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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

THE WEST WANTS EQUALITY WHILE MOSCOW SEEKS PRIVILEGES

17 March, 1998 - 00:00

Two externally quite different and unrelated visits, Leonid Kuchma's to Moscow and Madeline Albright's to Kyiv, give rise to comparisons of Russian and American visions of Ukraine and its future. Undoubtedly, both Russia, and the U.S. have their own interests vis-a-vis and in Ukraine. However Kyiv must identify and pursue in whose interests it is more important.

While Russian investors, applying for investments in the West, demand privileges in Ukraine and price reductions, being so low for Ukrainian enterprises' stock, the Americans demand creation of a healthy, normal, and universal investment climate in Ukraine. The ever-vigilant Ukrainian press somehow missed Albright's words to the effect that officials should not take bribes.

Russian diplomacy and top management is insists on raising an artificial question about the Russian population in Ukraine, though only with a jaundiced eye one could notice the existence of such a problem. Then Albright, discussing human rights and democracy, called upon the "free and fearless press". "Uniquely democratic" Russia, the number one friend of which is "specifically democratic" Belarus, never raised and will not raise in the near future the question of political freedom in Ukraine in case of real danger to it. None of the offended Ukrainian businessmen, politicians, or journalists will consider it necessary to appeal to the Russian embassy in Kyiv if any problems with the authorities arise, addressing Western ones instead.

Dealing with Russia, the Ukrainian leadership, obviously, has never run afoul of criticism on Ukraine being unreformed, while the Americans constantly try to persuade Kyiv of the need to speed up economic reforms and for greater transparency in Ukrainian privatization. Probably this would be a discovery for Ukrainian Leftists, but among the requests of the International Monetary Fund in negotiations with the Ukrainian government there is also to settle wage and pension arrears. One can conclude, that a strong democratic and independent Ukraine is more be needed by Washington than by Moscow.

For some reason, before the forthcoming elections the Ukrainian leadership is expected to speed up pro-Russian initiatives and quietly romance the West between elections. However, the West's election opportunities in Ukraine are no less or more than Russia's. The authorities' plans are simple: to play on Soviet nostalgia and Slavic sentiments of a significant part of the voters from the east and south of Ukraine, and also of the Russian mass media, primarily television, to influence the development of events in Ukraine. Sadly but true, for Hr 10, which Dnipropetrovsk authorities pay extra to the almost 900,000 pensioners of the district, they love neither the Communists nor Russia any more, sympathizing with a certain party and Ukrainian national manufacturer instead. One may reasonably assume that for Hr 20 they would like European Union, for 30 America, and for 50 even NATO.

As to the mass media, it helped President Yeltsin, say, to be reelected to a second term. But of no less appreciable help there were $11 billion, which the IMF earmarked for Russia before the 1996 elections. Russian television announced only the distribution of this money as paying off wage and pension arrears. Now the West and IMF should think about loans to Ukraine a year and a half before the presidential elections. Especially where almost $3 billion loan is concerned, upon which the Ukrainian government insisted and was refused last year. The guarantees granting it and other loans should be not only real reforms and not just a feigned struggle against corruption, but the real reorganization of democracy in Ukraine.

 

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