Not only democratic values should be promoted, they should be helped to get implemented!

The successful resolution of the severe political crisis requires simple and clear goals and rules that everyone understands. Unfortunately, Ukraine doesn’t have them - authoritarianism has taken over. And we are the Ukrainians and cannot keep quite. This letter is a call to Europe for help, because Ukraine is in tragedy. It should no longer be a collective television watching only!

By Olena Denysyuk and Anastasia Erichsen

Photo by Olga Starostina

The uprising of Ukrainians during the last three weeks has been a moment of celebration. It’s the celebration of individual rights and democracy, the celebration of hope and values, which Europe stands for. Hundreds of thousands of people have peacefully protested against the remnants of the totalitarian regime of the last century. The people’s dream and hope of being a truly European and democratic country for the upcoming 10th year anniversary of the Orange Revolution was about to become true.

Needless to say, that coming closer to EU is not a guarantee of economic prosperity, bright future and political excellence. And who knows, maybe at the end of the day, the Customs Union with Russia is not such a bad thing - both countries do share the Slavic history, culture, language, norms and families. The potential benefits from joining the European markets via the Association Agreement with the European Union, on the other hand, can also be driven by illusions about Europe – its unlimited reserve of capital as well as the exhausted fantasy about Ukraine’s geopolitical significance. Moreover, these “friendly relations” with Europe have their own economic price – Ukraine is to reduce its budget expenditures, let its exchange rate float and raise the energy prices – not such friendly conditions for ordinary people. Not friendly in the short run. In the long run, Ukraine has to put its own house in order, as the conditions also include political restructuring: it has to reform its justice system and stop suppressing the political opposition.

The potential Association Agreement has therefore given people optimism: the hope of being able to say your opinion without being thrown into jail; the hope of being able to make honest business without paying under the table; the hope of honest government and market transparency, which will not create presidential empires by syphoning funds from national accounts; and the hope of beating corruption, political manipulation and suppression. The hope to explore the democracy as such.

Furthermore, this uprising is a manifestation of the understanding that the first change is to take place within ordinary people. If people say yes to Europe, they say yes to changes, which of course shall take years to have a visible effect. One woman from the EuroMaydan Demonstration said that the agreement with Europe would mean a job loss for her, as she works with trade between Ukraine and Russia. But people are ready to sacrifice, as they are no longer able to derive pleasure from their present lives.

So, yes, they are fixated on what they think will bring them happiness and economic prosperity – the potential future membership with EU, as they can no longer suffer the oppressive dirty regime of Yanukovych. According to the journalist investigations, Yanukovych and his family have appropriated more than 50 billion of Ukrainian Hryvna during the last four years. His family members manage a number of large companies; he is being accused of illegally obtaining Mezhygirya state residence and using the 140 surrounding hectares of land as well as acquiring a number of preserved areas in Crimea in order to build private properties for his family and close political allies. By striving to beat the national bank account with his personal and impoverishing every single person in Ukraine, he has created as many as possible predispositions for people not to be able to enjoy their lives.

The only way to get out of this authoritarianism people saw in getting help from Europe, which would have come after reaching the association agreement.  But, the agreement was not signed and people went on the streets – peacefully, positively and legally.

However, in the early morning of November 30 these people were forcefully dispersed by Berkut, controversial special police units in Ukraine. Please note, these police units are regulated by the outdated laws of 1990s and are out of scope of the constitutional legal framework! Hence, this illegal paramilitary formation is NOT a law-enforcement unit, but rather a government tool for political repressions of peaceful citizens. The recent events have proven this: the peaceful demonstrators, young guys and girls – the future of Ukraine, were standing at the Independence monument and singing the national anthem when they were attacked, chased down the streets, brutally beaten and thrown into jail.

According to the government officials, it was done for the purpose of clearing the square and setting a Christmas tree. Not only innocent citizens were brutally beaten to brain injury, but some of them were imprisoned with trauma and did not receive a proper medical help on time. Some of them are still missing. On the very next day, even the journalists and doctors at work have become part of another tragedy, as Berkut, like programmed robots, were attacking everyone on Bankovska street. There were even cases of paying and sending provocateurs to undermine the peaceful nature of the protests, so that even more people could be beaten. Just to scare the crowd.

The Ukrainians ARE using their right to voice their opinions when human rights of some of them ARE brutally violated. More than half a million of people were demonstrating on December 1 and 8 in Kiev as well as in other cities all over the world. These pro-EU and pro-democratic protests show high levels of participation, self-organization and involvement of the Ukrainian civil society in the political arena. People arranged volunteer groups: elderly come with food, drinks and warm clothing to those, who is standing on Maydan; nearby restaurants host them with free meals, places to re-charge their telephone batteries; lawyers provide with the legal support; translators make sure that important massages are being delivered abroad; musicians play the Ukrainian anthem, film producers make documentary films.

Meanwhile, tensions continue to develop and some of the Ukrainian politicians and top leaders resign their posts. Only the president has shown total silence during the past three weeks revealing once again the authoritarian face of the current regime. Should it only be a collective TV watching here in Europe? This oppressive treatment of people should be stopped! Ukrainians have already sent a signal that they are ready for changes. They are willing to embark on a long-term journey of change providing their support to the political opposition leaders despite not fully trusting them. In the eyes of many, the opposition seems to lack the necessary leadership skills and concrete plans of action, but they choose the European path for sustainable development.

We believe that current Ukrainian demonstrations bear realistic demands, such as the government’s resignation, new parliament elections, changes to the Constitution to weaken the president’s power and signing the EU Association Agreement. The whole pro-reform civil society engagement is very promising, but unfortunately, there are still millions of people in Ukraine that are not there on Maydan, that do not even follow the recent events or are completely apathetic towards politics. Not apathetic by nature, but rather towards the current authoritarian system. And this is a tragedy.

Therefore, Ukraine is desperately in need of help and support from Europe. We believe that not only democratic values should be promoted, they should be helped to get implemented. In particular, Ukraine needs the European and other international bilateral and multilateral aid organizations including NGOs help:

1) strengthen the pro-reform Ukrainian opposition movements by establishing international party-to-party relations and sharing lessons on best practices in developing democracy and political ideology, particularly left wing;  

2) encourage and facilitate more insights and understanding of society and politics as well as demands for popular participation in the affairs of the state. This could be done through making contacts to the local communities via universities, NGOs and other organizations and raising awareness and organizing educational initiatives.

3) fight corruption. Corruption was and still remains the leading evil in Ukraine’s politics and business. It’s so coined and so “business-as-usual”, that actually, only the “Ministry of Anti-corruption” is what the country is missing. Transparency International ranks Ukraine together with a few other African countries number 144 out of 175 concerning the level of corruption in public sector. The offices of the state are exploited to procure advantages and power for one person and his allies and the current system is characterized by widespread nepotism and favoritism. Narrow interests of the political and economic elites have been prioritized depriving the vast majority of the population from their right to decent salaries, welfare services and higher quality of life.

There is a weak rule of law and discrepancies between the formal rule and their actual implementation especially from the point of view of resource-weak citizens. The current unfair trials of the detained protesters represent this vivid example. And a lot of people are so used to such state of affairs that they do not even question their rights. Hence, it is critical to make the many people who do not belong to political and economic elites aware of their situation and their possibilities.

In this sense, the international organizations could facilitate this deeper understanding of the social reality which shapes their lives and their capacity to transform the reality. Particularly, international facilitators, catalysts and mediators could support self-organization of marginalized groups of the society not only in the urban but also in the rural areas of Ukraine to create self-reliant co-operatives, labor unions and political interest groups. This could help them fulfill the roles of active and socially responsible citizens and potentially, make better political choices during the next presidential and parliament elections.  

At the broader sense, the Association Agreement and closer ties to EU would strengthen the rule of law, encourage a number of policies to eliminate corruption, improve the judicial system and more transparency regarding the property rights.

4) provide opportunities for young Ukrainians. The European Commission has provided grants to Non-EU students as part of the European Neighborhood Policy for studying in the European universities and Copenhagen Business School offers similar scholarships. We encourage for more initiatives alike from other universities and institutions in the EU countries. Moreover, providing e-learning opportunities from the leading universities in Europe and other developed countries to everyone in Ukraine could be another option. The education of young people is obviously one of the best paths towards a democratic country. But there is still a challenge here. Even for well-educated people it could be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to go against the public and implement new democratic norms in such a corrupt system. Therefore Ukraine needs a system-wide support of changes across all levels of society.

Finally, openness to the Ukrainian people in terms of visa and possibilities to visit the EU countries is crucial for them to be able to learn what the truly democratic societies are, about the benefits such societies enjoy and get a better understanding on how to get there. And not the least, keep up the hope that life can be better  - just not to give up!