[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10646-S10648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE LEADERSHIP IN UKRAINE
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the current leadership in Ukraine, led by
President Leonid Kuchma, has been one of unmet promises. Failed efforts
at economic reform, violent repression of independent media; and a rise
in government corruption and cronyism has robbed the citizens of
Ukraine of the bright future they deserve.
Ukraine is a vital country of 48 million people in the heart of
Europe. A Europe whole, free and secure cannot be achieved without
Ukraine's integration into Europe. However, I have become convinced
that the actions of Ukraine's President Kuchma have demonstrated to the
people of Ukraine and the world that their integration cannot be
achieved with Kuchma at the helm.
Secret recordings made by a former security guard, who is now seeking
asylum in the United States, raise suspicions that President Kuchma had
knowledge of or involvement in the brutal murder of journalist Gyorgi
Gongadze. This callous act shows that he will stop at nothing to
repress the opposition and independent media who challenge his control.
As the United States and the international community are striving to
eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass
destruction, evidence shows that President Kuchma approved the sale of
the Kolchuga radar--an advanced system whose purpose is to threaten
U.S. aircraft in violation of United Nations sanctions. The State
Department recently confirmed the authenticity of an audio recording of
President Kuchma approving the sale of a Kochulga radar system to Iraq
in July 2000. Iraq has fired anti-aircraft missiles at coalition
aircraft and while our expert pilots are trained to counter such
measures, the Kolchuga radar system gives a boost to Iraqi air defenses
by detecting approaching aircraft without tipping off the pilots.
Ukraine remains important to the United States, we must stand firm
with the people and the brave reformers who hope for a better day for
Ukraine. However, President Kuchma's day has passed. He deserves
nothing more than what his actions bring him, isolation.
In bilateral meetings the United States should continue to meet at a
ministerial level and in important multilateral organizations we should
strive for the same. This includes NATO. At NATO's Prague Summit next
month, the scheduled NATO-Ukraine Council meeting is an important
opportunity for NATO and Ukraine to look for greater cooperation. On a
range of issues, Ukraine has certain assets such as strategic lift
which could be beneficial to our European NATO allies who lack such
capabilities. NATO should conduct this meeting at the Ministerial level
rather than at a Presidential level and send an important signal to the
government of Ukraine. To do otherwise would result in President Bush
sitting two seats down from a corrupt leader who is arming Iraq at a
Summit which will likely focus on a possible war with Iraq.
I ask unanimous consent that the following articles that appeared in
the Wall Street Journal on October 9, and The Washington Post on August
8 and September 22 be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 9, 2002]
Ukraine's Rogue President
(By Adrian Karatnycky)
In his speech Monday night, President Bush laid out the
threat posed by the Iraqi regime should it be able to ``buy,
produce or
[[Page S10647]]
steal'' the ingredients for a nuclear weapon. But while the
idea that any nation would willingly aid the murderous
intentions of Saddam Hussein has long seem far-fetched, the
possibility hit close to home in recent days.
Just a week before the speech, the Bush administration
confirmed that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma had approved
the sale of an antiaircraft radar system to Iraq. President
Kuchma's decision, in clear violation of United Nations
sanctions, may be the first sign of complications with loose
technology in the states of the former Soviet Union.
deadly know-how for iraq
Although Ukraine destroyed its last nuclear missile silo
last year, the country is still an institutional repository
of deadly know-how. It had also, up until last week, been
considered a irreproachable friend of the U.S. But the
revelation creates doubts which could fundamentally alter the
U.S.'s relationship with Ukraine, and particularly with its
president. Although Mr. Kuchma has denied any involvement in
a sale and offered a joint investigation, the FBI has
authenticated a tape of the Ukrainian president and his arms-
export chief hatching the scheme.
Far from being any old technology, the radar system in
question could make a significant difference for Iraq. If the
U.S. goes to war, Mr. Kuchma will have tried to provide
deadly technology that could cost the lives of American
pilots. Whatever the next steps taken against Iraq, Ukraine's
president cannot escape without paying a heavy price. If the
U.S. succeeds in installing a rigorous U.N. inspections
regime, an example must be made of Mr. Kuchma to ensure
international compliance with anti-Iraq sanctions.
President Bush's anger over the plot by a country that was
once the third biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid is said
to be palpable. U.S. officials suggest Mr. Bush is especially
livid that Mr. Kuchma plotted the sale to Iraq just before a
summit in 2000 with President Clinton, where the U.S.-Ukraine
``strategic partnership'' was celebrated. U.S. officials
responsible for Ukraine policy are also indicating they
believe Ukraine's ``Kolchuha'' early-warning radar system has
been deployed in Iraq, suggesting there is some intelligence
data to reach such a conclusion.
The new Iraq revelations come in the wake of incriminating
details contained in hundreds of additional hours of
clandestinely taped conversations of Mr. Kuchma's meetings
recorded and smuggled out of the country by his former
bodyguard who lives in exile in the U.S. These depict a crude
and venal leader at the center of corrupt and criminal
behavior. Several of the conversations have been
authenticated by the Virginia-based voice analysis firm Bek
Tech, headed by a former FBI operative.
The behavior appears to fit a pattern. Mr. Kuchma's Ukraine
has emerged as a leading supply source for illicit traffic in
global arms. In defiance of a U.N. embargo, arms and
ammunition of Ukrainian origin have been seized in the
weapons caches of Unita guerrillas in Angola. Widespread
allegations suggest Ukrainian weapons breached a mid- 1990s
arms embargo in the former Yugoslavia and helped equip
Afghanistan's Taliban. In 1997, Nigerian authorities alleged
that Ukraine was involved in the sale of three aircraft
fighters to rebels from Sierra Leone.
For years, Ukrainian officials strenuously denied that the
illegal arms trade was officially sanctioned. But the
authenticated Kuchma tape suggests that while Ukraine is not
a rogue state, it has a rogue president. Apart from the Iraq
conversation, there is a tape of a meeting between Mr. Kuchma
and Oleksander Zhukov, a reputed underworld figure with ties
to Leonid Minin, a suspected international arms dealer.
Mr. Kuchma's credibility with the U.S. has been pulverized
in recent months. In the summer of 2001, the Ukrainian
president apparently lied to National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice in asserting that Ukraine supported a
``political solution'' to the ethnic conflict in Macedonia.
All the while--with his approval--Ukraine persisted in
shipping weapons to the Macedonian government.
In response to U.S. pressure, Ukraine's legislature will
launch an investigation into the Iraq sale. But the
legislature has refused to investigate an array of alleged
crimes involving the president, including the unsolved
murder in 2000 of opposition journalist Gyorgi Gonzadze.
With the next presidential election coming in two years,
the best hope for Ukraine--and for the U.S.--is in pressuring
Mr. Kuchma to step aside quietly in favor of early elections.
Demonstrations, which began last month and drew nearly
100,000 protestors nationwide, are scheduled to start up
again later this month.
For Ukraine's president to exit the scene, protests against
him must widen--71% of Ukrainians tell pollsters he should
go. The reformist former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko,
must try to woo Mr. Kuchma's wavering supporters, among them
oligarchs and regional leaders, to support a transition.
Diplomatic isolation of Mr. Kuchma by the U.S. and Europe
must be airtight and confined to the president and his
corrupt cronies, not the entire Ukrainian government or
nation. Finally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stands
by Mr. Kuchma, must be convinced that Russian interests would
be better served by a reformist-led coalition government
including significant representation from Ukraine's pro-
Russian eastern regions.
The current U.S. review of its Ukraine policy must include
initiatives that help encourage these trends while ensuring
that change is constitutional and peaceful.
For months, Ukraine's rumor mills have been working
overtime with hints that a deal to pave the way for a post-
Kuchma Ukraine is in the works. One possible compromise would
be to give Mr. Kuchma blanket amnesty for past
transgressions. Even Yuliya Tymoshenko, a former economic
magnate and deputy prime minister who is Mr. Kuchma's most
bitter enemy, supports such a deal. As she told me several
months ago, ``If one criminal can sleep easily so that the
rest of the country can sleep well, then so be it.''
russia's cynical embrace
If Mr. Kuchma resigns, Ukraine's Iraq-gate will have borne
positive fruit. If he does not, the U.S. will confront two
problems: Ukraine's president will demonstrate to other
leaders that you can conspire with Iraq and get away with it.
And Mr. Kuchma's inevitable isolation will drive Ukraine, a
strategically important country of 50 million that sits on
NATO's eastern frontier, into Russia's cynical embrace.
Both outcomes would cause headaches for Europe and the U.S.
But the worst would be if Ukraine's movement toward Europe,
democracy and the rule of law is hijacked by Mr. Kuchma's
insistence on remaining in office.
____
[From the Washington Post, Aug. 8, 2002]
Ukraine and the West
NATO's coming eastward expansion and its new partnership
with Russia have prompted a major change in direction by one
of Europe's largest and most unsettled nations, Ukraine. A
country of more than 50 million people that is still
struggling to gain its political and economic footing after a
decade of independence, Ukraine has abruptly dropped its
longstanding policy of balancing itself between the West and
Russia. Its government recently requested talks on becoming a
full member of both NATO and the European Union. The reaction
has been guarded: Both European governments and the Bush
administration seem unsure whether Ukraine should be a part
of the Western alliance in the future, and there is
resistance even to upgrading its relations with the EU. But
Ukraine is too big to be safely kept on the back burner. The
United States and Europe must formulate a clear answer. In
some respects, the question of what to do about Ukraine seems
easy. Given its huge size, strategic location in southern and
central Europe and relatively sophisticated industrial
economy, Ukraine is a natural member of the translational
organizations that are slowly spreading across the continent.
Without Ukraine, the longstanding Western goal of a Europe
``whole and free'' will remain incomplete; without an anchor
in those institutions, the country's long-term stability and
even its viability as an independent nation could be
seriously threatened. Yet Ukraine as it exists today is a
most difficult partner for the West to take on. Its economy
remains a post-Communist shambles, and though it is nominally
a democracy its president, Leonid Kuchma, has frequently
resorted to thuggish tactics. His own poll ratings are in
single digits, but Mr. Kuchma managed to manipulate a recent
parliamentary election so that his cronies, rather than
opposition parties that won 70 percent of the popular vote,
maintained control.
Of even greater concern in Ukraine's involvement in
improper arms trafficking and service as a transit point for
illegal drugs and other contraband. Floating Western appeals,
Ukraine's big weapons companies have shipped arms to
Macedonia, Serbia and East Africa; secretly recorded
audiotapes suggest that Mr. Kuchma himself at least discussed
selling sophisticated antiaircraft systems to Iraq. Iraq
recently opened an embassy in Kiev and announced it was
interested in purchasing Ukrainian industrial goods and
technology.
The Bush administration and most European governments have
steadily distanced themselves from Mr. Kuchma. Congress has
reduced U.S. aid. Some officials argue that Ukraine should
not be invited even to begin discussions with NATO on
conditions for becoming a member, at least as long as Mr.
Kuchma and his cronies are in power. But NATO, which has laid
out comprehensive and detailed reform programs for each of
the countries seeking membership offers later this year,
could also provide a structure for long-term change by
Ukraine. A dialogue could constructively begin on such issues
as arms sales, drug trafficking and military reform, with the
understanding that these are the first steps in a membership
preparation process that could extend for a decade. Making
countries such as Ukraine fit for the club of Western
democracies may not be NATO's first purpose, but the alliance
is the best vehicle that exists for managing what is,
ultimately, a transition vital to long-term European
security.
____
[From the Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2002]
Unfinished Business in Europe
(By Michael McFaul)
President Bush has made a strong commitment to a distinct
tradition in international diplomacy by stating repeatedly
that the United States has a strategic interest in regime
change in Iraq. If Iraq changes from
[[Page S10648]]
dictatorship to democracy, so the argument goes, then Iraq
will follow a friendlier foreign policy toward the United
States.
To make his case, Bush has a powerful historical experience
to draw upon: the end of the Cold War. Regime change in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fundamentally enhanced
American national security. If Iraq possessed Russia's
nuclear arsenal today, the United States would be in grave
danger. Two decades ago we feared this same arsenal in the
hands of the Kremlin. Today we do not. The reason we do not
is that the regime in Russia has become more democratic and
market-oriented and therefore also more Western-oriented.
Unfortunately, the task of promoting democratic regime change
in the former Soviet Union is not complete. In rightly
focusing on how to promote democratic regimes in the Muslim
world, the Bush administration is failing to complete the
consolidation of capitalism and democracy in the former
communist world and the integration of these new democracies
into the Western community of democratic states.
To assume that this process of democratization and
integration will march forward without American prodding is
misguided. First, the lines between East and West in Europe
are beginning to harden, not fade. After the next round of
expansion, the European Union is very unlikely to offer
membership to countries farther to the east in the near
future. Bureaucrats in Brussels simply laugh when the idea of
Russian or Ukrainian membership in the EU is raised. NATO has
moved more aggressively to extend its borders eastward, but
it too will become fatigued and inwardly focused after the
next round of expansion. If the prospect of membership in
NATO and the EU can no longer be considered a foreign policy
goal for those left out of the next wave of expansion, then
the pull of the West will diminish.
Second, democratization on the periphery of Europe has
stalled. A dictator who praises Stalin and Hitler runs
Belarus. President Vladimir Putin has weakened democratic
institutions and grossly violated the human rights of his own
citizens in Chechnya in his attempt to build ``managed
democracy'' in Russia. In Ukraine, President Leonid Kuchma
aspires to create the same level of state control over the
democratic process as Putin has achieved in Russia to ensure
a smooth--that is, Kuchma-friendly--transition of power when
his term ends in 2004. In contrast to Russia, Ukraine has a
vibrant democratic opposition, whose leader, Viktor
Yuschenko, is likely to win a free and fair presidential
election. This vote in 2004 will be free and fair, however,
only if the West is watching. Only in Moldova has
authorization creep been avoided, but that's because of the
weakness of the state, hardly a condition conducive to long-
term democratic consolidation.
Over time, the combination of a closing Western border and
growing authoritar- ianism on the Eastern side of this wall
spells disaster for American security interests in the
region. As the United States gears up to create new regimes
with a democratic and Western orientation in the Middle East,
it may be losing the gains of similar efforts of democratic
promotion in the communist world during the Cold War.
Obviously, President Bush's foreign policy team is
overworked and focused now on Iraq. Nonetheless, the United
States should be able to conduct more than one foreign policy
at the same time. In numerous speeches, Bush has already
outlined his grand strategy for foreign policy. He has stated
repeatedly that the United States should champion freedom and
liberty for people around the world, and when necessary even
promote regime change in those countries that do not offer
their citizens basic democratic rights. To be a successful
and credible doctrine, however, this strategy must be applied
consistently.
When diplomatic historians look back on the 1990s, they
should describe it as the era of European integration. They
will do so, however, only if the project is completed. As the
Bush administration begins the process of promoting
democratic regime change along a new frontier in the Muslim
world, it must also finish the job on the European frontier.
The writer, a Hoover Fellow and professor of political
science at Stanford University, is a senior associate at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
____________________