[Ohio UZO News] Upcoming Event; EDM; OSCE Ukraine

Tue Feb 26 11:09:30 EST 2008

Helsinki Commission to Hold Hearing on NATO Enlargement 

(Washington, D.C.) Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), Chairman of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki
Commission) and Co-Chairman Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), will hold
a hearing entitled "NATO Enlargement and the Bucharest Summit," on
Tuesday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m. in room B-318 of the Rayburn House Office
Building.  

The hearing will examine enlargement issues for the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) in light of the April 2008 summit in
Bucharest, Romania.  Currently, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia hope for
invitations to join the alliance, while Ukraine and Georgia expect to be
offered Membership Action Plans.  The hearing will assess the readiness
of these countries to take next steps in their respective integration
paths, with a particular focus on their democratic development and
respect for the rule of law.  

Testifying before the Commission will be: 

Dr. Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations,
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns
Hopkins University

The Honorable Steven Pifer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Senior
Adviser, Russia and Eurasia Program Center for Strategic and
International Studies

Mr. Janusz Bugajski, Director, New European Democracies Project and
Senior Fellow, Europe Program, Center for Strategic and International
Studies

WHAT:      Helsinki Commission to Hold Hearing on NATO Enlargement 

WHEN:      Tuesday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m.   

WHERE:    B-318 of the Rayburn House Office Building 

###

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the
Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency that monitors progress
in the implementation of the provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords.
The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate,
nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the
Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.

(NOTE:  This hearing is open to the public.  RSVP not required.  The
Rayburn House Office Building is located on Independence Ave. SW, near
the Capitol South Metro Stop.  If you need more information, please
contact me via e-mail or at 202-225-1901.  Orest Deychakiwsky) 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

February 21, 2008

OPPOSITION USES UKRAINE-NATO ISSUE WHEN POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT

For over a month, the Ukrainian parliament has been in a forced recess
as the opposition blocked the legislature to protest a joint letter to
NATO signed by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko, and Parliamentary Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk. The January 15
letter asked NATO to consider offering Ukraine a Membership Action Plan
(MAP) at its April summit in Bucharest.

Under the 2006 constitution, Yushchenko can dissolve parliament if it
does not function for 30 working days.  However, he exercised that power
in April 2007 and doing so again in less than a year would be an
unpopular move with unknown consequences.

Of parliament's three largest factions, only the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT)
would likely gain from pre-term elections. Based on current polls, the
Party of Regions and the president's Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense
(NUNS) bloc would poll even less than they did last year.  In the
September 2007 elections, BYuT increased its support by 8% over the 2006
election, finishing only 3% behind Regions. BYuT would likely become the
largest parliamentary faction after a 2008 vote, because of a
combination of declining support for Regions and NUNS and the rising
popularity of the Tymoshenko government following the re-payment of lost
Soviet savings to Ukrainian citizens.

In addition, NUNS's relationship with the president is increasingly
tenuous. Presidential chief of staff Viktor Baloha resigned from NUNS on
February 15, after its nine disparate parties failed to unite as a
pro-presidential party of power (see EDM, February 20).

Given these factors, odds are that political leaders will find a way to
compromise and avoid early elections. Yushchenko and Baloha would not
want to head into the 2009 presidential elections with an even larger
BYuT parliamentary faction, which already is double the size of NUNS.

Yatsenyuk has proposed a compromise to unblock parliament; specifically,
asking all factions to refrain from using this tactic in the future.
Yatsenyuk has also called upon all factions to recognize the legality of
legislation on NATO that was adopted under former president Leonid
Kuchma and that Regions and other pro-Kuchma centrist forces endorsed.

The Ukrainian media has recently published Kuchma-era official documents
that outline Ukraine's goal of NATO membership. In 2002-2004 Kuchma and
then-prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, head of Regions, initiated and
fully supported Ukraine's drive to NATO membership. In November 2002
NATO initiated annual NATO-Ukraine "Action Plans," and the 2002-2004
Yanukovych government fulfilled the first two.

Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer, now a senior adviser at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Jamestown that
the Ukrainian leadership and NATO understood that there was little
difference between "Action Plans" and "Membership Action Plans." Both
require Ukraine to undertake a wide range of military, political, and
economic reforms. According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Volodymyr
Ohryzko, Kyiv is now seeking a MAP because Ukraine's cooperation with
NATO has outgrown the five Action Plans.

In 2004 the Yanukovych government signed on to a strategy for Ukraine's
drive to NATO drawn up by the president's think tank, the National
Institute for Strategic Studies. The plan has four stages:

2002-2003: prepare the legislative basis for Ukraine's NATO membership;

2004: Ukraine enters into a MAP;

2007: NATO invites Ukraine to join the alliance;

2008: Ukraine joins NATO.

This month Prime Minister Tymoshenko publicly apologized for not
succeeding in reaching the Yanukovych government's 2008 NATO membership
goal.

Importantly, the four-stage strategy never included a referendum on NATO
membership. This demand emerged during the latter stages of the bitter
2004 president election, together with elevating Russian to a state
language. Both issues were introduced by Russian political advisers
working for the Yanukovych campaign.

Regions has raised the demand for a referendum on NATO whenever it has
been in the opposition - in 2005-2006 and again since the 2007
elections. This duplicitous strategy of being radically opposed to NATO
only when in opposition could be seen further in documents adopted by
Yanukovych governments on July 17, 2003, and October 5, 2006, that gave
Ukraine's wholehearted support to NATO military operations in peacetime,
during crises, and in military conflicts.

Yushchenko and Yatsenyuk see no need for a referendum ahead of a MAP,
and the president has described the call for a referendum as "political
adventurism." While acknowledging the need for an eventual referendum,
Yushchenko has promised this would be many years away, only when Ukraine
was on the verge of joining NATO, as occurred with other NATO
candidates.

Regions seeks to hold a referendum in April. In a February 12 statement,
Yanukovych said, "We are against any steps that would take our state to
the North Atlantic Alliance without the agreement of the Ukrainian
people."

NATO is publicly receptive to Ukrainian membership, but some large
Western European members, such as Germany, oppose a Ukrainian MAP. Such
opposition within NATO can only be overcome if the Ukrainian leadership
is united on the question of seeking a MAP. Herein lies the crux of the
problem.

Following the Orange Revolution NATO was more receptive toward Ukraine
joining, and a MAP for Kyiv was a serious prospect at the November 2006
Riga summit. However, this step depended on Ukraine creating an orange
coalition after the 2006 elections, a strategy that failed because of
Yushchenko's unwillingness to see Tymoshenko return as prime minister.

However, Tymoshenko did just that after the 2007 elections. But her
approach to NATO membership, as seen during her January 28-29 visit to
Brussels and her cancellation of a presentation to the February 8-10
Munich security conference, is more lukewarm than that of Yushchenko
and NUNS.

(president.gov.ua, securityconference.de, partyofregions.org.ua,
Pravda.com.ua, January 15-February 18, Zerkalo nedeli, February 2-8,
International Herald Tribune, January 24)

--Taras Kuzio

 OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine

 Homepage <http://www.osce.org/ukraine/>   Search this site
<http://www.osce.org/ukraine/search.html>  

About

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<http://www.osce.org/ukraine/13351.html>  Contacts
<http://www.osce.org/ukraine/contacts.html>  

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Press release

OSCE Project Co-ordinator offers anti-trafficking courses for Ukrainian
local police

 Print version <http://www.osce.org/ukraine/?print=1>  

LUTSK, Ukraine, 26 February 2008 - The OSCE Project Co-ordinator in
Ukraine launched a new series of regional training courses on combating
human trafficking, with the first course held in north-western Ukraine
today.

The series of eight regional anti-trafficking seminars, for local
section heads of the precinct police inspectors' service, is a
continuation of the joint initiative between the OSCE Project
Co-ordinator in Ukraine and the Department of Civil Security of the
Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Four such regional training courses were
already conducted by the OSCE in Ukraine in July and August 2007.

Ambassador James F. Schumaker, OSCE Project Co-ordinator, said: "The
Precinct Police Inspectors Service within the Ukrainian Interior
Ministry represents the branch of the police force closest to the local
communities. The inspectors may play a significant role in preventing
trafficking, as well as in providing assistance to the trafficked
persons and support to the investigation."

He added: "Last year's anti-trafficking training courses for the
precinct police inspectors have increased their awareness of trafficking
in human beings as a violation of human rights and provided a better
understanding of the problem of trafficking and the victims'
circumstances.

"In response to the participants' request for additional information on
this subject, we are now supplementing the trainings sessions with a
special brochure and a set of awareness raising materials. We are also
planning to expand the training and networking opportunities for these
officers and the anti-trafficking NGOs."

The training courses will be held in different regions of Ukraine
through March.

The regional training courses were initiated together with the Ukrainian
Interior Ministry as part of the State Programme to Combat Trafficking
in Human Beings for the Period till 2010 and the OSCE Action Plan to
Combat Trafficking in Human Beings.

The Action Plan recommends combining the efforts of law enforcement
bodies, both specialized anti-trafficking units and the local police,
and other governmental and civil society institutions.

The training sessions are funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs as part of the Danish Programme Against Human Trafficking in
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

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