Ukrainian Canadian

Reuters sums up this case very well in only a few short paragraphs:

Ukraine’s state prosecutor on Tuesday asked for a seven-year jail sentence to be passed on former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a trial which the West has warned can rebound on the country’s hopes of joining the European mainstream.

Tymoshenko, 50, Ukraine’s most prominent opposition politician, is charged with abuse of office linked with a gas deal with Russia in January 2009 which the leadership of President Viktor Yanukovich says saddled the country with an exorbitant price for gas. She denies this.

The United States and the European Union say the trial is politically motivated and they have urged Yanukovich to find a way of ending the case against her.

And the Yanukovich administration claims it’s not politically motivated:

Ukrainian prosecutors said Wednesday they were seeking a seven-year jail term for Tymoshenko, a $195 million fine and a ban on her holding a position in the public sector for three years after her release.

That would only put Tymoshenko out of the running for the next three Presidential races until about 2022.

Meanwhile in Canada, the Conservative government had some harsh words:

Ottawa "has expressed to the Ukrainian government our serious concern about the apparent bias in the ongoing judicial proceedings against former prime minister Tymoshenko," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Wednesday.

"Political persecution is completely unacceptable," he said. "The appearance of political bias in judicial proceedings undermines the rule of law."

Even Liberal leader Bob Rae expressed concern:

Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada Bob Rae has invited ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister and Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who is currently held in custody, to attend the 41st session of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, according to Tymoshenko’s personal Web site:

"As the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, I have the honor to invite Mrs. Yulia Tymoshenko, former Ukrainian prime minister and leader of the democratic opposition, to Ottawa for meetings with Canadian parliamentarians and for the 41st session of the parliament", the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada said in the letter of invitation.

Rae expressed concern over the recent events in Ukraine, particularly, what he called the politically motivated arrests of many opposition activists, including Mrs. Tymoshenko.

We have no idea at what they are hinting at

Ukraine today marks 20 years of independence.

President Viktor Yanukovych will take part in ceremonies in Kyiv. 

Amid a budgetary squeeze, a planned military parade in the Ukrainian capital was scrapped to save $20 million. 

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Only Yanukovych’s planned celebrations are allowed in Kyiv, while any others were banned. Democracy and justice remain fleeting in the country:

Over 5,000 opposition activists rallied Wednesday on the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, protesting the arrest of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and demanding early elections.

Demonstrators, many of them clad in traditional Ukrainian white embroidered shirts, attempted to march on the president’s office, but were held back by police in riot gear who flooded the city’s center.

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Tymoshenko, on trial for abuse of office during her time as prime minister, had requested parole for two days to be able to visit her mother in the east of the country and celebrate with her Ukraine’s independence anniversary. Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union is celebrated on Aug. 24.

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She was denied her request.

Meanwhile the secret service claim to be thwarting mystery terrorists:

Ukraine’s state security service said yesterday it had foiled a bomb attack in the capital Kiev after detaining three people it said were involved in the plot.

The SBU said the attack had been planned for August 24th, the former Soviet republic’s independence day.

…

The SBU said in a statement it had prevented a “terrorist act” after its operatives found a homemade explosive device stuffed with nails when they raided premises rented by the suspects.

It had found 100 “extremist” leaflets but it gave no details on the suspects’ nationality or their affiliation.

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Is this the work of known extremists, or the creation of crisis to quell dissent during demonstrations?

And finally David Marples does a good job describing Ukraine’s issues as a whole from the past 20 years:

Despite difficulties, the economy has returned to positive growth. And, the mere fact of survival is an achievement, the longest period of independence in modern Ukrainian history.

It is impossible, however, to avoid an impression of fading optimism.

On the eve of Independence Day, the government banned any public demonstrations other than the official celebration.

Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and a co-leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, remains on trial for making a 2008 gas deal with Russia, despite coming down with a debilitating illness. Her one-time ally and former president Viktor Yushchenko testified against her at the trial, further testimony to the disintegration of the democratic forces.

The president, Viktor Yanukovych, has filled the cabinet with cronies from the Donbas region, few of whom even speak Ukrainian. He appears every inch the Soviet bureaucrat, thuggish and vindictive, and actively using the security forces against his enemies.

The failure to live up to early expectations can be attributed to several factors.

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Happy Independence Day!

From Your News Network:

The annual Ukrainian Festival at St. Nicholas Church in Elmira Heights has grown exponentially

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Sixty four years ago, the first Ukrainian Festival may have been a pretty small operation, but the lines and crowd that were on hand Sunday show that this celebration has come a long way.

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The polka music brought crowds to the dance floor, the kid’s games were very popular but the authentic Ukrainian food trumped them all. The lines at any time throughout the day could be over 100 people long, so there had to be enough food to go around

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It’s great to see Ukrainian festivals becoming increasingly popular in the State of New York – whether it’s Buffalo, Yonkers, the Catskills mountains, Rochester or even New York City. There are even more events in our 2011 Summer guide!

After Germany denied extradition due to incomplete, missing crucial information regarding details of the deaths of Spanish citizens and Demjanjuk’s involvement in the deaths, it looks like Bavaria will be the next country accusing Demjanjuk of war crimes:

The new complaint accuses Demjanjuk of 4,400 additional counts of accessory to murder for the time when he allegedly guarded the Flossenbuerg concentration camp in Bavaria.

Even though thousands died or were killed in Flossenbuerg, its entire purpose was not extermination like Sobibor, Auschwitz or the other Nazi death camps.

But in the new complaint filed by Cornelius Nestler, who represented the families of Sobibor victims at the Demjanjuk trial as co-plaintiffs, the Cologne-based attorney argues there should be no distinction made between concentration camps and death camps.

"Legally, it doesn’t make a difference if the purpose is to murder everybody there, or if the purpose is to murder a third of the people there," he told The Associated Press. "It’s still murder."

The complaint was also filed against Alex Nagorny, who testified during the Demjanjuk trial that they were both guards at Flossenbuerg together and then had lived together in Germany after the war.

When asked to identify Demjanjuk, however, Nagorny told the court the man on trial bore "no resemblance" to the Demjanjuk that he knew.

Nestler, who filed his complaint jointly with Thomas Walther, a former federal prosecutor who led the investigation that prompted Germany to put Demjanjuk on trial, said the purpose is not to heap more jail time on one person, but to open the door to other possible convictions.

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Demjanjuk is currently released awaiting awaiting appeal:

The 91-year-old retired Ohio autoworker was convicted in May of 28,060 counts of accessory to murder after a Munich court found that the evidence showed he was a guard during the war the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.

The precedent-setting case was the first time someone was convicted in Germany on evidence of being only a guard, without evidence of a specific killing.

The court ruled that guarding a death camp meant, in legal terms, that Demjanjuk was an accessory to the murder of the people who were killed in the camp’s gas chambers even if it could not be proven that he was directly involved in the extermination process.

Certainly no stranger to appeals, Demjanjuk was freed on appeal by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993 while on death row, concluding he was not “Ivan the Terrible” in Treblinka.

Some interesting events are unfolding as Bulgaria sheds its Soviet past. Last month it introduced a bill banning former Soviet secret police agents from certain jobs within government, and earlier this week a Soviet monument was graffiti’d in a very comical style:

Twenty years ago you would have been shot for stepping too close to this monument in Sofia in Bulgaria.

But after the smashing of the Berlin Wall, statues celebrating communist rule appear to be fair game to the graffiti artists of the former Soviet block in Eastern Europe.

An anonymous artist transformed Russian Red Army soldiers from a monument in the city of Sofia, in Bulgaria, into popular superheroes and cartoon characters.

The figures of Soviet soldiers at the base of a Soviet Army monument have been transformed into superheroes in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria

Taking centre stage is Superman with his distinctive red cape and blue suit. To the left is Santa Claus and to the right Ronald McDonald, the mascot of the fast-food giant McDonalds, and the Joker also makes an appearance.

Below the graffiti artist has sprayed "Moving with the times" in Bulgarian black paint. The "artistic vandalism" appeared this morning – but it is still not clear who is behind the colourful display.

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After WW2 the USSR erected many monuments across their states depicting themselves as liberators from the Nazis (even though together they had started the war).

The largest of these Soviet monuments unfortunately exists in the heart of Kyiv, on Ivan Mazepa street ironically! I think their Soviet monuments need some gussying up too… any takers?