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UKRAINIAN PREMIER URGES POLITICAL REFORM BEFORE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. Prime Minister and presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych told journalists on 31 August that there is a need to introduce constitutional amendments changing the political system in Ukraine before the 31 October presidential ballot, Interfax reported. "Political reform has matured and it needs to be instituted, and we will do everything to make political reform happen," Yanukovych said. Meanwhile, Viktor Yushchenko, Yanukovych's main rival in the race, said on 30 August during a campaign trip in Kyiv Oblast that it is illegal for the Verkhovna Rada to repeatedly consider political reform. In April, the government was six votes short of the 300 votes required for the approval of a controversial political-reform bill. In June, the parliament preliminary approved another constitutional-reform bill, which, according to the opposition Our Ukraine and Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, is essentially the same as the bill rejected in April. JM
WILL UKRAINE'S CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION NUMBER BALLOTS FOR PRESIDENTIAL VOTE? Political scientist Ihor Berkut told UNIAN on 31 August that the Central Election Commission's intention to print ballots for the presidential vote with numbers is "a technique oriented toward breaking the secrecy of voting." Berkut was commenting on Central Election Commission Chairman Serhiy Kivalov's statement on the ICTV channel on 29 August announcing that each ballot for the presidential vote will be given a specific number and an additional number of the polling station at which the ballot will be used. According to Kivalov, such numbering will eliminate the possibilities to rig the vote by replacing real ballots with falsified ones. "There is another danger, however," Berkut said. "Imagine that the same numbers are marked down on voting lists. Then it is easy to identify who voted for whom." JM
UKRAINIAN LAWMAKER WANTS OSCE TO TRIPLE NUMBER OF ELECTION MONITORS. Lawmaker Borys Tarasyuk -- leader of the Popular Rukh of Ukraine (NRU), a component of Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc -- has said that the OSCE should send at least 2,000 observers for the 31 October presidential election in Ukraine, the NRU press service reported on 30 August. "We are working with a number of governments to achieve that," Tarasyuk added. In July, the OSCE announced that it was planning to dispatch 650 observers for the presidential election in Ukraine (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 16 July 2004). JM
ROMANIA, UKRAINE CONTINUE TO BICKER OVER DANUBE CANAL. In an interview with Ukrainian Kanal 5 TV, former Ambassador to Romania Anton Buteyko said Romania and not Ukraine is polluting the Danube, the BBC's website reported on 30 August. He did not elaborate, but added that Romania's protests against the canal are clear signs of artificially mounting tensions between the two countries, as Romania was slow in reacting to the project. Romania recently announced it will file a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Ukraine's opening of a shipping canal in the Danube Delta (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 August 2004). In related news, the Romanian Senate on 30 August postponed voting on the ratification of a 2002 treaty between the two countries on juridical relations in civil cases. Ruling Social Democratic Party Senator Adrian Paunescu asked for the postponement because of Ukraine's "ecological aggression" against Romania. ZsM
Many Russian nationalists in Moscow are inclined to see the regime of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in a positive light, as someone whose policies they prefer to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But at least some Russians in Belarus have a very different opinion about the Belarusian leader, viewing him as overseeing a regime openly hostile to the 1.5 million ethnic Russians who live in his country.
This difference -- and it is far from trivial -- casts doubt on some of the assumptions both Moscow and Western governments have made about Belarus and suggests that Belarusian national identity may be far stronger than many had assumed.
Praise of Lukashenka by Russian nationalists inside Russia has been so frequent and enthusiastic that it is now generally passed over in silence or seen as yet another indication of the fundamental authoritarianism of the Russian right. But criticism of Lukashenka by Russian nationalists inside Belarus has seldom attracted much notice. That makes a letter and an essay written by Vladimir G. Mikhailov of Minsk and published on the St. Petersburg-based Orthodox Information Agency "Russkaya liniya" website (http://www.rusk.ee) so intriguing.
In his letter to this website, Mikhailov argues that "In the Republic of Belarus, just as in the Baltic countries, the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] violates an elementary human right -- the right to one's own name by forcibly changing Russian first names and family names into their Belarusian equivalents."
In the view of the Belarusian passport and visa service, Mikhailov reports, Russian names must be converted into their Belarusian equivalents, not simply transcribed from the Russian Cyrillic to the Belarusian Cyrillic. Thus, the Russian "Anna" becomes Belarusian "Hanna," the Russian "Grigorii" becomes the Belarusian "Ryhor," the Russian "Mikhailov" becomes the Belarusian "Mikhaylau," and the Russian "Putin" becomes the Belarusian "Putsin."
In the essay accompanying his letter, Mikhailov suggests that there are three reasons why ethnic Russians in Belarus and ethnic Russians in Russia should be outraged by this practice.
First, the practice violates the Belarusian Constitution, Belarusian law, and repeated declarations by Belarusian officials but nonetheless continues with extremely negative consequences for anyone who refuses to go along with it.
Indeed, says Mikhailov, the Belarusian government, as far as the public record is concerned, looks to be on the side of the "angels," but in fact, he notes, the situation in his country is "practically analogous to those of Lithuania and Latvia." And those who refuse to go along may be fined, jailed, or prevented from practicing their trade or continuing to live where they have long been resident.
Second, this Belarusian practice, Mikhailov said, is applied only to ethnic Russians and not to any other ethnic group in the country. Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, and representatives of every other ethnic group in Belarus, Mikhailov said, are allowed to register for passports, residence permits, and other forms by transliterating their names rather than replacing their national names with Belarusian ones. That makes the practice directed against ethnic Russians all the more unexpected and all the more exasperating, he insisted.
Third, the Belarusian authorities, the Belarusian opposition, and the Russian media in Russia have seldom discussed this problem, thereby making it virtually impossible for ethnic Russians in Belarus to protest against this forcible reidentification of ethnic Russians by the Belarusian government.
Indeed, Mikhailov suggests that there has been a virtual conspiracy of media silence on this point, citing a rare Belarusian television program about it in March 2004 as the exception that proves the rule and as the reason for ethnic Russian passivity in and around Belarus.
But, Mikhailov continues, the situation is even worse, and Russians in Russia need to know about it. He said that for the last two years he has been sending an appeal, signed by 300 ethnic Russians in Belarus, to all senior officials and agencies of the Belarusian government.
Not only has he not received an answer to his petition, but he has discovered a strange catch-22 situation in the Belarusian judicial system: The only court with the authority to overrule the Interior Ministry, the Constitutional Court, is one that he -- as a Belarusian citizen -- cannot appeal to directly. As a result, Mikhailov and his fellow ethnic Russians face an unpalatable situation. They can either agree to have their names translated into Belarusian as Interior Ministry officials insist or they can refuse and face the legal difficulties almost certain to follow.
What is interesting about this cri de couer of a Russian nationalist in Belarus is not so much the problem he discusses but rather the light it sheds on the attitudes of Belarusian officials, a group many in both Moscow and the West view as more or less committed Russian nationalists. Instead, if Mikhailov is right about what is going on, at least some of them may be more nationalist than anyone suspected -- and that in a country where, as Mikhailov suggests, "even in the cemeteries you won't find any names written in Belarusian."
Many Russian nationalists in Moscow are inclined to see the regime of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in a positive light, as someone whose policies they prefer to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But at least some Russians in Belarus have a very different opinion about the Belarusian leader, viewing him as overseeing a regime openly hostile to the 1.5 million ethnic Russians who live in his country.
This difference -- and it is far from trivial -- casts doubt on some of the assumptions both Moscow and Western governments have made about Belarus and suggests that Belarusian national identity may be far stronger than many had assumed.
Praise of Lukashenka by Russian nationalists inside Russia has been so frequent and enthusiastic that it is now generally passed over in silence or seen as yet another indication of the fundamental authoritarianism of the Russian right. But criticism of Lukashenka by Russian nationalists inside Belarus has seldom attracted much notice. That makes a letter and an essay written by Vladimir G. Mikhailov of Minsk and published on the St. Petersburg-based Orthodox Information Agency "Russkaya liniya" website (http://www.rusk.ee) so intriguing.
In his letter to this website, Mikhailov argues that "In the Republic of Belarus, just as in the Baltic countries, the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] violates an elementary human right -- the right to one's own name by forcibly changing Russian first names and family names into their Belarusian equivalents."
In the view of the Belarusian passport and visa service, Mikhailov reports, Russian names must be converted into their Belarusian equivalents, not simply transcribed from the Russian Cyrillic to the Belarusian Cyrillic. Thus, the Russian "Anna" becomes Belarusian "Hanna," the Russian "Grigorii" becomes the Belarusian "Ryhor," the Russian "Mikhailov" becomes the Belarusian "Mikhaylau," and the Russian "Putin" becomes the Belarusian "Putsin."
In the essay accompanying his letter, Mikhailov suggests that there are three reasons why ethnic Russians in Belarus and ethnic Russians in Russia should be outraged by this practice.
First, the practice violates the Belarusian Constitution, Belarusian law, and repeated declarations by Belarusian officials but nonetheless continues with extremely negative consequences for anyone who refuses to go along with it.
Indeed, says Mikhailov, the Belarusian government, as far as the public record is concerned, looks to be on the side of the "angels," but in fact, he notes, the situation in his country is "practically analogous to those of Lithuania and Latvia." And those who refuse to go along may be fined, jailed, or prevented from practicing their trade or continuing to live where they have long been resident.
Second, this Belarusian practice, Mikhailov said, is applied only to ethnic Russians and not to any other ethnic group in the country. Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, and representatives of every other ethnic group in Belarus, Mikhailov said, are allowed to register for passports, residence permits, and other forms by transliterating their names rather than replacing their national names with Belarusian ones. That makes the practice directed against ethnic Russians all the more unexpected and all the more exasperating, he insisted.
Third, the Belarusian authorities, the Belarusian opposition, and the Russian media in Russia have seldom discussed this problem, thereby making it virtually impossible for ethnic Russians in Belarus to protest against this forcible reidentification of ethnic Russians by the Belarusian government.
Indeed, Mikhailov suggests that there has been a virtual conspiracy of media silence on this point, citing a rare Belarusian television program about it in March 2004 as the exception that proves the rule and as the reason for ethnic Russian passivity in and around Belarus.
But, Mikhailov continues, the situation is even worse, and Russians in Russia need to know about it. He said that for the last two years he has been sending an appeal, signed by 300 ethnic Russians in Belarus, to all senior officials and agencies of the Belarusian government.
Not only has he not received an answer to his petition, but he has discovered a strange catch-22 situation in the Belarusian judicial system: The only court with the authority to overrule the Interior Ministry, the Constitutional Court, is one that he -- as a Belarusian citizen -- cannot appeal to directly. As a result, Mikhailov and his fellow ethnic Russians face an unpalatable situation. They can either agree to have their names translated into Belarusian as Interior Ministry officials insist or they can refuse and face the legal difficulties almost certain to follow.
What is interesting about this cri de couer of a Russian nationalist in Belarus is not so much the problem he discusses but rather the light it sheds on the attitudes of Belarusian officials, a group many in both Moscow and the West view as more or less committed Russian nationalists. Instead, if Mikhailov is right about what is going on, at least some of them may be more nationalist than anyone suspected -- and that in a country where, as Mikhailov suggests, "even in the cemeteries you won't find any names written in Belarusian."