Appeal of the ecologic public organization “Zeleny svit” on the election of the President of Ukraine
The public organization “Zeleny svit”, an independent and non-party organization, confirms its adherence to the principles of humanism, non-violence and superiority of right. Being the conscientious citizens of our country, we are worried about the lot of Ukrainian democracy and civil society.
Unfortunately, the events of the past ten years convince us that the system of neo-feudal relations has formed in Ukraine with all features typical for that system: property inequality, total corruption, restriction of rights and freedoms of citizens and decline of social morals. We reckon that this situation is caused by the weakness of civil society, organs of local self-government, independent mass media and court system, along with the excessive authorities of the presidential power.
The autocratic rule of President Leonid Kuchma and his clique has become the period of enormous losses and disappointments for our people. This period is characterized by pauperization of the majority of Ukrainian citizens, their mass labor migration abroad, growth of external state debt, squandering of national riches, in particular, strategic and high-technology branches of economics. The greatest damage has been inflicted during recent years to Ukrainian village: in fact, the rural medicine and culture were destroyed, the amount of agricultural production has essentially decreased as a result of the so-called “agrarian reform”.
The Ukrainian democracy also underwent serious ordeals at the period of L. Kuchma’s rule. In the irrepressible striving for the unlimited authorities the oligarchs systematically jeopardized the constitutional order and parliamentarism, they tried to turn the Constitutional reform into a tool for absolutization and perpetuation of their regime, they violated the guarantees of the activities of opposition, the freedom of the press and the principles of separation of powers in a democratic society. Several criminal and corruption scandals became known around the world and seriously discredited Ukraine in the eyes of international community. As a result, Ukraine practically lost the chance to become, in the nearest future, a member of the European community of democratic countries.
Every day our country loses the ability to subject the foreign policy to its own national interests. The most glaring examples of weakness and external dependence of Ukraine were her entry into the Unified economic space and participation in the American-British military intervention to Iraq started with brutal violations of international right.
For the umpteenth time we have to declare that the politics of the top state government of Ukraine does not agree with the ecologic priorities and purposes of stable development. National and local ecological programs still remain at periphery of the interests of the power. The obvious features of ecological, economic, legal adventures and giantomania may be found in the long list of large-scale technologic projects. The latest of such projects is ecologically harmful construction of the navigable channel across the territory of the Danube nature preserve, which is a reserve of world significance and is protected by UNESCO.
The election of the President of Ukraine gives us some chance for improvement of this situation, which is not normal for a European country.
We believe that the top state power in Ukraine should be renewed radically: both the staff and the principles of work.
We are turning to all participants of the election campaign with the appeal to do their best for guaranteeing of honest and open competition of the candidates to President’s post and for the protection of the right of our compatriots for free and conscious choice.
We hope that the national-democratic reformative forces will demonstrate, in the course of the election, their ability for dialogue, unification and joint elaboration of distinct and responsible programs of activities.
We are sure that ecological goals and values must, at last, take the priority place in the programs of Ukrainian political figures.
We believe that real patriots would come to power in our motherland, whose merits would satisfy the demands of the 21st century.
Approved by the collegium of the EPO “Zeleny Svit”
10 July 2004