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Are We Citizens or Campers?

22 December, 00:00

Last Tuesday's crash of a Ukrainian plane in Angola, killing five Ukrainian fliers aboard, made major news on all the private channels. UT-1, the government one, also carried the story - in the 24th minute of its news show. Another horrible event of the same day, a coal miner's attempted self-immolation in Luhansk, was also pushed to the background on Ukraine's major official television news source. Of course, President Kuchma's meeting with regional media reps, run at the beginning, is an important development, particularly if the President makes sensational statements (to be conveyed by journalists to the masses all over Ukraine), concerning his spectacular achievements, provided "they do not get in my way" and proposing to prolong this status of nobody getting in his way. In any case, the priorities designated by government editors in the government-controlled media can tell much about that government's priorities in other spheres. Considering that every step made by the President appears more newsworthy than the life of any other citizen, and remembering that under totalitarianism power meant everything and the man in the street nothing, our "progress" over the years of independence is self-evident: zip, nil, and none. Who cares what they say on high: the Council of Europe, human rights, or priority of personal interests over those of the state? Is it surprising that securing the rights of Ukrainian citizens abroad (includes not only Pavlo Lazarenko, but also crews of impounded Ukrainian ships, Ukrainian girls sold into white slavery, etc.) interests mainly the media and Ombudsman Karpachova (whose monthly pay has to be financed by foreign embassies in Ukraine)?

Newspaper output №:

№46, (1998)

Section

Day After Day