Haaretz
November 28, 2004
The old axioms are true:
firmness can pay; resolution can see you through. We who are struggling to
maintain our democracy in Ukraine believe this. Now, more than ever, we
must believe this, for Russian troops wearing Ukrainian uniforms have
entered our country, because Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to carry out
orders to crush those who are demonstrating to defend our democracy. We
will need the solidarity of our neighbors, and of freedom-loving peoples
around the world, to assure that our democratic dreams are realized
peacefully.
The struggle to secure the victory of Viktor
Yushchenko, the true winner in last Sunday's presidential election, as
Ukraine's new president is not one that we sought. But, that battle for
our freedom having been imposed upon us, we will not be found wanting in
either courage or resolve. The days and nights ahead will be difficult,
and the secret presence of Russian troops will make them all the more
dangerous. The forces of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich foolishly
stuffed ballots and intimidated the country's electoral commission to an
absurd degree. They then tried to force the Ukrainian people to swallow
this sham - threatening to ban public gatherings, close our borders to new
visa seekers and silence any word of our protests on television.
Increasingly members of a governmental machine that thought it
could impose a fraudulent election on the people of Ukraine are shying
away from imposing that choice by force. Members of the army, the security
services, and government officials are all balking at doing the bidding of
the Yanukovich clique. Such a volatile ruling elite cannot be counted on
to be consistent from now on.
The way ahead is a minefield. We
recognize that an unstable government can swing back to uncompromising
intransigence. It will try to erode our support by infiltrating our
protests with loyalists who will carry the virus of defeatism, and it will
seek to outflank us by appealing to ordinary, hard-working Ukrainians,
worried about feeding and clothing their children, that a tottering
economy needs stability to be saved. It will try to divide the country
between Russian and Ukrainian speakers.
But it is too late for
divide and misrule strategies to work. Ukrainians know that the choice
they make now, that their decision to stand firm with Viktor Yushchenko
today, will determine their freedom forever, as well as the health of
their nation - its independence as well as its economic strength. So we
will stand firm in the cold and the snow to see that our democratic
choices are respected. To do otherwise is to surrender not only our
freedom, but our hopes for better lives.
We defy those who seek to
corrupt our democracy, but we stand with the hand of friendship extended
to all of our neighbors, including Russia. It has no reason to intervene.
A vibrant Ukrainian democracy will need the comradeship of Russia and of
Europe to build the kind of society that our people desire. Our boldness
is tinged by realism. By securing our democracy, we help secure Russia's
own.
For we are engaged not in revolution, but in peaceful
democratic evolution. Ukrainians have endured the worst that man can do to
his fellow man: Stalin's orchestrated famines of the 1930s and the Nazi
slaughterhouse of World War II. So do not doubt our ability to endure and
stand firm. We shall persist, and our democracy shall prevail. Stand with
us.
Yuliya Tymoshenko, a former deputy prime minister of
Ukraine, is the co-chairman with Viktor Yushchenko, of Ukraine's political
opposition.