[mobglob-discuss] Censored News as it is happening...

[Macdonald Stainsby]

AFP (with additional material by Reuters and AP). 24 September 2002.
Ukraine deputies launch hunger strike in presidential building.

KIEV -- Sixty Ukrainian deputies launched a hunger strike Tuesday to
demand a meeting with President Leonid Kuchma as thousands of
demonstrators took to the street to demand the head of state's
resignation.

"We have begun a strike and will stay here until the president receives
us," Communist party leader Petro Simonenko told AFP after the group
entered the presidential building.

Deputies from the Socialist party, the Our Ukraine fraction and the
Yulia Timoshenko bloc are also taking part in the hunger strike.

"We want to hand the president a petition demanding his resignation,"
Simonenko said.

"But armed guards are preventing us from reaching Kuchma's office and we
are blocked between the second and third floors" of the building, he
said.

The Interfax news agency said Kuchma was refusing to meet the deputies.

Earlier, around 8,000 Ukrainians rallied in central Kiev to demand
Kuchma's resignation, while the parliamentary opposition presented a
resolution for his impeachment.

Dozens of police stood watching as the protestors gathered in front of
the parliament, the Rada, many of them holding up posters displaying
slogans such as "Kuchma Out," "Kuchma, Boss of Thieves" and "Oligarchs
In Prison, Power to the People."

One held aloft a rubber mask of Kuchma, the mouth made to look as if it
was dripping blood.

"We are here because our government is a government of bandits," said
Kateryna Zabolotna, an engineer. "Pensioners do not live, our villages
are in deep crisis, and our president, our 'guarantor,' is to blame for
all this."

Demonstrators waved national blue-and-yellow flags, red Communist flags
and held banners saying "Kuchma brings shame to the country" in the
protest, staged a week after more than 20,000 protested in the biggest
anti-Kuchma rally since Ukraine won independence in 1991.

"People came here to show that protest action did not end on September
16. The protests will continue until the president resigns," Julia
Tymoshenko, an opposition leader, told reporters.

The rally was organised by left-wing and centre-right parties a day
after opposition leaders stormed into the offices of state-controlled
television to press for air time.

The protest came as authorities opened a new criminal case against three
opposition leaders for their attempt to appear on state television.

Police surrounded the headquarters of Ukraine's state television,
barring all but employees from entering. The police deployment came
after opposition lawmakers and about 200 of their supporters entered the
studios Monday night and demanded air time to broadcast a statement.

TV director Ihor Storozhuk refused and a blank screen was shown in place
of the regular news. Other programming was canceled.

In parliament, business all but drew to a standstill as opposition
deputies rounded on Kuchma's allies over a range of issues, including
their access to the media and what they said was the tough treatment of
protesters.

"Confrontation is growing. We are heading for a deep and long-drawn-out
political crisis, one which we have not seen in the 11 years of
Ukraine's independence," Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's most popular
politician, said.

"Until we resolve this political crisis, the parliament will be unable
to pass laws."

Some opposition factions pledged to boycott legislative activities until
deputies from pro-presidential factions agreed to proposals to launch
impeachment procedures against Kuchma and set a date for early elections.

Opposition deputies also demanded the resignation of Interior Minister
Ihor Smirnov for arresting dozens after a pre-dawn raid last week to
destroy a tent camp of protesters and complained that they were being
censored by the authorities.

According to a recent survey, nearly 72 percent of Ukrainians want
Kuchma to resign.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
--
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht