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Taras Kuzio: Did Ukraine's Security Service Really Prevent Bloodshed during the Orange Revolution?
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Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
<http://jamestown.org/images/edm_banner2.jpg>
Monday, January 24, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 16
Did Ukraine's Secret Service Really Prevent Bloodshed during the Orange Revolution?
-Taras Kuzio
On January 17, the New York Times published a sensational expose alleging
that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had been key to preventing
bloodshed during the Orange Revolution. The article was translated for
Ukrayinska Pravda the same day and has unleashed a debate as to whether the
allegations are true or an attempt at whitewashing the SBU in time for
Viktor Yushchenko's presidency.
The issue of whether bloodshed was contemplated is crucial to understanding
the success of the Orange Revolution. In both the Serbian (November 2000)
and Georgian (October-November 2003) democratic revolutions the security
forces either stayed neutral or defected to the opposition. In October
Russian political technologist Marat Gelman, who worked on Viktor
Yanukovych's campaign, ruled out a Georgian scenario in Ukraine, predicting
that the security forces would stay loyal to the authorities (Ukrayinska
pravda, October 29, 2004). This prediction was wrong, and Eurasia Daily
Monitor (December 1) was the first to identify the growing defection of
security forces as likely to lead to a victory for the Orange Revolution.
A majority of the SBU did prefer Yushchenko to his main opponent, Viktor
Yanukovych. For example, some 80% of officers enrolled in the SBU Academy in
Kyiv voted for Yushchenko (Zerkalo nedeli, November 20-26, 2004). Throughout
the election campaign the Yushchenko camp had excellent contacts with the
SBU, which gave them (and Eurasia Daily Monitor) internal documents from the
Yanukovych camp. But, this was also true of the Interior Ministry, whose
personnel kept relaying to the Yushfchenko camp their opposition to using
force against protestors.
Elements of the SBU taped Yanukovych's "shadow campaign" headquarters and
the audiotapes were given over to the Yushchenko camp immediately after
round two. On November 25 the SBU issued a statement affirming their
opposition to the official results that had declared a Yanukovych victory
and stating their readiness to defend the protestors.
Nevertheless, four factors work against the New York Times expose's ability
to improve the image of SBU chief Ihor Smeshko. Already allegations have
been raised that the article was merely a public relations exercise for
Smeshko (oligarch.net, January 20).
First, outgoing president Leonid Kuchma is also claiming credit for not
ordering a violent crackdown. Kuchma "guaranteed" that there would be no
violent crackdown "under any circumstances" (UNIAN, November 11, 2004).
Former deputy presidential administration head Vasyl Baziv revealed that it
was actually Yanukovych and presidential administration head Viktor
Medvedchuk who lobbied for a violent crackdown. The duo are undoubtedly the
same officials who attempted to move Interior Troops to Kyiv.
Besides Yanukovych and Medvedchuk, then-Prosecutor-General Hennadiy Vasilyev
issued a statement on November 22, one day after round two, calling upon the
authorities and the SBU to "firmly put an end to lawlessness." Three days
later he ordered a criminal case to be launched against Yushchenko and his
ally, Yulia Tymoshenko for their "seizure of power." The order was never
issued, because Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Holomsha refused to
implement it and was removed on November 29.
After he resigned on December 8, Vasilyev was interviewed and continued to
refuse to describe the protests as a "revolution," instead calling them
"compete bedlam" (Donetskiye novosti, January 10). Like his close ally
Yanukovych, Vasilyev believes that Yushchenko seized power in a coup d'etat
and that the authorities should have resisted the protests in the first week
of the Orange Revolution.
Are Kuchma and Smeshko really though, the "good guys" and Yanukovych,
Medvedchuk, and Vasilyev the "bad guys"? The Ukrainian authorities
completely under-estimated the number of protestors in the crucial first
days after round two when they could have ostensibly blocked the movement of
protestors traveling to Kyiv.
Last summer Kuchma cynically recalled how the opposition had threatened him
with 200,000 protestors during the Kuchmagate protests in 2000-2003 but had
never mustered more than 20,000-50,000 (Den, July 20, 2004). Consequently
the SBU never expected more than 15,000-20,000 protestors to hit Kyiv's
streets after elections fraud. The Ukrainian authorities also repeatedly
stated that Ukraine was not the same as Georgia and that no revolution would
take place in Ukraine.
It would have been one thing to put down 20,000-50,000 protestors and
another 500,000 to a million. The first could have been done without
bloodshed through the use of truncheons, water cannons, and tear gas but the
second could not have. By November 28 the authorities not only faced larger
protests than they had expected but also could not count wholeheartedly on
the loyalty of the security forces. Unlike the smaller protests, this crowd
could not be put down without bloodshed.
Ukraine's most important Western military district (with its headquarters in
Yushchenko's Lviv stronghold) defected to Yushchenko early on, as did much
of the Interior Ministry. Sending 10,000 Internal Troops against the
protestors would have been too few to deal with such large crowds, and they
would have been met by overwhelming resistance from pro-Yushchenko
protestors and security forces.
Perhaps then the commander of Ukraine's Internal Troops, Lt-Gen. Serhiy
Popkov, is being truthful when he says the movement of Internal Troops on
November 28 was merely an "exercise" (Segodnya, December 16). Not
surprisingly, speaking in defense of Smeshko, Vitaly Romanchenko, head of
the SBU's military counterintelligence, confirmed the New York Times report
that this was not a drill but a move on Kyiv (Segodnya, January 18).
But beyond civil war, the New York Times notes, a violent crackdown could
also have led to a 1989 Romanian-style revolution in which the country's
leader is executed.
Second, the expose raises suspicions that Smeshko is seeking to distance
himself from his former deputy chairman, Oleksandr Satsyuk. Yushchenko
believes he was poisoned during a dinner at Satsyuk's home; Smeshko also
attended that fateful dinner. Satsyuk resigned from the SBU and has returned
to parliament, where he enjoys immunity.
Third, under Smeshko the SBU began to return to KGB-style tactics against
the opposition. Instructions were sent to SBU officers stationed in
Ukrainian embassies to place opposition members and even parliamentary
deputies under surveillance if they visited abroad.
Long-time SBU officer Oleksandr Tsvil defected in early 2004 to protest
these orders, which he believed to be illegal. Tsvil returned to Ukraine
during the elections and released his memoirs, In the Center of the Cassette
Scandal. Parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn also complained that he and
his family were placed under SBU surveillance through verbal orders issued
by Deputy Chairman Satsyuk (Silski visti, October 8, 2004).
Fourth, Tsvil had worked alongside presidential guard Mykola Melnychenko
whose illicit tape recordings had led to the Kuchmagate scandal in November
2000. Melnychenko, who is planning to follow Tsvil's example and return to
Ukraine, claims that he was advised four times officially (presumably by the
FBI) that his life was in danger. Melnychenko claimed that these threats
"came directly from SBU head Smeshko" (Ukrayinska pravda, January 18).
The New York Times expose brings together many different strands concerning
the attitudes of the security forces to the Orange Revolution. But it fails
to make a convincing case that Smeshko saved Ukraine from bloodshed. The
credit for this should go to Yushchenko and Ukraine's Orange Revolution
protestors who practiced non-violence.
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