Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Maidan

Early on Saturday morning I walked from the apartment I am renting on Horodetskoho to the Maidan where I intended to use the Internet Café in the Main Post Office. To my surprise, the Khreshchatyk and Maidan were blocked by Internal Troops from the Interior Ministry. What a sight, I thought to myself, that the Militia unit that fought against the UPA in the 1940s (NKVD Internal Troops) is now itself “protecting” the Orange Revolution Maidan from the UPA!? The UPA veterans and their supporters were prevented from marching on the Khreshchatyk.
Is it not time to rename the Internal Troops to a National Guard (or as in Spain or Italy, a Civil Guard or Carabinieri), which most of them had become from 1991 until 1999. How can a democratic state striving to join the EU have troops that are directed to fight its own citizens? How can you have an improvement in prison conditions, as Amnesty International recently complained about, while still using Internal Troops as prison guards?
Minister of Interior Yuriy Lutsenko promised to change their name for the same reasons I have outlined. This was made during his visit to Washington DC last year. But, this has not happened (just like his refusal to not serve in a Viktor Yanukovych government). While he is at it he should also change the name of the Militia to Police.
So, President Viktor Yushchenko does occasionally do things right. On Saturday he issued a decree giving veterans status to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). President Yushchenko’s step aims to push parliament to vote this issue into law.
The presidential decree follows a government commission that concluded four months ago that the UPA did fight both the Nazi and Soviet occupiers. I have myself followed this issue for many years. While many British men have idiosyncratic hobbies such as stamp collecting and train spotting, I have instead collected Ukrainian school textbooks since Ukraine became an independent state. These textbooks clearly have long ago “rehabilitated” the UPA and incorporated their struggle for an independent state within Ukraine’s World War II history, alongside the Soviet army.
Spain had a far bloodier civil war in the 1930s which is still a very difficult issue for Spaniards even today. But, reconciliation became part of the transition from fascism to democracy. Leonid Kuchma never wanted reconciliation because he played off eastern versus western Ukraine. Maybe the decree proves that Yushchenko is at least different in this area (if not in others)? It is time that Ukraine dealt with the UPA issue once and for all.