years ago. As soon as you became president you passed
the control of the defence and security apparatus to Russia. Was it payment for making you president? Only last week you stated that further EU
integration discussions need to include Russia. The European Union dismissed
this nonsense but you, sir, are a traitor.
Many say that you are calling in foreign strongmen against
your own people. The hundreds of tanks
moved near Lviv are real and what about the cargo planes carrying Russian armed
personnel? You are afraid that like
Lviv’s Berkut other Ukrainians security services will side with the people and
you will be alone.
Clearly, you are not wanted in Ukraine. Around the globe governments, the media and
individual democrats are siding with the protestors. The petition to the United States to slap
sanctions on assets owned by you and other criminal oligarchs and to deny entry
visa, has far surpassed the required hundred thousand signatures. Other countries are being urged to do the
same. The EU, United States, Canada and
their ambassadors in Ukraine—as well as others– are condemning your
behavior. The calls for your
resignation are getting stronger.
You have created a mess, Mr. President. You need to fix it. Sign or resign.
