Splitting in Two
Looking very much like events in Cairo's Tahir Square over the past three years, the bloodshed in Kiev's Independence Square over the past few months has followed a sadly predictable pattern, deteriorating this week to the point where the government began directing its police, including even a few snipers, to shoot and kill Ukrainian demonstrators. Dozens have been left dead, and hundreds wounded.
Both the Egyptian and Ukrainian uprisings, either of which still has the potential of becoming a full-scale civil war, are in essence pleas for better government - more representative, more effective, or at least less repressive and corrupt. Unlike that in Egypt, however, the Ukrainian violence is, principally, just the latest manifestation of a country - of 45 million people that has existed as an independent country only since 1991 - that has been torn continually between East and West. This time, unlike last decade's Orange Revolution, Russia has had its man firmly planted in Kiev - President Viktor Yanukovych - who last November rejected a proposed free-trade agreement with the EU, and who has since then directed the onslaught against his own citizens. They, in turn - especially those in the western (and westernized) half of the nation - have said "no more" to Moscow's influence, and instead see a path to greater freedom only through closer economic and political alignment to Western Europe.
The West of course agrees. America implemented visa bans and asset freezes pertaining to President Yanukovych's men; the EU yesterday imposed similar sanctions. Perhaps these had some impact, because today, after "all-night-talks" involving the Ukrainian President, Ukrainian opposition leaders, a key Russian diplomat, Vladimir Lukin, and, notably, a power-troika consisting of the EU foreign ministers from Germany, France and Poland, a deal has been signed that creates an interim coalition government, early Presidential elections, and a reduction of the President's constitutional powers. President Obama, making it clear during a press conference yesterday at the North American leaders' summit in Mexico City that Ukraine (and Syria) should not be used by Russia as "cold war chessboards", spoke "candidly" today with Mr. Putin, reiterating the point.
For now, the killing in Independence Square has stopped. Hope is that calm will hold, though protesters remain in the Square. But, as in Egypt and elsewhere, the difficult issue, after all the bloodshed, is - what's next? America's feeble, often naive foreign policy is not likely to provide much consistent direction. The Ukrainian opposition, which on most matters rarely speaks as a single voice, has all along insisted on President Yanukovych's resignation and arrest. That is not part of today's deal (although as this note is being written, there are reports that the President has left Kiev). Moreover, there is no obvious leadership alternative even if the President did resign - Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed opposition leader and a former Prime Minister who as part of today's deal will be released, has discredited herself, and is hated in Western Ukraine. And there just aren't any other candidates who could possibly bridge the nation's fundamental cultural and political divide.
Today's deal is, thus, fragile at best. So is the Ukrainian economy, with rapidly growing government and current account deficits and plunging foreign exchange reserves. Standard &Poor's downgraded the country's credit rating today to CCC, eight levels below investment grade, and expressed their concern for imminent sovereign default.
So, the months of violence and today's agreement in Kiev leave two basic questions - first, is economic collapse looming (watch for the news that an IMF bail-out team is heading to Kiev), and secondly, is there any chance the Ukrainian people can re-start the process of determining their own destiny while avoiding the splitting of the country in two? Ukrainians may wish to recall Abraham Lincoln's prescient pre-civil war warning: "A nation divided against itself cannot stand".