“Do not turn the police into enemies!”
It has been several weeks since people and the power started their confrontation. However, the power does not contact the people directly. Moreover, it actively uses the human barrier of police to protect against the people that have elected it. It is no coincidence that the photo The Symbol of the Year (the fully armed police protect the building of the Parliament from the people) was very successful at the recent photo exhibition by Den.
However, in all appearance, On November 3 the degree of confrontation between the people and the police changed and became threatening. The events developed in a more aggressive and hard way from both sides.
People protested near the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Presidential Administration. Nearly 2,000 people gathered near the parliament: entrepreneurs, Afghan war veterans and Chornobyl disaster fighters. They started shaking the fence with the mo-dern Ukrainian music and slogans “Bandu het!” [Gang, go away! – Ed.] They were shaking the fence with a sporting interest. As a result, they broke the whole section from the side of the observation point. Special squad soldiers started forcing the people back and the latter pelted them with pumpkins.
Quite a large piece even struck a woman-photojournalist. Another photographer suffered from “Berkut” soldiers: they hit him in his legs, he fell down, struck his head and one of his ribs. However, some of the policemen suffered, too: a “Bars” soldier was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. By the way, there were probably more “Bars” and “Berkut” soldiers near the parliament than the protesters. The journalists saw over 40 buses with the police near the parliament and in Bankova Street.
“The fence is the cause to clean up the territory near the Verkhovna Rada,” one of the activists shared his ideas with The Day. “That is why they place it all the time. If one crosses the fence cops run. If there is no fence what will the reason be to push the people out?”
“Fences are not needed near the Verkhovna Rada since they must not separate the MPs from the people who have elected them regardless of who these people are — Chornobyl disaster fighters, Afghan war veterans or representatives of the agriculture or industry; there should not be any fences at all,” Volodymyr Makieienko, the MP from the Party of Regions told The Day. “We will adopt the law on the mixed system and the MPs will go to the electors to the majoritarian districts. Why will they need a fence? Probably, the Verkhovna Rada apparat needs it. That is a different thing.”
Another MP from the Party of regions Oleksandr Yefremov believes that the actions near the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers are backed up by separate politicians that will participate in the parliamentary elections in 2012. Head of the Ukrainian Union of Afghan War Veterans Serhii Chervonopysky also says that the radical groups execute the political orders. Instead, the members of BYuT privately say that the actions are organized by the members of the Party of Regions. Supposedly, there is a struggle inside the party between Serhii Liovochkin and Mykola Azarov.
It should be noted that the protesters are actively supported by the MPs Oleh Liashko and Natalia Korolevska. (The latter is getting more and more politically independent that irritates a lot some of her colleagues within the party.) However, the protesters are trying to distance themselves from any political forces. They say that they protest on their own initiative.
However, regardless of the force that organizes the people the truth is that as long as the fence exists there will always be those willing to break it and knock it down… Breaking the fence in front of the Verkhovna Rada is likely to turn into a popular fun. If the fence is not broken the action failed. In the 21st century the principle of “not letting in” does not work anymore.
COMMENTARY
Volodymyr BATCHAIEV, former employee of the Human Rights Compliance Service at the Ministry of Home Affairs, board member of the Association of the Ukrainian Monitors of Human Rights Compliance in the law enforcement agencies:
“The fact that the police are largely involved into the maintenance of public order during people’s protest actions provokes ambivalent emotions of law-enforcement employees. On the one hand, they are irritated by their government that safeguards themselves from all possible troubles and takes so many policemen into the streets that their number exceeds the one of protesters by many times. The twenty-four-hour intensified service, long waiting in the buses (in case if something happens) and wandering in civvies near the meetings do not make ordinary policemen happier. More over, they understand very well who is to blame that people turn out and protest since, unlike their government, they live in the same conditions with us.
“However, the protesters irritate the police as well: they say ‘why don’t they stay at home, they cannot change anything and I can see my family so seldom because of them.’ This is psychology: sometimes people subconsciously focus their negative emotions on the eternal irritant and not on the real reason of the problem.
“On the other hand, unfortunately, protesters’ actions often contribute to this as well: they offend the police and try to apply force against them. Thus they create the image of protester-enemy in the policemen’s mentality and the police are taught to treat the enemies in the hardest way possible.
“In my opinion, the opposition or the forces that organize protest actions treat the police in a wrong way. We should recall the history: the Bolsheviks won because they led the active propaganda among the soldiers and sailors and tilted the balance in their favor. Now this explanatory work should be led among the policemen including the middle officers. Not only say during the meetings: ‘Police, you are our children, don’t kill us!’ but lead the consistent and purposeful work among the police. As a rule, during the protest actions these appeals are not efficient since the policemen come to work, stand in a rank with their colleagues and their boss is looking at them, so they will never drop their canes and will not go and fraternize with the protesters. During the protest actions it is more reasonable to address the police with the following appeal: ‘We understand that you do not want to lose your job and you have to execute the orders but remember that there are people in front of you. Don’t be cruel, don’t hit people and don’t crush them!’ It is much more efficient than calling the police to disobedience or chanting ‘Cops are butchers!’ This only embitters and turns from a blaming phrase into an action set.
“This situation can be only influenced by the preliminary work with the police that requires some money and propagandists that would do this work in the police environment, at the forums and in the media. By the way, there is their forum where they discuss these problems. They say the same things that we do. And even more radical ones. They say that ‘they will not hit their people for this money’ and that they are forced to abuse…
“Everyone understands and says right that the police became the prisoners of the political instability and that the situation has to be changed but it should be done gradually, acting in a qualified, competent and purposeful way. Unfortunately, the opposition, activists that organize these actions do not do it. ‘Police with people’ is a good message for the police but to make it real they should work, prepare the corresponding ground and push the police towards it.”
Interviewed by Viktoria KOBYLIATSKA, Cherkasy
