Imagine if you lived in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and much of that corruption is facilitated by the court system. Then imagine, after two months of peaceful protests in freezing conditions, that the authorities introduced a set of archaic new laws that specifically forbade writing about any judge, or any questioning of any court decision, and the penalty for breaking this law is imprisonment. What would you do?
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, is a dishonest, dysfunctional and challenging place at the best of times. On Jan. 16, 2014, the atmosphere in the session hall there was even more charged than usual. Because of the street revolution some blocks away on Kyiv’s central Maidan square, lawmakers had barely been gathering for weeks. On this date, the majority was instructed to attend in order to pass a budget law, and they dutifully arrived in the fancy cars that are the trappings of power in such a corrupt place. While their chauffeurs parked the S Classes and Range Rovers, the lawmakers filed in and the day’s work began.
The Party of Regions, controlled by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, had a working majority, and as long as they could attract (buy) the votes of nominally independent MPs or an ally or two of convenience, it was pretty much assured they could, legally, do anything they wanted. The budget issue was dispatched without much difficulty. Then came the real order of the day, suddenly Yanukovych’s representatives in Parliament brought out reams of documents relating to a whole series of new laws that, they insisted, had to be voted on there and then. As opposition lawmakers, including those who had aligned themselves with the revolutionary movement on the Maidan, read the content of these laws, the Rada descended into pandemonium.
In an effort to derail the vote, the electronic voting system used by MPs to register their votes was disabled, and the building’s fire alarm was activated, neither of these things would dissuade Yanukovych’s henchmen. Opposition lawmakers Arseniy Yatseniuk and Vitaliy Klitschko looked shell-shocked as the majority then announced that the voting for these laws would proceed by a show of hands.
One by one the titles of the bills were read out, in each case Yanukovych’s lackeys, by now huddled in the centre of the floor of the session hall, threw their hands into the air and the announced result of there having been 235 votes in favor of each law was greeted by an arrogant cheer. There was nothing Yatseniuk or Klitschko could do, even though the latter is a former world heavyweight boxing champion. They left the hall.
These laws were soon dubbed the “Dictatorship Laws” by Ukrainian anti-corruption protesters. And the period of ten days that followed shook Ukraine.
There were many problems with the content of the laws, as well as the aforementioned ban on writing about judges, including other draconian measures that amounted to an attempt to legislate an end to the revolution that was by now 55 days old. Inconveniences to the Yanukovych clan, like the AutoMaidan rallies that had visited the palatial homes of corrupt officials, were simply banned. Yanukovych and his men also made it easier for their “law enforcement” bodies to injure people by banning the wearing of protective headgear at any kind of rally or meeting. At this point there had been two attempts to clear Maidan by force, on both occasions the riot police had gleefully dished out severe beatings.
In the days after the passing of the Dictatorship Laws, calm heads analyzed what had happened in parliament on Jan. 16. Someone spent time analyzing a still image from the manual voting and found that, rather than the announced 235 votes for each bill, fewer than 130 people were actually in this crowd of bandits-pretending-to-be-politicians. The sponsors of the bills took to the airwaves to smarmily claim that the bills were perfectly normal pieces of law in other European countries, whereas Historian and Yale Professor Timothy Snyder opined that “on paper, Ukraine is now a dictatorship.”
Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 saw the ninth Sunday “viche” or meeting of the revolution. This Sunday was like no other. This crowd, incensed at having basic rights and freedoms stripped from them, was seething with anger. One by one the politicians were dismissed, and the people were prepared to act where their representatives had failed.
A short walk from the Maidan, a roadblock had been in place for a month. A collection of military trucks stood on a road that leads to the government quarter – the parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers building. The roadblock was manned by thousands of Interior Ministry troops and the brutal and much-feared Berkut riot police.
As the viche broke up, thousands of protesters made their way to the roadblock, and the resulting clashes brought Ukraine’s revolution back to TV screens around the world. There was no mention of the hundreds of thousands of people who had, for the ninth straight week, stood on Maidan and called for an end to a corrupt system and demanded accountable democracy, there were just images of the fighting. There was little or no mention of the Dictatorship Laws that were the catalyst for these violent events, just footage of Molotov Cocktails streaking through the night sky and images of the wreckage of burned-out vehicles.
The clashes in this place lasted for six days. During that period, medical facilities were deliberately targeted by the Berkut, and doctors, medics, and journalists were shot at with a variety of calibers weapons and ammunition. The Russian trolls that are now known to many of us around the world had an immediate and coordinated argument, rabidly barking “you call these ‘peaceful’ protests?”
There was no escaping the fact that, at that time, events were not peaceful. But the context for why those clashes happened in that time at that place is essential to understanding the whole of Ukraine’s revolution.
Those of us who were on this street, witnessing these events, can all tell you of the cold. During the period this fighting was going on – between Jan. 19-25 – temperatures plummeted to well below minus 20 degrees Celsius. Witnesses will also describe to you the noise, a constant banging, rocks against metal lamp posts and sticks being beaten on oil drums. Most of that noise was made by women, and particularly elderly women. In the midst of this chaos, there stood babushki raging about the thieves who inhabited the offices just up the street before them, whose who were responsible for their meager pensions, as well as the general poverty in the country.
By the next Sunday, ten days after the Dictatorship Laws had first been passed, a solution had been worked out, the fighting on Hrushevskoho Street stopped on Saturday night, the authorities had promised to cancel the laws immediately in return. But by this time three protesters were dead.
The first to die was Sergei Nigoyan. He had been on Maidan since the first days of the revolution, and was killed six months short of his 21st birthday. The second was Mikhail Zhyznevsky, from Belarus. The third was Yuri Verbitsky, a PhD from western Ukraine.
Any loss of life is a tragedy for the family and community of the deceased. In Verbitsky’s case though, his death was a matter of great national significance. Verbitsky had been injured in the street clashes, and went to hospital to seek treatment. He was kidnapped from the hospital by forces loyal to Yanukovych. For the next two days he was mercilessly tortured, and ultimately his life ended in a forest. He had been abandoned, alone, and was left to die from a combination of the injuries he sustained under torture, and the bitter cold.
Imagine if you lived in a country that was deeply corrupt, and the authorities responsible for that corruption resorts to kidnapping, torture, and murder, what would you do?
In retrospect, after this period of ten days of tension, the subsequent fall in the violence between the police and protesters is remarkable, and speaks of the protesters’ patience and restraint. The confrontation was not to climax until the period of Feb. 18-22, when the government forces launched a savage assault on the Maidan. Then followed the protesters’ heroic defense of their camp, and the final bloody massacre by Yanukovych’s snipers on Institutska Street on Feb. 20, after which the would-be dictator fled the country.
But looking back, it was in those ten freezing days in January, during which the government tried and failed to impose tyranny on Ukraine, that the Ukrainian people were most severely tested, and found that they were indeed strong.
