Moods comparable to that of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which ended Viktor Yanukovych’s attempt to rig a presidential election that year, have returned to Kyiv.
On the night of Nov. 21 – a day before the ninth anniversary of
the start of the earlier peaceful uprising — more than 1,000 Kyivans came out
to protest the same Yanukovych who got elected president in 2010.
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Their ire was prompted by the government’s decision earlier in the day to abandon an
historic political and free trade agreement with the European Union, a deal
that could have paved Ukraine’s way to eventual membership in the 28-nation
bloc of democracies. The deal was supposed to have been signed at a summit in
Vilnius, Lithuania, next week.
The government’s rejection is seen as yielding to Russian
pressure on Yanukovych to abandon the EU drive. The Kremlin launched trade
sanctions and threatened other retaliatory moves as part of Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s drive to get Ukraine to fall in line with his alternative
Eurasian Union.
People waved the flags of Ukraine and the EU, chanted “Ukraine
is Europe,” “Gang out!” and “Yanukovych – enemy of the country.” They vowed to keep up the protests daily.
A group of protesters also rushed to the building of
Presidential Administration, but they couldn’t get close to the building
because of several buses of riot police that were blocking the street.
So the protesters tied blues stripes in colors of the EU to the
police buses and held a short meeting near them, a picture also reminiscent of
2004, when the presidential office was guarded by the police day-and-night.
Still, more than 1 million people in 2004 forced the Ukrainian
Supreme Court to cancel the results of a rigged election, overturning
Yanukovych’s victory then. Viktor Yushchenko went on to become president after
a rerun presidential election on Dec. 26, 2004, but his poor showing led to
Yanukovych’s victory in the 2010 race.
On Nov. 21, all three leaders of parliament’s opposition –
Arseniy Yatseniuk of Batkivshchyna, Vitali Klitschko of the Ukrainian Democratic
Alliance for Reforms and Oleh Tiahnybok of Svoboda party- joined the rally.
“Whether the European integration happen depends on us and
(I’m sure) we will be able to raise Ukraine during next week,” Klitschko told
the rally. “We need to raise everybody who wants to live in the European
country. I’msure that Ukraine’s future depends on Ukrainians.”
Some protesters decided to stay overnight, others left home
promising to come back on the next day. The opposition called on supporters of
the European integration to the major protest on Nov. 24.
One more opposition heavyweight Yuri Lutsenko asked participants
of the protest to call their friends and relatives and invite them to join the
rally. He hopes that today’s gathering can grow to some 10,000 people quickly
and reach at least 100,000 Ukrainians by Nov. 24.
“We need 100,000 as 100,000 can ask Europe to sign the agreement
even when gangsters are in power here,” Lutsenko said.
Kyiv Post
staff writers Oksana Grytsenko and Anastasia Forina can be reached at grytsenko@kyivpost.com and forina@kyivpost.com
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