Address to the international community from hunger strikers in Ukraine

Address to the international community from hunger strikers in Ukraine

Dear All,

We would like to draw your attention to the fact of unprecedented violation of lawful procedures in Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) that took place during the recent votings for the notorious language bill # 9073 on July 3^rd and bill # 9634 on July 4^th.  To be precise, both bills have been approved by 248 votes while only some 74 deputies were physically present in the session hall (please see the video that evidences this fact), and it’s brutal violation of art. 84 of Constitution of Ukraine.

Besides, an obligatory requirement to procedures of adoption has not been met, notably - 30 days period for examination, hearings and pre-approval in specialized Parliament committees were failed to be followed.

On the very next day, a couple of other not less controversial bills have been approved in the same manner, for instance the bill # 9634, which effectively denies access to the information on public purchases to the journalists, civic activists and non-governmental organizations. Due to loss of transparency of this kind of transactions, an amount of budget funds that can be misused (or, in other words, stolen from public) is estimated at 35 billions US dollars in one single year.

As a sign of protest (officially - only against the languages bill), opposition leaders have entered into a hunger strike.

As you may have already learned, the bill on languages did not entered into force due to the acting Speaker’s refusal to sign it; on 6^th of July the Speaker has pleaded for dismissal, the Parliament session has been closed for summer vacations till 4^th of September, thus having put the process of further legitimation of this bill to a halt. Prompted by this fact, the official opposition has quit hunger strike and “celebrated a victory” on 07th July 2012.

However, it seems to be too early to celebrate, as the ruling Party of Regions has already found possible solution to this – the Constitutional Court has been quickly summoned to technically approve the amendment to the procedures of the elections of the Speaker by the Parliament (number of required votes has been decreased from 300 to 226, and the voting mode has been changed from anonymous, in person voting to the conventional voting with electronic cards), so, the situation with that particular bill is uncertain. But what is more important, the Speaker of Parliament is becoming easier to replace and hence more susceptive to the outside pressure and, as a result, much more less independent from the President and the government.

The bill itself, while being advertised by the ruling party as such that finally honours the European Charter for Minority and Regional Languages’ guidelines, contains stipulations and is afraid by the majority of population to be implemented in such a manner to legitimize the legacy status of the Russian language, which is an already dominating language in vast areas of Ukraine (albeit, some significant peculiarities are to be observed) and is attributed to conserving the Soviet mentality and civilization choice. Due to the above mentioned circumstance, it should not even theoretically qualify for protection under the Charter.

But what is the point of the biggest concern is the way that both bills have been voted – this is the sign of decline of parliamentarianism in Ukraine in favour of authoritarian rule of the Viktor Yanukovitch and his apparatus.  Definitely, when he was elected as President, hardly everyone credited him more power than he was supposed to have as per the Constitution as of the date of his elections – he has won with just a few percent ahead of his closest rival. But he has promulgated (with the help of directly or indirectly controlled majority in the Rada) the Constitution roll-back to the revision of 1996, which empowered him with authority that matched that of Kutchma. Now, he has got degraded and purely technical Parliament and thus virtually absolute power – something that is not compatible with the status of Ukraine as a democracy or country in transition thereto.

This concentration of power has been so far accompanied by significant deterioration of life standards, growth of tax burden for the small and medium business and arrears in pensions and wages to the public sector employees. As you may know, the country has been steeply downgraded in terms of ease of business, human rights, freedom of mass media and corruption perception indices. Furthermore, the very first year of his presidency has been marked by rise of criminality by 30% - an unprecedented growth, that could not be attributed to the consequences of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis solely. The reasons for crime spree lies within the nature of the Yanukovitch and his core team – an overwhelming majority of them are a part of organized crime world or have close ties therewith.

The paradox is, however, that Yanukovitch and his affiliates do not enjoy much support not only with an ordinary population, but also with the vast majority of law enforcement officers – for instance, SWAT militants the government ordered to fight the protesters near the Parliament on 3-6^th July were reluctant to attack the people as they do not perceive them as a threat to society – most of them stepped into his carreer to chase and fight real criminals and not their own folk. In order to prompt SWAT to advance, their manager had to punch them from behind.

As a reaction to precipitated quitting from protest by opposition, a group of civic activists, not connected earlier either to each other, nor even affiliated with any political party, has initiated their own hunger strike. They are shocked by the way Ukrainian parliamentarianism has degraded.
 We have presented a demand to the President as the guarantor of Constitution to explicitly impose a veto upon the language bill # 9703, and this demand hit the deadline at 12:00 on 13^th of July, remaning unanswered. With regard to this, they we held a briefing with the mass media and announced an appeal to all citizens of Ukraine that share the same concerns as to the future of the country to join them. The protesters are aiming to gather a large number of supporters, gathered in the center of Kyiv, and thus force the government and the President to reinstate the constitutional order or to eventually resign.

Simultaneously, sociological researchers are fixing the record high number of protest actions all around Ukraine, most of them inspired by the language bill, and some of them – by unlawful actions of local authorities, private businesses raiding attacks, etc. Hence, chances to gather a targeted critical number of protesters are quite realistic, even despite vacations period.

The citizens of Ukraine, non-governmental organizations and civic activists highly appreciate the stance and the assistance that the international community, human rights organizations and governments have always been providing.  Also, it has been much talked about the fact that both Ukrainian government and the opposition have discredited themselves and proved to be an unreliable and unpredictable entities vis-à-vis their Western partners, with many Western politicians uttering the wish to rather seek co-operation with the civic society. At the same time, the West has invested an enourmous effort to make Yanukovitch free former members of the Ukrainian government – the efforts that did not bring any tangible result, neither for the jailed opposition member, nor for the Ukrainian people or democracy in Ukraine. It is time to recognize that without real support from the socially active and conscious part of the population, any further efforts from the Western countries are doomed to failure. And this civic initiative is one of the genuine and passionate, non-monetarily motivated representatives of the above mentioned civic society that will highly appreciate any support from the side of International community. The most essential support at this stage would be moral support to cheer up this initiative and their supporters that show an unparalleled degree of concern for the future of their country and its democratic, non-criminal future. 

With the best regards,

On behalf of activists of hunger strike committee “Ukrainskyi Dim” civic initiative:

Oleg Veremiyenko, Secretary

Petro Shkutiak, Head of Committee