Enough Circus, Where's the Bread?
Whoopee! We're in the Champions League semifinals! I mean that Kyiv Dynamo
is, but this soccer club has long been regarded by the international sports
community as Ukraine's calling card. In Ukraine, Lobanovsky's team is more
than national pride; it is also a kind of drug giving this ailing society
a dose of optimism, dispersing the current oppressive atmosphere, even
if only temporarily. After all, Kyiv Dynamo beating Madrid Real was probably
the only real good news last week.
Especially in Prykarpattia [Sub-Carpathia] where the lowering temperature
was nothing compared to the mounting political pressure on the press. In
Ivano-Frankivsk the main topic (before the news about the Kyiv team's triumph
in the quarterfinals, of course) was the City Council firing Vasyl Hordiyenko,
editor of the municipal newspaper Zakhidny Kurier (Western Courier).
It was the city fathers' way to tell the local electorate that they will
not tolerate any dissidence in the media under their control in view of
the presidential campaign. And it seems that this scandalous ouster will
remain the only noteworthy event during the first year of the "servants
of the people" of the "third democratic convocation."
In the meantime the voters have a much more important thing on their
minds: how to survive. The municipal and law enforcement authorities, using
the motto of law and order, have embarked on a large-scale campaign against
what is officially termed "unauthorized [disorderly] retail trade." To
a an unbiased onlooker the whole thing is strongly reminiscent of the old
good hide-and-seek game, with street vendor scattering, spotting a militia
patrol, and then returning to their places after the patrol proceeds on
its way. Militiamen approach street vendors with the standard formula:
"Please move on and clear the street; because of your unauthorized selling
others will lose their jobs." In response to which they hear the standard
reply, "We have long ago lost our jobs."
The latter has a logic very hard to refute. Official statistics point
to a 1.9-fold increase in the unemployment rate in Ivano-Frankivsk alone,
totaling 7% which is the highest in Ukraine. To the formally registered
18,000-strong army of the jobless last year added over 10,000. At present,
there are over 230 applicants for every job vacancy and every indication
says this is just for starters.
And those still employed would laugh when hearing the suggestion that
they are better off in any way. The city executive committee stated last
week that there are 61,000 - or 66% of those officially employed -not paid
wages on any more or less regular basis. Almost one-fifth of all industrial
enterprises register 6-10 months back wages. And people still remember
last year's March elections and all those splendiferous promises to liven
up production and provide jobs and steady wages. And many such promises
came from people currently in power.
By Taras TKACHUK, The Day,
Ivano-Frankivsk






