[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 127 (Friday, October 8, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S10856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KYL (for himself, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Domenici):
  S. 2957. A bill to encourage the promotion of democracy, free, fair, 
and transparent elections, and respect for human rights and the rule of 
law in Ukraine, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the 
Ukraine Democracy and Fair Elections Act of 2004, designed to promote 
free, fair and transparent elections in Ukraine. Like the United 
States, Ukraine is currently in the midst of a presidential election 
campaign. There is, however, one glaring contrast--all indications are 
that the campaign in Ukraine is not fair, not free and not transparent.
  The U.S. government has sent a number of high level officials to 
Ukraine to tell retiring President Kuchma and Ukraine's Prime Minister 
Viktor Yanukovych--who is Kuchma's endorsed presidential candidate--
that free and fair elections are essential to Ukraine's standing with 
the United States. Similarly, European governments have called upon 
Ukraine to hold free and fair elections. But, unfortunately, it appears 
that abuses of Ukraine's campaign laws are rapidly escalating.
  Ukrainian government officials have continued, without pause, an 
aggressive offensive against their opposition. Together with oligarch 
beneficiaries of the Kuchma-Yanukovych government they have denied the 
opposition access to national media, they have intimidated campaign 
workers and opposition supporters at work and at home, they have tried 
to prohibit opposition assemblies, and have stopped buses on the way to 
opposition rallies. They make a mockery of Ukrainian laws by using 
government resources to promote the Yanukovych candidacy, and they are 
aggressively manipulating Ukrainian election laws to ensure that they 
control the election commission at each of the 40,000 polling place in 
the country.
  What is at stake here is the future of democracy and perhaps 
independence in Ukraine as well as significant United States national 
interests in a region that we helped liberate from Communist tyranny 
just 15 years ago.
  The legislation that I am introducing would prevent senior government 
officials, who are personally involved in suppressing free and fair 
elections in Ukraine, from obtaining visas to the United States, and 
would seize the assets of these corrupt officials, unless the U.S. 
President certifies the elections as free and fair. The objective is to 
target directly those individuals responsible for the corruption, not 
the Ukrainian people as a whole. I would note that similar legislation 
has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative 
Dana Rohrabacher of California.
  I hope this will send a clear message that we stand with the free and 
democratic people of Ukraine, but not with those who would pervert 
democracy.
                                 ______