“Prava Ludiny” (human rights) monthly bulletin, 2000, #08

Respected Mr. President!

Now Ukraine is standing before the historical choice: to get or not to get the united Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the center in Kyiv, the Church about which many generations of Ukrainians dreamed. Thank God and Providence we are at last having the independent state, for which the Ukrainian people paid a very high price — millions of tormented by the NKVD butchers, starved to death, shot down, frozen in the Siberian and Magadan concentration camps. Our national sanctuaries were ruined and robbed, the sources of the Ukrainian spirituality were trampled and polluted. Before the memory of our dead, before coming generations, before Ukrainians still unborn, before the eyes of the entire civilized world we have no right to permit trampling and raping what remained of our native Church which has just stood from the ashes, since this is an uncorrectable sin before the god and before the people. Unfortunately, we are eyewitnesses of further ruining of Ukrainian churches that had been started in 1918 by the bolshevik Russia. This is done, with the benediction of some hierarchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy. There is information that from the Ukrainian churches, which enter the system of the Moscow Patriarchy, in particular from the Kyivo-Pecherska Lavra, sacred relics are secretly smuggled and exchanged with the copies, made beforehand. And this is carried out just when our Supreme Rada adopted the law signed by you too about the protection of the cultural inheritance. It is also known that the Moscow Patriarchy pretends to the ownership of the repaired Sviato-Uspenskiy Cathedral. If this happens, it will result in a new round of inter-confessional clashes in Ukraine. The only acceptable compromise in this situation would be the preservation of the previous status of the Cathedral — to be included into the national reservation ‘Kyivo-Pecherska Lavra’. Yes, according to the Ukrainian Constitution church is separated from the state, but this does not mean that all who live in Ukraine, believers and non-believers, must ignore the protection of our ageold belief, our church and our national treasures. It certainly concerns the Kyivo-Pecherska Lavra because it is not merely Ukrainian spiritual treasury, but it belongs to all the world. Respected Leonid Danilovich! The God Almighty and the people put on your shoulders a great responsibility, as the President of Ukraine you must protect Ukrainian culture and church, our national sanctuaries and our national dignity! We insist that you must interfere into the situation and apply the necessary measures, which are: 1. To create an extraordinary state commission for checking (inventory) those values that are kept in the cathedrals, monasteries and other religious establishments, which are owned or temporary used by the Moscow Patriarchy. The commission must include law-enforcers, Ukrainian clergy, public and scholars. 2. To establish a stern state control for preserving the church property. 3. To permit public organizations to keep guard relative to preserving the values. 4. If the facts of smuggling outside our state religious sanctuaries, then the guilty must be brought to the crime responsibility. 5. To demand the immediate return of the Ukrainian sanctuaries to our churches.

The UK Parliament adopted the law, which allows the government to scan e-mail and prohibits users to imply encryption in the Internet communications. The law must become operable in October this year. The UK government declares that this law is directed against the organized crime. Yet, protectors of human rights and civil freedoms have an opposite opinion on the matter. According to this law, no law-enforcing bodies get the right to demand from Internet providers the information concerning the Internet traffic; the law-enforcing bodies may analyze the encrypted messages. A new intelligence center will care about the technical side of this affair. This new center is named Government Technical Assistance Center. The authorities tell that this center will be situated on some part of the headquarters of MI 5. Internet providers have to build protected communicative channels with this new center. Providers will get about US 30 millions for this expenditures.

Our informant

President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma signed the Decree ‘On methods of development of the national contribution to the global informational network Internet and the provision of wide access to this network in Ukraine’. The development of the national contribution to the Internet, the provision of the wide access to this network of inhabitants of Ukraine and the proper representation in it of the national information resources, the decree reads, is one of the top priority directions of the state policy in the sphere of information processing and exchange. According to the decree, the proper economic, juridical, technical and other conditions must be created in Ukraine for the wide access of citizens, educational establishments and other organizations of all forms of property to the Internet. Another task, the decree reads, is the development and perfection of the input objective politi-cal, economic, juridical, ecological, scientific, technological, cultural and other kinds of information from Ukraine. The third task of the development of the Internet in Ukraine is ‘provision of the Constitutional rights to the free collection, storing, use and distribution of information, the freedom of thought and speech, the free expression of one’s views and opinions’. Besides, Kuchma orders to those, who are engaged with the works with the Internet in Ukraine, to develop and implement modern computer information technologies to the system of state administration, to financial sphere, to entrepreneurial activities, education, medicine and jurisdiction. The decree also orders the perfection of the juridical regulation of the activities of subjects of informational relations, production, use, distribution and protection of electronic information. The decree orders the protection of rights for intellectual property, increase of the responsibility for the violation of the order of access to electronic information resources of all forms of property, as well as for the spreading computer viruses. In the nearest half-year several ministries and agencies with the help of several invited prominent specialists and, maybe, some providers must prepare a draft of the state program of developing the Ukrainian Internet, as a part of the national program of developing the information system. The Cabinet of Ministers got a commission to begin the work of creating legal, organizational, technical and other conditions for the development of business in the Internet. The Cabinet also got the task of compiling the national register of Ukrainian information resources in the Internet. The government must publish the information on the action of organs of the state power and create web-pages of the central and local organs of the executive power, the leading scientific and educational institutes in the Internet by the end of this year. This information must be expressed ‘in Ukrainian, English and other languages’, as it is said in the decree. To the end of this year the government will have finished and direct to the Parliament drafts of the laws that concern the peculiarities of mass media, as well as the protection of intellectual property and the authors’ copyright with the use of electronic document circulation and electronic digital signature; the documents must be prepared that state the responsibility for the distribution via the Internet of the secret information. President Kuchma ordered all organizations to join the campaign of the creation of the high quality Internet in Ukraine. In particular, the Ministry of communications and the Ministry of economics must encourage the investments from abroad to be used for the development of the Internet in Ukraine. Local admi-nistrations are ordered to assist local organizations in solving the tasks set by the President’s decree. The decree signed by the President of Ukraine about the Ukrainian Internet witnesses that Leonid Kuchma regards this problem as a top priority one, Oleksandr Martinenko, the press secretary of the President, declared. The press secretary also made public that the President signed this decree in the spirit of the negotiations of the ‘Big aid’ about the global information community. ‘Although the decree was prepared parallelly with the preparation of the document of the ‘Big aid’, the main ideas of these two documents have much in common’, the press secretary said. The realization of this decree, as the President’s administration hopes, will enable Ukraine to integrate sooner into the world information community, and in the near future Ukraine will take an active part in the development of such components of the Internet as e-trading and e-business. UP, 31 July 2000

In 1978 in the village of Boleslavchik, where in June 2000 doctors fixed an outburst of a peculiar mass epidemic, some concrete constructions polluted with components of the rocket fuel had been buried. The local inhabitants immediately suspected the military. According to the materials published recently in the newspaper ‘Fakty’, more than 150 local citizens caught ‘an unexplained disease’, with 45 children among them. According to the information of the ‘Interfax Ukraine’ agency, the locals considers that the cause of the epidemic is highly toxic rocket fuel – heptyl. The local residents tell that in 1978 a rocket was buried in a mine situated in the village of Boleslavchik. The mine had to stay sealed during 50 years, but the village council permitted one of the families to get scrap metal from this mine. Eyewitnesses tell that about 50 metric tones of metal were extracted. When the mine was unsealed, eyewitnesses noticed that the metal emitted reddish-brown light, and dovecolored smoke. Besides, it smelled of hydrogen sulfide. In the beginning of June the first carrier of the unknown disease appeared. The symptoms were drowse, skin rash, loss of appetite, dry cough, faints and deteriorated vision. The local doctors found that their patients were poisoned with some chemical agent. Later the oblast sanitary epidemic station found that the drinking water in the wells was poisoned by nitrates 13 – 15 times compared to the permitted norm. All the wells in the village were closed, the water was provided in cisterns. But this did not improve the situation – the number of the infected continued to increase. Soon in the neighboring villages of Chausovo and Lysaya Gora patients appeared with the same symptoms. At first people accused the military because on 500 meters from the village of Boleslavchik there was a rocket mine. There, people thought, some accident happened hidden by the military. However, Vladimir Shapovalov, the commander of the center of liquidation of strategic weapons of the 43rd rocket army, declared that no accidents, which could cause the leakage of toxic fuel, near the village of Boleslavchik had happened since 1978. The fact that the military were not guilty was confirmed by the studies of carried out by Kharkiv research center of military ecology. Lidiya Myk-halskaya, the deputy director of the center, told to the newspaper ‘Fakty’ that they considered three sources of the intoxication: 1) a natural one, because of the natural pickling of soil; 2) man-caused, caused by the decomposition of the rocket fuel; 3) caused by the decomposition of organic proteins in the burial ground of cattle. As a result of the carried out investigations the first and third versions were rejected. ‘… We started to work at the second version, being sure that the solid fuel, which is now used in the army, does not leak’, said L. Mykhalskaya, ’but we learned that up to 1978 the foel oil had been used. The military carried away building constructions, which were somewhat contaminated, and buried them in a mine that is unsealed now. This mine has become the contamination source. These constructions were buried rather deep and covered with soil. More than twenty years passed, and no contamination occurred until the local scrap-seekers opened the mine by a bulldozer in search of nonferrous metals. Rains started in June and the pit was fully covered with rainwater that dissolved the contaminating element. It was not the rocket fuel, but the products of its decomposition. The poisoning substances got to the upper water-carrying layer. The poisoning substances that got into this layer are dissolved very slowly. Water must be taken from the layer 10 meters deep, whereas in the village the wells are 2 – 3 meter deep. Besides, the water here is polluted with nitrates, and it may not be drunk anyway. After the situation was explained to the local residents, they stopped drinking water from the wells, and the situation began to improve. So the Ukrainian rocket troops have no relation to the trouble. As to the military constructive workers, that buried the contaminated constructions near the village, their guilt is not clear now. The man who unsealed the mine is now under criminal investigation. The prosecutor of the Pervomaysk district started a criminal case about contamination of the environment. The defendant is not defined. The administration of the Nikolaev oblast gave some finances for treatment of the patients. The situation is explained to the population since there are many similar mines in the vicinity, which are dangerous to unseal. Ms Mykhalskaya, who appeared from the murky military medium, perhaps hurried with her discoveries. The real rocket-rush in Ukraine was connected with events of the cold war, and the construction ‘up to the 1978 and after 1978’ is simplified. The matter is that the 48th rocket division, that occupied territories of the town of Pervomaysk of the Nikolaev oblast, had been formed as long ago as in 1961. Since the causes of the present epidemic are not very clear, we shall list the division commanders: A. I. Kolotiy, G. D. Gavrilov, N. V. Lapshin, I. M. Shabelnik, I. D. Sergeev, Yu. P. Regentov, V. V. Goryntsev, V. G. Tolubko, N. M. Filatov, A. A. Ilyashov. The 43rd rocket army with headquarters in Vinnitsa, to which 46th division belongs, was created in 1960. We shall call its commanders too: G. M. Tupikov (1960 – 1961), P. B. Dankevich (1961 – 1962), A. G. Shevtsov (1962 – 1966), M. G. Grigoryev (1966 – 1968), A. D. Melekhin (1968 – 1974), Yu. P. Za-begaylov (1974 – 1975), V. G. Nedelin (1975 – 1982), A. P. Volkov (1982 – 1987), V. V. Kirilin (1987 – 1991), V. A. Mikhtiuk (since 1991). So, for the candidates to the guilty of the disaster we have concrete generals, and not mythical ‘military constructive workers’. Let us have a look which intercontinental ballistic rockets weer situated near the town of Pervomaysk starting from 1961. We do not know much about the first generation of intercontinental ballistic rockets (IBR). In Ukraine (as well as in the Lithuania, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia and Russia) one-stage liquid-fuel rockets P-12 (SS-4, Sandal, according to the US classification) with a mono warhead were stationed. This rocket was in service still in 1959. All in all, there were 608 rockets of this type and some of them served up to 1990. The two-stage IBR of the second generation carried three warheads (SS-11 Sego) was also stationed in Ukraine. It was a very numerous type: in 1966 – 1972 there were 908 launching sites, in 1972 – 1977 were installed 420 launching sites. Twelve divisions were equipped by all types of this rocket. Such rockets were also stationed near the town of Pervomaysk, each division had from 50 to 120 mine launching sites. The fuel of such rockets was highly toxic heptyl, 45.3 metric tones of fuel for each rocket. The first in the USSR regiment of two-stage IBRs of the third generation named УР-100Н with six warheads (named in the West as SS-19 Stiletto) was installed near Pervomaysk in April 1975. All in all in 1975–78 there were 240 launching sites, in spite of the fact that not all constructive drawbacks were found and corrected during the summer tests; they were corrected in the process of further modernization. The first regiment with the modernized rockets УР-100Н started its duty in November 1979 near the town of Khmelnitsky. By 1983 all the defected rockets were exchanged for УР-100Н УТТХ. All in all, 360 rockets of this type were stationed in the USSR; half of them in Russia and half of them in Ukraine, near Pervomaysk and Khmelnitsky. The fuel was again the highly toxic heptyl, 93.1 metric tones for each rocket. The fourth-generation IBRs (SS-34 Scalpel) were installed in Ukraine too. These rockets used solid fuel. The first regiment of such rockets started its duty in August 1978 near Pervomaysk. They were put in the same mines, where liquid-fuel rockets had been installed. Thus, at the moment of signing the first agreement on the disarmament, the USSR had 300 liquid-fuel (heptyl) rockets, 130 of them were stationed in Ukraine: 40 launchers in Ukraine in four regiments of the 46th division near the town of Pervomaysk, 90 launchers in nine regiments of the 19th division near Khmelnitsky. Besides, 48 launchers of solid-fuel rockets were stationed near Pervomaysk, about which Ms Mykhalskaya kindly informed us. Tragic events, which occurred in the village of Boleslavchik, are connected with one of the later launchers (here one of the regiments of the 46th division was billeted), but the reader must be reminded that the solid-fuel rockets came to this locality not in 1978 during the rule of Brezhnev, but in 1988, under Gorbachev. Before this event on the land near the village of Boleslavchik, as well as other Ukrainian villages near which 46th and 19th divisions of the 43rd army, many liquid-fuel rickets of the first, second and third generations were stationed. So, if one wished to find a truth on the poi-soning of Ukrainian inhabitants with highly toxic rocket fuel heptyl, it would be worthless to turn to irresponsible people calling themselves ‘military ecologists’. The truth must be sought in quite an-other place, in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, where the former commander of the 43rd army V. A. Mikhtiuk is serving, and the Ministry of Defense of Russia, which is headed by the former commander of the 46th division I. Sergeyev. For those, who did not understand what relation to this story has the incarcerated I. Sutiagin, we explain that it was I. Sutiagin, who was one of the authors of a thick book titled ‘Strategic nuclear armament of Russia’ (Moscow, 1998, 480 p.). The data on all generations of Soviet rockets that used liquid highly toxic heptyl was analyzed in this book. This book was the official pretext for the incarceration of Sutiagin. If someone would like to turn to one of the security services of Russia or Ukraine for describing them the tragic facts, do not hurry. The matter is that the book partially written by I. Sutiagin there is NOT A SINGLE FACT, which had not been published before. Moreover, the main facts were taken from the official publication ‘A chronicle of main events in the history of rocket troop of strategic destination’ (Moscow, 1994). The editor-in-chief of this book was Marshal of Russia I. D. Sergeev, who had commanded the 46th division billeted near Ukrainian town of Pervomaysk.

Bulletin of the Union ‘For chemical security’

In the late 80s this exclamation and some others of the same sort were very popular, and one feels a wish to use all of them when one observes the political fidgeting around the ratification of the documents of the Council of Europe by the Supreme Rada of Ukraine. It has appeared that it is not sufficient to adopt the law of the ratification. It is not sufficient when the head of the Supreme Rada signs it. According to Article 94 of the Constitution of Ukraine the law must be also signed by the President, after which the law is officially published within ten days. It appeared that the President did not sign the law on the ratification of the European Convention about local languages and languages of minorities. And this became the legal basis for the Constitutional Court to adopt the decision that this law is unconstitutional. Such a simple solution of the complicated problem of fulfilling the promised obligations. This is a simple method of canceling laws adopted by the Parliament! What is the reason of the President’s actions? Opponents say that it is done for not fulfilling the European Convention that gives too many rights to the Russian-language minority (oh, how sick I am of this clumsy terms ‘Russian-language speakers’, ‘Ukrainian-language speakers’!). And why had they to sign and ratify this Convention at all? Was it obvious from the very beginning that our country is enable to execute rather high demands of this international agreement, that is planned for each countries? Was it not obvious that the realization of the Convention will demand such expenditures, which our state cannot afford? By the way no country-member of the Council of Europe adopted this Convention until 1997, the reason being financial. Up to now the Convention adopted nine countries out of 41. And now we, having anticipated the pressure from the ‘professional Russian-speakers’, decided to ‘solve the problem’ by a crooked method. Further, our President did not sign also the law on the ratification of the sixth Protocol to the Convention on the protection of human rights and main freedoms concerning the canceling of the death penalty. That means that the latter law also does not correspond to the Constitution. The document on the ratification of the language Convention is not yet given to the Council of Europe, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Tarasiuk already gave to the General Secretary of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer the ratification of the sixth Protocol. Shame, shame! And now a group of deputies has appeared who, allegedly, voted for the adoption of the law about the ratification of the sixth Protocol, although at that time they were on missions abroad and could not vote. What will be the decision of the Constitutional Court?! Or maybe it is time to stop doubtful political games?

On 31 July President Leonid Kuchma signed a law that introduces changes to Article 38 of the law of Ukraine ‘On the status of judges’, according to which the Supreme Rada now has the right to suspend the power of judges and give agreement with their detainment or arrest in the cases stipulated in the Constitution and mentioned in the corresponding law. In the previous version the law ‘On the status of judges’ did not contain the reference to obey the norms of the Constitution and the corresponding law. Our informant

Dear friends!

We turn to you, to our colleagues in public activities. We know that most of you do your best for observing human rights in our country. Some of you work to improve the penitentiary system in Ukraine. During contacts with the workers of penitentiaries the NGO activists assert that they are natural allies with the penitentiaries’ personnel. We are sure that it is true. At present a situation is observed when we can demonstrate it in practice. We mean the absence of schools in the penitentiaries. Therefore, many incarcerated cannot realize their constitutional right for obtaining secondary education. Several years ago, due to the lack of financing, such schools, existing in the time of the USSR, were closed. You can learn the details from the appended letter to Vasyliy Kremen. We want to direct this letter to the Minister of Education on behalf of Donetsk ‘Memorial’. We suggest you to take part in the action for positive solution of this problem. We must organize a joint action as wide as it will be possible. You may partly or completely make use of the arguments and texts of the letter. We consider it essential if the Minister will get many letters of the similar content within a comparatively short time, in the beginning of the school year. We think that the suggested action will be a kind of control to estimate to which extent our declarations agree with our practical activities. Carrying out this action we will be able to assess our ability, as NGOs, to influence the power to take concrete decisions on the state level. We would like you to make the following steps. Direct the letter to the Minister not later that the second half of September. If you do not have time, direct you letter in October. Send a copy of your letter to the chairman of the State Department on penitentiaries Ivan V. Shtanko. We would like to get a copy too. Our address is: A. Bukalov, P0B 4863, Donetsk – 92, 83092. Chairman of Donetsk ‘Memorial’ Aleksandr Bukalov 12 August 2000, Donetsk


To the Minister of Education of Ukraine Mr. Vasyliy Kremen Ministry of Education of Ukraine Kyiv, 01135, 10 Peremogy Ave.

Copy: To the Head of the State Department of penitentiaries Ivan Shtanko Kyiv, 01024, 10 Bogomoltsa St. 


Respected Mr. Minister!

We turn to you because of the state of teaching at schools in the penitentiaries of Ukraine. Our country finds itself at the complicated stage of transformation. One of the substantial factors is a noticeable degradation of the social state of the majority of our citizens. Due to it there ap-pear many negative consequences. In particular, we observe growth of crime. The obsolete, we should say, inadequate court practices still use clearly nonefficient ways of fighting the crime, putting criminals to the penitentiaries. Every year about 80 thousand citizens got there. So for the first half of the current year 42151 citizens were condemned to the incarceration, including 2464 minors. As a result, the number of the incarcerated in Ukraine grew almost three times during the years of independence, and the number of incarcerated sometimes leached 240 thousand. Amnesties enable to decrease the prison population for some time, but after half a year the previous status reconstructs. As studies show, in the whole world the incarcerated are the poor and badly educated people. Undoubtedly, the education factor is positively correlated with the law-abiding behavior of people. Besides, an educated person has much more chances to live without violating laws. On the contrary, a person without a profession and without secondary education has much less chances to earn enough for a dignified level of life without breaking law. That is why one may consider the education as a factor that diminishes the probability of committing crimes. It is even more important to get an adequate secondary education by people who have already committed crimes and appeared in a penitentiary. It should be noted that in the USSR the incarcerated had the right and the opportunity to get secondary education while staying behind the bars. Yet, several years ago schools in many penitentiaries were, to our great pity, closed. Today the question of the opportunity to get secondary education for people behind the bars has a quite new urgency. Nowadays tens of thousands of people without secondary education stay in prisons and colonies. Taking into consideration that now very often there is no job in colonies, the incarcerated have a lot of time for learning. However, they do not have the opportunity to learn. Thus they are deprived of their constitutional right for education, although verdicts do not deprive them of this right. Article 53 of the Constitution declares ‘the complete general secondary education is obligatory’. Besides, the situation with the education in penitentiaries is a violation of the European Prison Rules, which Ukraine, as a member of the Council of Europe, must obey. In Rule 81, in particular, it is said that ‘the education of the incarcerated must be integrated within the state system of education’. Special resolution of the Council of Europe R 89 (12) ‘ON education in prisons’ is dedicated to these problems. In our opinion, the image of Ukraine is sufficiently spoiled by the violation of many human rights, and it is very unpatriotic to worsen the situation also by the education problems. We are sure that if the state applies a punishment in the form of incarceration, then the state has a duty to be responsible for the conditions in which the incarcerated are kept. Thus, the responsibility for providing the opportunity for the incarcerated to get the secondary education belongs to the state, first of all, to the Ministry of Education. We are convinced that any steps in this direction must have the state scale. For realization of this program the corresponding expenditures must be introduced in the budget. We believe that concrete steps for fast improvement of the situation with getting secondary education by the incarcerated in the penitentiaries must be developed by specialists and representatives of the State Department of penitentiaries of Ukraine. It is important to solve this problem at once. We turn to you, respected Mr. Minister, with the request to realize all necessary efforts for the solution of the de-scribed problem in the nearest time. All citizen of Ukraine must have the right for education. We shall be very grateful to you, if you inform us on your attitude to the problem and on the concrete steps, which will be made by the Ministry of Education for the immediate improvement of the situation.

Head of the directorate of Donetsk ‘Memorial’

Aleksandr Bukalov

‘PL’ commentary. In our opinion, colleagues from Donetsk set an important problem. The Kharkiv Group for human rights protection supports this initiative of Donetsk ‘Memorial’ and appeal to other NGOs to take part in the joint action.

This story somewhat differs from the typical ones – persecution of mass media or journalists – yet, it is instructive. Anatoliy Luniachenko, the chairman of the Odessa oblast court, turned to court requesting to start a libel case against Nikolay Rozovaykin and Leonid Sapa according to Article 125 Part 1 of the CC of Ukraine. The plaintiff complained that Rozovaykin and Sapa in their applications to the President of Ukraine, to the USS, to the Supreme Council of Justice and to the Supreme Rada distributed false information asserting that Luniachenko tramples the Constitution, the laws of Ukraine and human rights, misuses his post, participates in machinations of selling ships for damping prices. The Zavodskoy district court of the city of Nikolaev considered the claim and found it grounded. As to N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa, they had to sign the promise of not leaving the town. As a response to the start of the criminal case N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa published in the first issue of the bulletin ‘Selfdefense’ of the Dnepropetrovsk center of human rights protection an open letter addressed to the President of Ukraine and titled ‘The state flag over the court brothel’. The open letter (as well as other appeals and applications) the authors signed as ‘representatives of the international union of human rights protection in Ukraine’. In this lengthy and emotional text the authors put together their numerous accusations to the address of Luniachenko. In particular, the authors state that under the guidance of A. Luniachenko his nephew Vladimir Luniachenko, a judge of the Primorskiy district court of Odessa, ‘sold at a very low price of $2,200,000 the national property of Ukraine – a passenger liner ‘Taras Shevchenko’, whereas its real price is $12 million’. Further the authors state that a criminal case according to Articles 165 Part 2 and 80 Part 1 of the CC of Ukraine has been started, that the investigation is carried out and that a court combination with the direct participation of Luniachenko has been finished with another ship of the Agarov plant. Further Rozovaykin and Sapa inform that the productive commercial company ‘Monolit-Invest’ is busy in a confidence trick: the swindlers gathered money of some inhabitants of Odessa for building a block of flats and after having built the house they sold the flats to other people. District courts defended the victims of this trick, but Luniachenko canceled the decision of the district courts and openly defended ‘Monolit-Invest’ since this organization ‘built one of the villas of Luniachenko and the building of the oblast court. On the 9th floor of this building Luniachenko ordered to erect a sauna and high-quality apartments, thus giving finishing touches to the building, which in the direct and figurative meaning is the brothel for judges. And now a state flag of Ukraine is waving over the brothel’. Further in the article authors quote a collective letter of the Beliavskiy district court of Odessa to the President of Ukraine and the Supreme Rada. The judges of the court write that the chairman of the oblast court A. D. Bobuek ‘openly collects money for himself and for the chairman of the oblast court A. Luniachenko’ and quotes numerous examples; in particular, that after passing the appointed sums of money by the accused they get conditional verdicts independently of the gravity of their crimes. The authors do not say whether these facts were ever checked. N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa write only that ‘neither the chairman of the Supreme Rada nor the Minister of Justice, nor the chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine responded to the complaints of the victims and MPs. The corruption at the top of juridical power enabled A. Luniachenko and company to become especially dangerous criminals in Ukraine’. In the same article Rozovaykin and Sapa accuse Luniachenko and his accomplices of high treason. The authors qualify the crimes as a violation of Article 56 of the CC of Ukraine. The crime was the verdict in a civil case on pollution of the Odessa port from the Maltese tanker ‘Athenian Face’. Considering this case, ‘A Luniachenko with the aid of the former deputy of the prosecutor of Ukraine Olga Kolyshko, chairman of the Pecherskiy district court of Kyiv Nikolay Zamkovenko and a judge of the Odessa oblast court G. Pogorelova robbed Ukraine for 16 million USD in favor of Malta (hence, in their own favor). So they substantially harmed the ecological, economic and social-political power of Ukraine’. N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa also analyzed the origin of Luniachenko’s property. ‘A. Luniachenko during a few years purchased luxurious apartments at 7 Varnenskaya St. and at 4 Zhukovskiy St. costing about $100,000, as well as a country house at the Belgorod-Dniester Bay ($200,000), a villa registered to another person in 4 Otradnaya St. ($300,000), a villa in the Tsarskoye Selo at 19 Abrikosovaya St. costing $1,500,000. Besides, he purchased expensive foreign cars costing, according to specialists’ calculations, about 3 millions USD’. The authors finish their article with a request ‘to use the presidential power and make the USS chairman start a criminal case against Luniachenko and his accomplices according to Article 56 of the CC of Ukraine. And if he does not risk to defend the legal interests of the motherland, then we ask the USS chairman to start the criminal case, according to Article 125 Part 3 of the CC of Ukraine, against us, human rights protectors – we shall publicly defend our motherland from its corrupted traitors!’ Their dreams came true, and they were summoned to court to be tried for slander Further the events developed in the following way. On 9 March N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa handed the application to the General Prosecutor, in which they described two armed attempts on Sapa’s life and ‘the well-planned attempts at extermination of N. Rozovaykin in Odessa, for which the criminals in power took as hostages two Rozovaykin’s sons’ (quoted from the article of A. Ben in the newspaper ‘Golos Ukrainy’, No. 110 of 22 June). N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa did not come to the court three times: on 3 March, on 30 March and on 12 April, and the court changed the signa-ture on not leaving the town for the detention in the preliminary prison of the Nikolaev oblast. On 14 April N. Rozovaykin was detained and L. Sapa was writing complaints on the illegal arrest to all instances during two days. Then he packed his suitcase and went to the railway station in order to go to Nikolaev, as his wife asserted, to save his comrade-at-arms. Instead he disappeared without any trace. The court did not wait until he was found and separated the case of N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa. Rozovaykin was tried in June, got his term for slander and very soon got under the consecutive amnesty. Rozovaykin did not plead guilty and appealed to higher instances. Sapa appeared in public only in July. He told that he was kidnapped by unknown men in civil clothing and was kept more than three months in some basement. Now it is Sapa who has to be tried for slander. Until now, with some difficulty, I abstained from commentaries about this conflict. It would be interesting to hear the opinion of colleagues, but now I will tell my own opinion. In my opinion the style of all N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa’s writings resembles that of denunciations ‘enemies of the people’ in the worst Stalin’s times. The arguments of the fighters for motherland do not seem convincible and the facts do not seem genuine. Instead of exact details and arguments we come across with emotions, unproved assertions and the wish to humiliate and insult the opponent. Some passages are disgusting. For example, the following one: ‘A. Luniachenko (alias Faydula) in his time defended the bolshevik regime, got a juridical education, wormed his way into judges and now… He mocks at the tatar people that suffered under Stalin’s regime and thus sows the interethnic enmity rousing the hate to the power, to which he must serve’. Such examples may be multiplied. On the other hand, the authors dare to call themselves ‘human rights protectors known throughout the world’, which is an obvious lie. N. Rozovaykin and L. Sapa call themselves ‘representatives of International Union of human rights protection in Ukraine’, although no one ever gave them such authority. By their actions and publications they generate negative attitude to this respected organization. Still there remains the most important question: are the facts described in the abominable style true or not? As law-obedient citizens, after the court verdict that N. Rozovaykin is a slanderer, we must acknowledge that out truthseekers write in inadmissible manner and write falsehoods. Since they plan to fight the court decision in higher instances, then, theoretically, it may appear that Luniachenko and his accomplices are criminals. Then it will remain that Rozovaykin and Sapa are just quarrelsome people with very bad style of writing. But in every case I should insist that their style is inadmissible.

A lot of paper is wasted about the notorious propiska (a residence permit) that we inherited from the Soviet times. Yet, Ukraine, an independent state, that does its best to blend with Europe, has managed to do nothing in order to realize its loud declaration and cancel propiska. As well as half a century ago we write a humble application to the passport department of our militia: ‘I ask you to permit me a propiska…’. One may ask a proud question, which right they have to permit or not permit residence at this or that place to a free citizen? Do they know Article 33 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which guarantees the freedom of choice of residence? I decided to find the answer to these questions from the scratch that is from the moment of getting a new passport of a citizen of Ukraine. The problems began from the procedure of getting the passport. When I applied to give me a new passport, I wanted to drop the record that I reside in a hostel (where actually I did not live for several years). The militia clerk explained to me that the record will be dropped if I get a permit for propiska in the new place. I was puzzled: ‘And if I go to another town?’. — ‘Then I will cross out your old propiska’. — ‘And can you tell me, which law contains all these rules?’. She could not answer my question. Then she said: ‘This is the order of my boss’. It was absolutely useless to discuss the question about the Constitution: clearly, her boss’s order had a higher priority. So I handed in my old passport and wrote an application that I want to move to the village Russkaya Lozovaya, situated at ten kilometers from Kharkiv. Three months later (instead of one, according to the law) I was given a new passport with a record of loosing the propiska in Kharkiv. I decided to get a new propiska in Kharkiv, for which I turned to a passport clerk in the place where I actually resided for several years. She explained to me in all details which documents I should gather, what questionnaires I should fill in, after which the authorities may give me the permission for the propiska in this place. The cumbersome procedure of getting necessary documents I regarded as extra and the permission for the propiska looked doubtful in the light of the Constitution. So I asked: ‘What are the reasons that you demand all this? Are there any laws about it?’. — ‘Oh, I know nothing for sure, but so they tell me in the passport department’. Later I diligently read all the normative acts of the Supreme Rada, but I have not come across with a word ‘propiska’. Meanwhile, in the law on the passport of a Ukrainian citizen it is said that, first, a record on the residence is made in the passport (but not about propiska), and, secondly, other records, not stipulated by this normative act and operating laws, are not admitted. So the norm says nothing about propiska. So what the devil I must think about putting the stamp about propiska in my passport? About a year passed. During this time I had several unpleasant encounters with militiamen, who tried to fine me for the absence of the mentioned stamp. Every time I demanded to describe my felony in writing and give me a receipt for the fine; I also promised to complain to their superiors up the prosecutor and court about their illegal actions. After this they let me go unpunished. At last during the presidential election I was not admitted to vote, and the refusal of my voting rights was confirmed on all levels from the district court to the Supreme Court. At last in this April I send an application to the district passport department, in which I wrote that I, a citizen of Ukraine on the base of Article 33 of the Constitution of Ukraine chose a place of residence, at which I ask to register my address. If I must append auxiliary documents, I ask to in-form me about this referring to the operating laws. Soon I was invited to give explanations. The conversation with the officer in charge was monotonous: she permanently tried to list my practical actions without any references: ‘You must fill in such and such from, you must bring such and such documents, and then, if there is enough square meters, we shall give you the propiska’. – ‘But what is the legal basis on which I must do all of this?’. – ’Well, we give a propiska on the base of the Residence Code’. Namely this phrase was used in this conversation and in the written answer which I later received, although in the Residence Code there is no mention of either a propiska or of its obtainment. ‘Do you know that the Residence Code, as any other law, operates unless it is not contrary to the Constitution? In particular, if it is not in conflict with the citizen’s right to choose his place of residence. Besides, according to the Instruction on the passport of a citizen of Ukraine, I ask you not about a propiska, but about the registration of my place of residence, and no document confirms that the propiska and the registration is the same’. – ‘I do not know, go to my boss and discuss it’. By the way, the head of the passport department was very polite. He told me that all the matters with propiska are ruled on the base of a special instruction on propiska (registration), confirmed by Order of the Ministry of Interior No. 66-док of 3 February 1992. However, since this order is clas-sified (‘For service use only’), citizens have no right to read it. ‘And do you know that normative acts concerning rights and duties of citizens, and the given order certainly does it, are (according to Article 57 of the Constitution) null and void, if they are not published?’. – ‘My administration orders me this and that, and I have no opportunity to dodge the order’. – ‘So, if I understood you correctly, your administration makes you to abuse human rights being ruled by the anti-constitutional documents?’. – ‘???… Well, you see, I do not decide such questions. I advise you to turn to Kyiv, to the Supreme Rada’. Fancy, what would happen in a normal country, say, in the United States of America, if some civil servant declared that he disregarded the Constitution

Then he and his direct bosses up to the minister included would be sacked at once without the right to occupy any state jobs. And have you ever seen a Ukrainian bureaucrat sacked for violating constitutional rights of citizens

There is no doubt that the Constitution is violated not by separate bosses, but by state organzations of all levels. I cannot regard Leonid Kuchma as my President, since I was not admitted to the election. For me, as well as for tens thousands of Ukrainian citizens, who were not admitted to the election by the reasons connected with propiska, he is not our President. I may not consider him a guarantor of the Constitution, since the rights stipulated in this Constitution are permanently and openly abused. Moreover, it looks like President Kuchma guarantees trampling of constitutional rights. Why do I think so

To understand this, it is sufficient to look into the Constitution, to the Part ‘Rights, freedoms and duties of man and citizen’. I recommend the authorities including the Presi-dent to look through this part and think how the laws are obeyed:

•  Article 24. Equality of citizens’ rights, their equality before the law. – Systematic discrimination of citizens concerning propiska.

•  Article 25. A citizen of Ukraine may not be deprived of citizenship. – A new version of the law on citizenship, adopted in 1997, essentially diminishes the set of citizens who had the right of citizenship in 1991. On the basis of this new version bodies of internal affairs deprive of the Ukrainian citizenship those people who resided on the territory of Ukraine at the moment of the appearance of the independent Ukraine, but had no permanent propiska.

•  Article 29. The right for freedom and personal immunity. – This article is not operable, since in transitive instructions it is stipulated that the existing order of arrest, detainment and keep-ing in custody will be preserved during five years. However, the President is not worried by the rightness position of the majority of citizens, he is worried that a few citizens (MPs) still have their personal immunity.

•  Article 30. Guarantee of the sanctity of home. – This article is not operable by the same reason that Article 29.

•  Articles 31, 32. Guarantee of privacy of written correspondence, telephone conversations, etc., non-interference to personal and family life. – The Supreme Rada adopted corrections to the law on ODA that restricted the opportunities of law-enforcing structures to abuse the privacy, but these corrections were twice vetoed by the President (see the rumors on the ‘bad’ Parliament and the ’good’ President).

•  Article 33. Free choice of the place of residence. – The organs of the Ministry of Interior through the institute of propiska directly abuse it. Citizens, who reside not in the place where it is permitted by the authorities, are fined by Article 197 of the Administrative Code.

•  Article 57. Every citizen is guaranteed to know his rights and duties. – Up to now nothing is published about the procedure of getting a propiska (propiska is ruled by secret instructions of the Ministry of Interior which leaves a large margin for arbitrary actions).

This list can be continued – and every item will prove that during four years since adoption of the Constitution practically nothing was done for protecting citizens’ rights. I also cannot recollect a single saying of our President on this topic. It seems that today’s abuse of citizens’ rights suits the President very well. The most shocking is that practically all state officers, with whom I had the honor to communicate, fully ignore the Constitution, referring at best to the obsolete laws, orders and instructions in the worst case they refer to the orders of their bosses. Up to now phrase jingles in my ears, which was pronounced by one zealous law-enforcer: ‘As a citizen of Ukraine I obey the Constitution, but as a state officer I obey orders and instructions from the top’. This atmosphere of universal anti-Constitutional attitude has penetrated all pores of our state, and propiska is only one demonstration. It is possible to say than trampling constitutional rights of citizens for the sake of some top state interests under the present President is made the state routine policy. It is sufficient to take any state agency document and you will find there reference to the ‘state interests’, but almost never to the Constitution. Ask any state officer why the Constitution is ignored, and he will answer that Constitution is a very respected document, but the bosses take you responsible for other, more practical matters. Instead of a democratic, socially oriented rightful state we had got a monster – anti-constitutional state of Ukraine. P.S. I am ready to regard Leonid Kuchma as a guarantor of the Constitution, if his personal efforts will permit me and other citizens of Ukraine to win in the nearest future one of the above-listed constitutional rights, which we have lost by efforts of petty bureaucrats appointed by the President. Let it be, for example, the right of free choice of the place of residence.

In the framework of the project ‘Promoting openness of prisons’, that is financed by the inter-national organization ‘Penal Reform International’ (PRI), the Donetsk branch of ‘Memorial’, in April – July, held three seminars for the workers of penitentiary system. One seminar was held in Chernigov for teachers of the lawyers’ school that prepares personnel for the penitentiary establishments; another seminar was held in Melitopol for the personnel of the reforming colony; the third seminar was held in Mariupol for the personnel of the three penitentiaries situated in the town: for a preliminary prison, a reforming colony for men and another for women. The seminars were of the informative kind focusing on the problems of violation and protection of human rights. Although the rights of the incarcerated were not concerned, the seminar organizers started from the doctrine formulated in the Second general report of the European Committee against tortures: ‘There is no better guarantee against bad treatment of incarcerated as a correctly trained prison personnel’. In the capacity of trainers, Oles and Nina Kusaykins from Kharkiv Education Center of human rights took part in the seminars. During two days the participants of the seminars could learn the history of development of the concept ‘human rights’ and the existing international documents in this sphere. Together with their trainers they had to answer such questions as ‘Is there any justification for abusing human rights?’, ‘Which are the main sources of the abuses?’. In the Melitopol reforming colony for women practical training on the applied right were held. The discussion of the problem what is the use and what are the dangers of making penitentiaries more open caused an especial interest among the practical workers of as closed establishments as colonies. They pointed out the undoubtedly positive effect of growing relations with public organizations in solving problems existing in the system. At the same time many practical workers hesitated whether the frequent visits may negatively influence the operative situation in penitentiaries. The participants of the seminars were lectured on the activities of human rights protection organizations in Ukraine, with the specific character of their work and about the results of their cooperation with penitentiary establishments. Every participant got a package of informational materials, which was prepared by the Donetsk ‘Memorial‘ and PRI. The seminars demonstrated that the workers of penitentiaries are rather interested in the cooperation with NGOs, they actively discussed the problems of human rights and their protection, they expressed their readiness to cooperate with public organizations. At the same time the organizers of the seminars understood once more that while preparing such seminars they must take into consideration the specific traits of the professional group, that they must carefully select the discussion topics and methods of teaching.

Many complications have appeared in the activities of trade unions owing to the new corrections to the law of Ukraine ‘On trade unions, their rights and guarantees of their activities’. One of the victims became the mine named after Orjonikidze. On 26 April the trade union of this mine held a consecutive portback election conference. This trade union, like the majority of trade unions in Krivbass, started its activities simultaneously with the first steps of independent Ukraine. However, the administrative pressure practically upon all members of independent trade unions has never stopped. This time the administrative organs jointly with dependent from the local administration trade union of metallurgists and miners decided to make use of the vague formulations of the law in order to finish the existence of the trade union, which dared to return privileges that miners had, such as auxiliary days of leaves for harmful conditions of work. These actions were provoked by Order No. 569 of V. P. Movchan, the general director of the central ore mining and processing en-terprise. Even if the trade union violated some legal norms, then its lot had to be decided according to Article 18 of the law ‘On trade unions, their rights and guarantees of their activities’, which is titled ‘Suspension of activities of trade unions and their associations’. This article stipulates the following procedure: the activities of trade unions or their associations that violate the Constitution and Ukrainian laws may be forbidden by the decision of a court. Any other decision to disband a trade union or prohibit its activities by any other organs has no legal force. The appeal of the head of the disbanded trade union M. Kindrat and heads of a number of other trade unions addressed to the administration and law-enforcing bodies had no effect.

Several months passed since the presidential election in the Lviv oblast, and now the authorities decided to punish those members of the election commissions, who were appointed by candi-dates-outsiders. In the town of Sokal a member of the legislation commission Nadiya Klapa was sacked from her job. During the election she represented the peasants’ party, personally the candidate Tkachenko. Another victim was Volodymyr Shtoyko, who represented Marchuk. The head of the postal office Bogdan Deshchitsia had to explain why he had given the hall for a meeting of the district center of the Ukrainian republican party. Then conditions were formed such that he had to leave his job.

I believe that the right, in that distinct and high sense which is used in ‘Memorial’, is policy, policy of the future. Certainly, Putin’s advent supported by the society is a very strong and obvious step, and I even cannot say whether it is a step back. I even do not know how many steps ahead have been made. Certainly, several have been made, but they intervened with others. In the society and in the country permanently and simultaneously steps to different directions are made. I want to tell my prediction: the political course of those scriptwriters, who realize the course now, is doomed to be eclectic. There will be appeals on the necessity of the partnership with the West; first of all it will be economic partnership and obtaining credits. There will be declarations what must a citizen of Russia do in his working time and out-of-work time. Perhaps, the former colonel will learn what is politically correct, and he will understand that in the society, where the word ‘liberalism’ has not be-come a swear word yet, it is better to express oneself very accurately. Certainly, no political force in Russia, influential or not, which got the power, has not enough forces to turn back. But in my opin-ion the main problem of the country is that a prison guard sitting inside everybody’s skin is much more efficient than the prison guard on the tower. We do not need any literary censorship. A sufficiently long experience of our mass media shows that censorship works without any special office, since inner censors work efficiently and, beside the whip, a pancake appeared in the from of high income. This combination works much more efficiently than the former censorship. This makes our main inner problem, in my opinion, the inner problem having international scale. All serious inner problems, such as Russian-Ukrainian and Russian-Belarussian problems, are simultaneously the most important international problems. The public wish to obey the inner censor is our main problem. However much would we take into consideration the public mood, that is public errors, we shall earn nothing. We can be only ourselves. It goes without saying that we must be very accurate in expressing our viewpoints, but that is all we can do. We must not get soft in accounting for popular prejudices. I believe that such a policy is the policy of the future. This policy is very frank, open and genuine. And we must not be afraid who and what will think about this. We must be afraid of inner contradictions, of bad logic, of emotional gushes, but this relates to that what we must do and what we must attain, but not to the impression about what we are doing. At last, some words on the interaction with our sister-organizations, NGOs, for example, par-ties and political forces. Here, it seems to me, we must set up mutual relations not only with ‘Yabloko’ or what remained from SPS. It is promising to contact with such organizations having de-clared quite distinctly our own position and our assessment on the mutual relations. Maybe, the co-operation may be continued to those who call themselves democrats. Maybe, some public organizations can become a partner of this probable association, the association, having its own face with its hard position but without categorical refusal to cooperate. It seems to me that such interaction is possible and even desirable. (From the speech of S. Kovalev at the sitting of the directorate if the International historical-educational, charity and human rights protection society ‘Memorial’ held on 10-11 May 2000 in Moscow)

The hunting season for extra Chernobyl rescuers is opened in Kharkiv. Every year on 26 April the country recalls its heroes. In Kharkiv every one of 13 thousand Chernobyl rescuers gets a scarce financial aid, a present to children and a congratulation card. The term for a consecutive re-registration of the heroes of Chernobyl finished by the first July this year. 649 persons were crossed out of the lists. So, the lists are growing, somewhat compensating the death rate. The question is how the extra Chernobyl heroes get to the lists and how they get the proper documents. Here is a story that explains a method of doing so. A Chernobyl rescuer, an invalid of the third group, a medical doctor Tatiana Chuchula got a document after re-registration on 21 May 1997. Once, during coming to her job, she was reprimanded by the transport controller that her document of a Chernobyl rescuer for free transportation was incorrect — there was no stamp and no signature of Ivan Bey, who is in charge of such documents in Kharkiv city administration. Doctor Chuchula handed her certificate to the proper department of the Moskovskiy district of Kharkiv. Certainly, bureaucrats did not hurry and in three months informed the doctor that her certificate had vanished. They promised to give the doctor a duplicate. They even promised that this duplicate would have the needed stamp and the needed signature. It appeared that such mysterious losses of originals have a tendency to occur in many districts of Kharkiv. Where they get and for how much, one can only guess.

Since the English review covers two issues of the original ‘Prava ludyny’, we have the opportunity to get the response of the official person to the above-placed note.

The note ‘Crossed out of the lists’ in the previous issue of ‘Prava ludyny’ is especially interesting for the readers who are professionally connected with the problems of the Chernobyl rescuers. Here is the commentary of Maya Sheremet, the deputy head of district commission of protection of the Chernobyl rescuers. ‘The case described certainly must not considered typical, this is a rear exception. Although our commission does not deal with the questions of re-registration of the Chernobyl rescuers, I have permanent contacts with them and never heard that disappearance of the IDs is a frequent phe-nomenon. Re-registration is a serious matter and mistakes here are impossible. What has happened with Tatiana Chuchula may be explained only by carelessness of the workers of the district department. Certainly, such mistakes are inadmissible. People worry because they got the privileges at a very great price. We do our best to assist the Chernobyl rescuers, find some money for the aid to our clients, pay for medicine, etc. This is, of course, not sufficient. The main evil comes from state bureaucrats. We cannot fight with them without the public aid. That is why we a glad when newspapers support us’

‘Kyivenergo’ is a powerful energy-distributing empire. Electrons subordinate to this organization enter every flat in the city, about 800 automobiles of the company furrow Kyivan streets. The US embassy is also a powerful organization, but Mr. Maystrenko occupied a compara-tively minor position of a consultant of the political department. These two mighty organizations collided in the Kyivan court because two automobiles collided — one was owned by ‘Kyivenergo’ and another was owned by political consultant Maystrenko. To speak in more details, Maystrenko braked his brand-new ‘Oka’ before a pedestrian crossing, and ‘Volga’ that followed hit the ‘Oka’ in the tale bumper. ‘Volga’ is a stout car and the tiny ‘Oka’ got a broken bumper and wry body. Mr. Maystrenko, although a consultant of the political department, believed in laws, as practiced in the Starokyivskiy district court, where he handed his claim. In the court they did not believe in laws, they began to weigh which of the organizations — ‘Kyivenergo’ or the USA — is more useful and nearer. The general idea of the verdict was evident, so they made such a decision: to con-fiscate Maystrenko’s ‘Oka’ and give it, to compensate the damage, to ‘Kyivenergo’, and the ‘re-maining cost’, i.e. the cost of the wrecked ‘Oka’, must be given to Maystrenko. Juridically the verdict is very original, because no law of the related kind stipulates confiscating anything from the suffered side. Maystrenko directed a cassation, and the city court confirmed the verdict. Now Maystrenko is going to complain to the Strasbourg court on human rights. He hopes that this court respects the USA more than ‘Kyivenergo’.

D. was born in the village of Nikolayevka, the Volkovakhskiy district of the Donetsk oblast to a family of the quarry worker. Father was killed at the front in 1943, mother was a hospital attendant. In 1949 D. entered the Donetsk Pedagogical Institute from which he graduated in 1953 majoring in Russian philology. In 1953 – 1957 D. was a post-graduate of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the UkrSSR. From 1959 D. worked as an editor of the department of literature science and a critic of the magazine ‘Vitchizna’ (‘Motherland’). In 1959 D. became a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine. In 1962 D. was dismissed from the magazine ‘Vitchizna’ ‘for ideological mistakes’. D. took an active part in the work of the Creative Youth Club founded in Kyiv in 1960 under aegis of the city Komsomol Committee. By and by young creative intelligentsia, whose spiritual leader was I. Svitlychny, became to dominate in the work of this club, other intellectual leaders of the club became I. Dziuba and E. Sverstiuk. On 31 July D. held the memorial evening of L. Ukrainka in the Central Park of culture and rest in Kyiv; the memorial evening was held in the park alleys, since the authorities actually prohibited the commemoration meeting. This fact D. reflected in the ‘Poyasnitelnaya zapiska’ (‘Explanatory note’) that was distributed in samizdat. In 1964 – 65 D. worked as a literary consultant of the publishing house ‘Molod’ (‘Youth’). He was dismissed for taking part in the protests against political arrests among the Ukrainian intelligentsia in 1965. He also took part in the protest action at the review of the film ‘Teni zabytykh pred-kov’ (‘Shadows of forgotten forefathers’), where he spoke on the secret arrests among the young intelligentsia that brought panic in the ranks of ‘the official representatives’ and embarrassment in the hall. D. was supported by V. Chornovil, V. Stus, M. Kotsiubinska and others. As early as in 1963 D. plans to write a work on the national policy in Ukraine According to D., there existed then an urgent necessity of such analysis. In the end of 1965 D. directed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CC CPU) a letter with the protest against arrests among intelligentsia, explaining that this was not an adequate solution of the problems. The letter caused criticism of the authorities from intelligentsia. He appended a manuscript that later became very well-known, it was ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’ (‘Internationalism or rusification?’). Confining himself within the frame of the Soviet system, not refusing from the basic statements of the official ideology, D. tried to draw the attention of the authorities to the state of the Ukrainian nation in the USSR. The strongest points of the book were the parts dedicated to rusification, to examples of the anti-Ukrainian phobias in the history of the Russian expansion and chauvinism. The book was quickly distributed in samizdat, it was read throughout Ukraine. A real cult of Dziuba appeared among Ukrainian intelligentsia. The author himself, a very modest and delicate man, was not prepared to such popularity and such public role. Rather soon the book ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’ got abroad, and in 1968 the publish-ing house ‘Suchasnist’ (‘Modernity’) in Munich published D.’s work as a book. Later this book was translated to many languages and published in many countries. The publication of the ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’ abroad resulted in persecution of D. In summer of 1966 he was summoned to the CC CPU, where they proposed him to publish the refutation of the ‘slanderous’ information printed in the West about the national problems in the USSR. D. refused and then an article about D. appeared in print, where he was accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism’. The Union of Writers of Ukraine was ordered to draw the proper conclusions concerning D. They held a ‘friendly conversation’ with D., but it also did not give the desired result. On the contrary, a brilliant report of D. at the memorial evening devoted to the 30th anniversary of the poet V. Simonenko appeared in the foreign press. In 1967 D. attended the court session where V. Chornovil was tried. After it D., I. Svitlychny, N. Svitlychny and L. Kostenko directed the letter of protest to P. Shelest (the first secretary of the CC CPU), where they characterized the trial as a complete violation of the procedural norms and as an avenge to a man, who thinks otherwise and dares to criticize concrete actions of the concrete state organs. In 1968 D. signed the letter of 139 Ukrainian intellectuals about the political trials in Ukraine and in Moscow. The persecution campaign against D. was started in the official press. In December 1969 the Union of Writers of Ukraine started the process of expulsion of D. A meeting was held, where only two writers made speeches against D., blaming him of divulging state secrets. D. asked a question what secrets were meant: he had no access to any state secrets. One of the two speakers was indignant: ‘Do not you think that disclosing the national policy of our party is not divulging a state secret?’ At this meeting the authorities failed to exclude D. from the Union of Writers. On 26 Dec 1969 D. wrote a letter to the presidium of the Union of Writers, where he dissociated from his foreign publishers and commentators, D. condemned them. The letter was sharply criticized by V. Moroz in his essay ‘Sered snegiv’ (‘Among snows’). L. Pliushch compared this essay with the well-known V. Belinskiy’s letter to N. Gogol. V. Moroz accused D. that he attacked his own ideas and the Ukrainian resistance. The presidium took account of this letter and permitted D. to remain in the Union of Writers, but warned him that he must take active part in the literary process on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory and to fight without compromises against bourgeois ideology. On 26 – 27 Mar 1970 leaflets were scattered in the Polytechnic and Construction-Engineering institutes in Kyiv. The leaflets expressed the protest against the exclusion of A. Solzhenitsyn from the Union of Writers of the USSR and against persecutions of D. In the magazine ‘Ukrainskiy Visnyk’ (‘The Ukrainian Herald’) No. 2 D.’s letters were printed. They defended V. Moroz. In November 1970 D., together with V. Chornovil, B. Antonenko-Davydovych and Bobliak, refused to give testimony in the closed trial of V. Moroz. On 12 Jan 1972 D. was present in Svitlychny’s home during the search and arrest of the latter. Later D. was taken home that was also searched. Then for several weeks on end D. was called for interrogations. They confiscated the complete works of Lenin with marginal notes and underlined places. In February new searches and interrogations followed. On 2 Mar 1972 a meeting of the presidium of the Union of Writers was held devoted to D.’s personal case. This time D. was excluded from the Union ‘for abusing the statute of the Union, preparing and distributing materials which are anti-Soviet and anti-Communist in character, expressing nationalistic outlook, slandering the Soviet system and national policy of the party and Soviet state’. The decision was taken unanimously. Practically the authorities meant the book ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’ of 1965, for which they tried to exclude D. in 1969, but failed. On 18 Apr 1972 D. was ar-rested. The only official accusation was again the work ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’. On 11 – 16 Mar 1973 D. was tried in the Kyiv oblast court and condemned by Article 62 of the CC of the UkrSSR to 5 years of concentration camp and 5 years of exile. D. got gravely ill: he had an open form of TB and cirrhosis of the lungs. In October of 1973 D. turned to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the UkrSSR with the petition of mercy. On 9 Nov 1973 the newspaper ‘Literaturnaya Ukraina’ (‘Literary Ukraine’) published D.’s application where he acknowledged his errors. During the investigation he began to write the work meant as a critical analysis of ‘Internatsionalism ili rusifikatsiya?’. Later it was published as a booklet titled ‘Grani kristalla’ (‘Crystal facets’). The disavowal was very painful for all D.’s admirers and dissidents not only in Ukraine. The attitude of the bulk of Ukrainian dissidents was well expressed by I. Svitlychny, who learned about D.’s disavowal when staying in the concentration camp: ‘That is a pity, a great pity. What will he do now? He will not be able to write, and his life will be solitary and dull’. In the West they found more plausible the version according to which D. was supported by P. Shelest, the first secretary of CC CPU in 1963 – 1972. Sacking of Shelest in 1972, they believed, became the reason of the opposition failure in the framework of the official system and resulted in D.’s disavowal. Taking into account D.’s partial confession of his guilt, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the UkrSSR mercied D. and liberated him from the incarceration. In 1974 – 1982 D. worked as a corrector and as a literary correspondent of the Kyiv aviation plant newspaper. From 1982 he wrote many essays and books on literature. From 1992 to 1994 he worked as a Minister of Culture of Ukraine. D. is the winner of the Beletskiy prize (1987) and the T. Shevchenko state prize (1991). At present he is the academician-secretary of the literature, language and art studies in the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is the editor-in-chief of the magazine ‘Suchasnist’ (‘Modernity’), the president of the national association of Ukrainian studies, a co-chairman of the main editorial collegium of the ‘Encyclopedia of the modern Ukraine’. D. is one of the most respect-able and authoritative figures of the Ukrainian culture.

He resides in Kyiv.

The editorial board of the magazine ‘Pravozashchitnik’ (‘Human rights protector’) declares that public organizations and individual human rights protection activists, who want to get the magazine gratis, can direct their orders by the address: Editorial board of the magazine ‘Pravozashchitnik’, POB 207, Main Postal Office, 101000, Moscow; fax: (095) 246-97-20; email: [email protected]. The order must contain full name, the name of the organization, postal address, telephone number, or fax, or email, if any. On special requests we can send back numbers of the magazine. The weekly ‘Pravozashchitnik’ is a specialized edition elucidating a wide spectrum of problems of human rights protection. The magazine is published since 1994. The size is 112 pages, the run is 3000 copies. The magazine publishes basic Russian and international documents pertaining to the human rights protection, problem and polemic articles, information on human rights protection practices in Russia and abroad. The magazine authors are prominent lawyers, officers of law-enforcing bodies, well-known figures of human rights protection movement, activists of regional public organizations. The main rubrics:

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Enlightenment. Problems of teaching fundamental rightful, cultural and legal knowledge in educational establishments.

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The legislation reform. Articles and comments by learned lawyers.

Problem. Imperfection of legislation search of decisions.

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On Russian and international human rights protecting organizations, on new books and journals analyzing the problems of human rights protection.

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