Agence France Presse — English
January 31, 2005 Monday 4:41 AM GMT
You say you want a revolution? Ukraine group ready to change
ex-Soviet world
KIEV
Flush with victory of the “orange revolution,” the leaders of a
Ukraine youth group have decided to export their know-how to other
former Soviet republics in a move that an ever-hardline Russia has
noted with concern.
“Think of it as a democratic spetsnaz,” Vladislav Kaskiv, smiling
sheepishly, told AFP, using a Russian and Ukrainian term for an elite
special forces unit.
Kaskiv is one of the leaders of the Pora (It is time) youth group,
one of the key players in last November’s “orange” protests that
swept aside a Moscow-friendly regime in favor of a pro-Western leader
after a disputed election.
It was the second year in a row, after Georgia’s rose revolution,
that such a scenario occurred on former Soviet territory — a fact
that Moscow, which has been trying to rebuild its influence there,
has duly noted.
“The repeat of such scenarios is possible both inside the countries
of the CIS and beyond,” Vladimir Rushailo, Russia’s former national
security chief, warned last week.
Having received coaching from fellow youth activists from Serbia,
Slovakia and Georgia ahead of their revolution, Kaskiv and cohorts
have decided to set up a center to help support similar movements in
the former Soviet territory.
“We’ve talked with practically all leaders of democratic movements in
the region, who have agreed with the idea 120 percent,” he said,
adding that the group has also received pledges of financing and was
hoping to have the center up and running by the end of the month.
Unlike Belgrade’s Center for Non-violent Resistance set up by members
of the Otpor youth movement, the Kiev one would unite all of the
countries that have “been successful in democratic makeovers:
Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine…
to provide support for democratic movements in the region.”
“Russia should be put first and foremost, then Belarus, Moldova,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,” Kaskiv said.
The list of targets reads like the Kremlin’s worst nightmare and it
has made a lot of leaders in former Soviet republics nervous.
“There will be no rose, orange or banana revolutions,” declared in
early January Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko, a hardliner
who is among the top targets for democracy warriors in the former
Soviet Union.
Leaders of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have likewise rejected the
possibility of “the Georgian or Ukrainian scenario” taking place on
their territory.
But others aren’t so sure.
“The events in Ukraine have inspired a level of politicization among
the Russian youth I haven’t seen in years,” Yegor Gaidar, a leading
Russian liberal and author of Moscow’s market reforms, told the
Financial Times in December.
“This is the first stone thrown at the edifice of Russia’s managed
democracy,” he said.
Youth groups like Ukraine’s Pora have played a key role in the
peaceful protests that have swept aside hardline regimes in former
Communist satellite states, by rallying the most fearless and
idealistic part of the population.
During the protests in Kiev, the tent city set up in part by Pora in
the center of the capital was filled with democracy activists from
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and others.
“Ukraine will triumph, and then we will,” one Belarussian told AFP in
the heat of the protests. Ukraine’s “victory will inspire us.”
That’s just what Kaskiv and company are hoping for.
“The main thing that these people need… is a psychological base, an
example that gives you a point of support and the confidence that
change is possible,” Kaskiv said.
“For me personally the situation in Georgia had a huge psychological
impact. Because it confirmed that everything is possible.”
Kaskiv dismissed suggestions that Ukraine’s example would lead Russia
and others to clamp down on the groups and take them out.
“We had the same thing here. But as soon as they began to tighten the
screws, we attracted support from business, the intelligentsia,
bureaucrats… The situation just detonated the process.”