Month: August 21, 2020 3:21 am

EU rejects Belarus vote results

Hundreds of Belarusian protesters gathered in Minsk on August 19 in defiance of a new push by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to clear the streets of the capital on the 11th day of rallies against his rule as the European Union refused to recognize the re-election of the longtime authoritarian president and said it will soon impose sanctions on his government. With thousands taking to the streets daily since the August 9 vote and strikes crippling many state enterprises, Mr. Lukashenka ordered the Internal Affairs Ministry on August 19 to put down mass protests that erupted across the country against the results, which gave Mr. Lukashenka just over 80 percent of the vote. The European Union held an emergency summit on the crisis, with EU Council President Charles Michel saying afterwards that the 27-nation bloc’s message “is very clear: Stop the violence.”

As the unexpected white-red-white Belarusian revolution continues, and both the stakes and risks are raised, international reaction has been growing accordingly.

The scale of the mass country-wide demonstrations, followed by strikes, to protest against the rigging of the presidential election on August 9 caught everyone by surprise. The ruthlessness and cruelty of the Lukashenka regime in trying to crush them, even more so.

No one had foreseen such rapid and dramatic developments. Belarus was generally regarded as a politically docile country without an effective opposition to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and without leaders capable of challenging him.

Russia’s presidential envoy for conflict-management in Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak, has sent a highly undiplomatic letter to his other counterparts in the “Normandy” forum, gloating over bypassing this forum to maneuver Kyiv into quasi-recognizing Moscow’s military proxies in Donetsk-Luhansk. The agreement on “Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire Regime” officializes the Donetsk-Luhansk “armed formations,” co-equally with Ukraine’s Armed Forces, as contracting parties to the ceasefire-strengthening measures and to the ceasefire itself. It also relieves Russia of any responsibility for ceasefire violations by its proxies, concealing altogether Russia’s role as the state belligerent against Ukraine. The Minsk Contact Group’s participants – Ukraine, Russia, Donetsk-Luhansk, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – worked out this agreement, circumventing the Normandy forum (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, July 29, 30).

“Canada joins its partners in the international community in condemnation of the crackdown on peaceful protesters following the presidential election in Belarus. We do not accept the results of this fraudulent presidential election in Belarus and call for free and fair elections. 

“We further call for a thorough investigation to be conducted through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Thousands of people across Belarus are in the streets calling for an end to police brutality, the release of political prisoners and credible elections. 

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Marta Kolomayets, a former member of the editorial staff of The Ukrainian Weekly whose accomplishments include opening the newspaper’s Kyiv Press Bureau, died on August 16 in the Ukrainian capital. She was 61.

Ms. Kolomayets was on The Weekly’s staff in January 1982-November 1984 and then again from February 1988 through December 1996.

Since January 2013, Ms. Kolomayets had been the director of the Fulbright program’s office in Ukraine.

The following comments appeared in a Radio Svoboda report about Marta Kolomayets that was compiled by Iryna Shtohryn. There were translated for The Ukrainian Weekly from the original Ukrainian by Irena Chalupa.

Ivan Malkovich, poet, publisher, Marta’s friend and neighbor:

God has called Marta Kolomayets to him – Marta, one of the best people I have ever known, a person with a great, big heart. We are blessed with such friends infrequently, and when they leave us so suddenly, you feel an immense emptiness. Marta was a real friend to whom you could entrust that which you treasure most.

The news about the untimely passing of our dear colleague Marta Kolomayets traveled quickly on Sunday, August 16. And it shocked all who heard it. Marta was gone. At the age of 61. Frankly, we are still numb. Indeed, judging by the comments of those who knew her and posted their feelings on Facebook, all are stunned by this terrible news, all are deeply saddened.

Marta’s life and good works, both here in the United States – where she was born and studied, and volunteered, and worked – and in Ukraine – where she lived for more than half of her life, worked in a variety of professional roles and was involved in many volunteer endeavors – touched countless people. That’s why her death has left so many in tears.

Nine years ago, on August 24, 2011, as Ukraine celebrated its 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union, the Eurasia Daily Monitor analyzed the failed putsch of August 1991 that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2011, there was a lack of knowledge about the failed putsch among many Russians. Moscow News (Moskovskie Novosti) reported that 8 percent of those surveyed did not know anything about the coup, 27 percent said that they had heard something, while 64 percent remember and know something about those events.

Maidan lawyers and civic organizations have reacted with outrage to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appointment of Oleh Tatarov as deputy head of the Presidential Office. Mr. Tatarov was not only the deputy head of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Central Investigative Department during the Euro-Maidan protests, but on at least one occasion openly lied about a shocking attack by Berkut officers on peaceful Maidan activists in January 2014.

This is an appallingly ill-considered decision and is understandably viewed as a spit in the face by many of those persecuted on the Maidan and the families of those who were killed.

Last summer I traveled to Belarus, visiting three major cities – Minsk, Mogilev and Homel – and several villages, and meeting with Ukrainian community representatives from another major city, Brest. I was surprised by the relative sophistication of the Belarus infrastructure, beginning with the Minsk airport, the national airline Belavia, the major arteries across the country, general cleanliness, gardening, etc. Nevertheless, I left the country largely dismayed and pessimistic as to the future because of the obvious Russian presence everywhere, the pervasive Russian language and Moscow Church Orthodoxy, the feeling of submission and apathy as to their own fate of the Belarusian people.

Dear Editor:

We were pleased to see the paid advertisement of Ukrainian Americans for Biden (UAB) published in the July 26 issue of The Ukrainian Weekly and would like to express our gratitude to the UAB Steering Committee for the great work they are doing to elect Joe Biden as president.

We once were staunch Republicans. That was when Republicans were American patriots and anti-Communists. Sadly, today we see Republicans only as enablers of the worst policies for America and its people. In a few short years, America has lost its prestige and worldwide respect, and Vladimir Putin could not be happier.

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor that react to articles published on its pages. Opinions expressed by letter writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either The Weekly editorial staff or its publisher, the Ukrainian National Association.

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