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National Post | 26Jan2014 | Oksana Bashuk Hepburn
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/01/27/oksana-bashuk-hepburn-ukraine-needs-canadas-help/
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn:
Ukraine needs Canada’s help
Ukrainian protestors, organized under the banner of “Euromaidan,” want
the regime of President Viktor Yanukovych out. To win, the protestors
need help from the world’s democracies. Will it come?
President Yanukovych precipitated the ongoing crisis late last year. In
November, instead of signing, as promised, a trade agreement with the
European Union, he aligned Ukraine’s future with Russia. The reversal
enraged Ukrainians, who had expected the deal with Europe to be enacted
quickly. They had had enough of his dysfunctional rule, even worse,
they had had enough of Russia. Ukraine’s history with its Russian
neighbour is an unhappy one: Across the 20th century, many millions
died under Soviet rule. Many see much in Russian President Vladimir
Putin that reminds them of that dark era and want nothing to do with
his increasingly heavy handed regime.
What Ukrainians do want is to live more like we do in the West. And
despite its flaws, European integration offers the promise of the rule
of law, freely elected government, just courts, free political
opposition, independent media, and an economy where the average person
doesn’t have to survive on roughly $4,000 a year while the rulers make
richest-in-the-world lists. They want the rights and freedoms that
citizens in the West take for granted. The Yanukovych-Putin deal moves
Ukrainians in the wrong direction.
The deal should also worry the West. It integrates Ukraine’s defence
into Russia’s. The Russian fleet gains access to the coveted Kerch
peninsula whose warm-water ports enhance Russia’s presence in the Black
Sea (and the Mediterranean beyond). Russia is also keen to access
Ukraine’s large shipyards and their skilled workers. The last thing
Ukrainians want is to be on the wrong side of a new cold war.
As peaceful protests against the “selling of our children’s future”
continue, the Yanukovych regime -- now guided by Russia -- is cracking
down. Earlier this month, Yurij Lutsenko, a key opposition associate of
Yulia Tymoshenko, the imprisoned opposition leader and potential
alternative to President Yanukovych, was severely beaten in front of a
courthouse where extreme sentences were issued against innocent
protesters, now called “terrorists.” After a midnight car-chase,
Tetyana Chornovol, a feisty journalist exposing the president’s
financial assets, was beaten and left for dead. The state militia,
nearby, did nothing. Scores of demonstrators are in custody, or have
disappeared, as police apply new anti-demonstrator laws. Many have been
abducted from hospitals while seeking treatment. At least three are
dead.
Democracies are crying foul. Canada’s Foreign Affairs’ Minister John
Baird promised to “forcefully oppose all efforts to repress their
(demonstrators’) rights and freedoms.” But if anything, recent weeks
have seen government efforts to repress the demonstrations get worse,
not better.
Despite the possibility of some progress (the government offered
political concessions over the weekend), Euromaidan needs meaningful
help from the global community. Black listing offenders makes a good
start. Here, the U.S. Senate is leading. It has put Ukraine’s interior
minister Vitaliy Zaharchenko, responsible for the violence against
demonstrators, and others, on a draft sanctions list. Similarly, Canada
should create a list of Ukrainians leaders whose financial dealings are
suspect, then, investigate and where warranted apply punitive measures
to keep the spotlight on offenders. (Euromaidan already has done much
of this work and has been following the money. At the top of the list
of financial offenders: the president, the prime minister and the chief
of the security apparatus.)
Moving forward, Ukraine will also need help establishing stronger
democratic institutions. Canada can help by offering guidance to both
government and opposition leaders. It might call on former premiers
like Roy Romanow and Ed Stelmach -- both of Ukrainian descent -- to
assist, and make sure future generations of Ukrainians never again have
to contend with a crisis like this one.
But in order for that future to be realized, it is critical that
democracy -- Euromaidan -- wins today. Ukraine needs help now, and fast
-- there are fears that the government will crack down after the
Olympics in nearby Sochi conclude. Canada has long been a good friend
to Ukraine, and was the first Western power to recognize its
independence. Millions of Ukrainians want their country to be as a good
a friend to the West as Canada has been to Ukraine. But they need help.
Let’s hope they get it.
National Post
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is
the former president of U*CAN Ukraine Canada Relations Inc.,
specializing in Canadian-Ukrainian relations.