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UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION ACCUSES AUTHORITIES OF POLITICAL TERROR. Our Ukraine, the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, and the Socialist Party of Ukraine issued a statement on 6 November charging that "the current authority headed by President [Leonid] Kuchma is acquiring traits of a gangster dictatorship," Interfax reported. The three organizations charge that "the presidential administration, local state administrations, [and] law enforcement bodies have been turned into a repression machine against political opponents." The statement says foiling the planned Our Ukraine congress in Donetsk on 31 October (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 5 November 2003) revealed the real face of the "criminal regime" in Ukraine and showed that Donetsk is "outlaw territory" and a "reservation" inhabited by "wretched people without any rights." The statement demands that all officials involved in "the organization of the repression of democratic forces" in Donetsk be dismissed. JM

UKRAINIAN MINISTER, DEPUTY PROSECUTOR-GENERAL TO REPORT ON DONETSK EVENTS. The Verkhovna Rada will question Interior Minister Mykola Bilokon and First Deputy Prosecutor-General Serhiy Vynokurov about reports that anti-Our Ukraine protesters were "using fascist symbols" and "fomenting ethnic antagonism" in Donets on 31 October (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 5 November 2003), Interfax reported on 7 November. A formal query was submitted by Our Ukraine lawmaker Mykola Tomenko and communicated at a parliamentary session on 7 November by parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. The Constitutional Court ruled this week that deputies' interpellations of the state authority or local self-government do not require approval of the entire chamber. The same court decided, however, that voting is required to interpellate the Ukrainian president. JM

KYIV WILL WEIGH SINGLE ECONOMIC SPACE ONLY AFTER SETTLING DAM CONTROVERSY WITH MOSCOW. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Hryschenko told journalists in Kyiv on 6 November that Ukraine will consider the ratification of an agreement on the formation of a Single Economic Space with Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus only after resolving the dispute over the construction of a dam in the Kerch Strait by Russia (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 6 November 2003), Interfax reported. Hryshchenko asserted that Ukraine is interested in determining the status of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait as soon as possible on the basis of international law. Asked if Russians have to pay large fees for passing through the Kerch Strait, Hryshchenko said the Ukrainian state does not apply any duties, as all fees go to the Kerch port authority. He said the fees are not large, adding that the issue is not serious enough to be raised in talks with Moscow. JM

POLISH CEMETERY OPENED IN UKRAINE. A Polish cemetery was opened near Rivne in northwestern Ukraine on 6 November, Polish Radio reported. The cemetery is located at the site where in March 1943 a unit of Nazis and Ukrainian police collaborators razed the Polish village of Borszczowka and murdered virtually all of its inhabitants. Those who managed to escape the slaughter included the father of Poland's current first lady, Jolanta Kwasniewska. Two of Kwasniewska's relatives were killed and buried in a collective grave near Borszczowka in 1943. "This was exceptionally painful to me, when we were able to light candles and lay flowers in many places around the world but had no such possibility in the place where our close ones were murdered," Kwasniewska said during the opening ceremony. An inscription at the cemetery reads, "To those brutally murdered by fascists," since the Ukrainian side disagreed with a formulation saying that the crime was committed by Germans and Ukrainians, according to Polish Radio. JM

ROMANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS MOLDOVA HAS MADE 'TACTICAL ERROR'... Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said in Chisinau on 6 November that Moldova made a "tactical error" by sharpening the tone of its latest attacks on Romania, Romanian Radio reported. Geoana, who attended the meeting of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers (CECM) in Moldova's capital, told journalists that Bucharest is taking a "prudent" attitude toward these attacks and hopes they will soon be forgotten. Geoana said Romania has positively reacted to Moldova's request to have its $15 million debt for energy deliveries restructured and has rescheduled payments over a period of eight years. Geoana also said no other country is more interested in a resolution of the Transdniester conflict than Romania, as that conflict affects the security of its own borders, Infotag reported. He also said that for now, the current format of the negotiations involving three mediators (Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE) should be preserved. Romania, he said, might be ready to join a postconflict peacekeeping mission alongside other countries and organizations. The EU, he added, "could play an essential, possibly crucial" role in such a mission. MS