[14.03.03]

President, parliament, government

On March 13 President Kuchma signed the law on government control over international transfer of military and double purpose goods. The law was adopted in February and comes into force on the date of its publication.

On March 14 Kuchma visited Kharkiv and addressed the students clarifying his draft constitutional reform.

The opposition is disposed to believe that the only purpose of the reform is prolongation of the president's powers for some time (possibly till the year 2006). Although the draft does not contain such provisions, it deals with the change of the election time (prolongation of parliamentary powers to 5 years and their timing with presidential elections), which in principle provides the possibility for such interpretations. However, the probability that the parliament will support such changes in the constitution is negligible.

Kuchma expressed hope that the war in Iraq could be prevented.

The Cabinet of Ministers (March 16) endorsed and submitted to parliament its program of action.

Public actions

March 9 in Ukraine saw numerous rallies (103 cities and towns). The actions coincided with the birth anniversary of national poet Taras Shevchenko and the second anniversary of the opposition protest actions held on March 9, 2001 which ended in scuffles with the police and arrests of a number of the disturbance firebrands (in December 2002 they were sentenced to 2 to 5 years in prison).

The participants of the rally in Kiev demanded pre-term elections of Ukraine's president and urgent reformation of the power system. The resolutions of other meetings were similar.

According to police estimates some 30,000 people took part in the meetings across the country. The opposition quoted much higher figures, in particular, leader of the Socialist Party Oleksandr Moroz said at the meeting that in Kiev only the protest meeting rallied 150,000 people (the police estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 seems to be more realistic).

A new element in the situation was that the opposition resorted to citation on a broad scale of quotations from Shevchenko's poems including such as "break the chains and bless the freedom by shedding enemy's vicious blood", "and there will be no foe, no enemy on the restored land". In the context of the meetings it looked like calls for an armed uprising. At the same time all the rallies were held in good order in contrast to, for example, the events of March 9, 2002, and any incidents (even petty ones) were not recorded.

A memorial meeting commemorating Taras Shevchenko took place on the Chernecha Gora in Kaniv. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, minister of culture Yuriy Bohutskyi and head of regional administration V. Lyoshenko took part.

A protest action against the war in Iraq was held in Kiev on March 15 (some 300 people). Simultaneously about 10 persons held an action in support of the U.S..

External affairs

Kuwait on March 6 officially requested Kiev to dispatch a battalion of chemical, biological and radiological troops. The U.S. strongly insisted on this battalion deployment. The Iraqi ambassador to Ukraine expressed hope that Ukrainian parliament would not consent to its deployment.

The last air lift from Baghdad took place on March 10; the Russians and other citizens including Ukrainians were flown out. Ukraine's charge d'affaires a.i. returned to Kiev from Baghdad on March 11.

On March 9-11 minister of foreign affairs Anatoliy Zlenko visited Germany on invitation by Germany's minister of foreign affairs Joschka Fischer.

On March 7-10 President Leonid Kuchma visited Slovakia where he conducted negotiations with President Rudolf Shuster. A visa regime arrangement: a visa-free regime for Slovakia's nationals and free visas for Ukrainian citizens was a significant one. A similar regime, probably, will be set for Ukraine's relations with its other neighbors: Hungary and Poland. This topic at present is very important for Ukraine as these countries join the EU.

Kuchma criticized the EU's proposal to give Ukraine the status of "a neighbor". The European Union is developing the concept of a "circle of friends" with which it intends to conduct close cooperation.

On March 7 the 8th Session of the Mixed Ukrainian-Russian Commission on Cooperation took place in Moscow; the prime ministers took part in it and discussed integration issues. Russian premier Mikhail Kasianov said that Russia planed a broader integration with Ukraine than only the setting up of a free-trade zone.

On the same day first vice prime minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov referred to the resolution made by Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on the issue of the free-trade zone without exceptions and limitations, without the use in mutual trade of antidumping, compensation and special protection measures based on the common competition rules as a first-priority task in the creation of the common economic space.

A Ukrainian parliamentary delegation headed by lawmaker Boris Tarasyuk (a former minister of foreign affairs) made a visit to Poland. "The Volyn massacre" of 1943 was an important topic; the attitude to those tragic events still divides the two countries. (The Ukrainian-Polish conflict is meant here; as a result of this conflict tens of thousands of Polish and Ukrainian peasants died. As far as the Polish population is concerned it had the nature of ethnic cleansing).

On March 11 French ambassador Philippe de Suremain met with head of the government Viktor Yanukovich. It is believed that the main issue was France's interest to participate in the gas consortium.

Political parties, scandals

A new scandal flared up in the Verkhovna Rada. It was connected with alleged falsification of the 2003 budget of HUA 310 million (some US$ 60 million) that is 0.5%. The accusers called to fire head of the budget committee in parliament Petro Poroshenko (the Our Ukraine faction).

Some lawmakers state that falsification amounting to UAH 47 million has already been proved. Poroshenko's responds mainly boiled down to that the scandal was inspired by "certain political forces" interested in destabilization of parliament work and in the change in the distribution of parliamentary committees. (He clearly meant the Social-Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) which is the main political opponent of Our Ukraine).

The second faked "Viktor Yushchenko's letter" was disseminated in Western Ukraine. As in the first case its author (ostensibly Yushchenko) made clumsy denials of various accusations; in reality however the readers are reminded of Yushchenko's various sins.

Former lawmaker of Ukrainian parliament Oleksandr Yelyashkevich who at present resides in the U.S. opened a lawsuit in an American court against President Kuchma. Prospects of the litigation are not clear because regardless of the merits of accusation (Kuchma allegedly ordered to beat Yelyashkevich), the crime was committed in Ukraine and both the victim and the defendant are Ukraine's nationals.

On March 12 the Pechersk district court of Kiev sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment a person who masterminded an attack on the central synagogue (April 13, 2002). At the time several window panes were broken and the synagogue rector was beaten.

On March 11 a report came that the last autopsy conducted in Switzerland confirmed that the body found earlier belonged to murdered journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

The Institute of Cardio-Vascular Surgery, Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, was named after prominent surgeon and scientist Nikolai Amosov..

Ukraine keeps up high pace of economic growth

The official indicator of Ukraine's economic growth in 2002 was made more exact. The growth rate of the gross domestic product was 4.6% rather than 4.1%..

Such a rather substantial adjustment is related, first of all, to extremely slow operation pace of the outmoded and technologically poorly equipped statistical service of the country. Nevertheless, a new figure seriously changes, in a positive direction, the idea on development dynamics of Ukrainian economy last year.

In January-February of the current year substantial acceleration of industrial growth was recorded compared with the relevant period of the last year. Industrial products grew by 10.8%.

If in Russia the products growth occurs, first of all, at the expense of primary sectors (especially the oil and gas one), in Ukraine over recent years it is the manufacturing sector including machine building that accounts for industrial growth.

Ukraine easily repays its external debt

In March this year Ukraine paid $ 377 million as part of its external debt. According to information given by vice prime minister Mykola Azarov at present Ukraine has a strong financial position and it does not need foreign loans.

Despite the fact that in 2003 Ukraine will face more substantial foreign debt payments over all years of its independence, the experts rule out the possibility of any problems which may arise in connection with its servicing. External trade surplus and payment balance remain favorable; an intensive inflow of convertible currency to Ukraine is observed.

As a result, effectively each month record amounts of National Bank international gold and foreign exchange reserves are recorded. They make it possible to ensure fulfillment of debt obligations even in the case of some dramatic deterioration of the foreign economic situation.