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Ukraine’s Leader to Revoke Curbs on Dissent, but Opposition Remains Wary
(about 11 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ahead of a special legislative session on Tuesday intended to help defuse Ukraine’s worsening political crisis, the majority party in Parliament issued a statement on Monday accusing protest leaders of directing a coup attempt against President Viktor F. Yanukovych and encouraging the occupation of government buildings across the country.
KIEV, Ukraine — Still struggling to contain a national civil uprising, President Viktor F. Yanukovych of Ukraine agreed late Monday to revoke a package of new laws severely restricting political dissent, but a wider accord to defuse the crisis remained out of reach, officials said.
Also on Monday, the justice minister, Olena Lukash, demanded that antigovernment demonstrators leave a main Justice Ministry building they have occupied in Kiev, the capital, on Sunday night, warning that if they did not withdraw she would urge Mr. Yanukovych to break off negotiations and impose a state of emergency in the country.
While nominally a concession to the opposition, a repeal of the laws would simply reverse a provocative legislative maneuver on Jan. 16 that only further infuriated antigovernment protesters who at that point had been on the streets for nearly two months over other grievances.
The statements illustrated deepening exasperation among Mr. Yanukovych’s closest advisers and political allies over the government’s failure to contain the political crisis. On Saturday, Mr. Yanukovych offered to dismiss the cabinet and install two opposition leaders in senior positions, along with other concessions, but the protesters rebuffed the proposal as insufficient.
The situation in Ukraine, a country of 46 million perched strategically between Russia and the European Union, has deteriorated sharply after clashes between the police and demonstrators in Kiev turned violent last week and mass protests began spreading in regional capitals nationwide.
By early afternoon, protesters withdrew from the Justice Ministry building, but warned that they were prepared to seize it again depending on developments in Parliament on Tuesday.
Mr. Yanukovych, who set off the crisis in November by breaking a promise to sign political and free-trade agreements with the European Union, began offering concessions on Saturday in a sign that the authorities were losing control and the police were outnumbered.
The retreat was announced by Oleksandr Danylyuk, the leader of a faction of protesters called Common Cause. “If tomorrow the requirements are not met to restore constitutional order, organize presidential and parliamentary elections and stop the terror against the Ukrainian people, we will take over all administrative buildings,” Mr. Danylyuk wrote on Facebook.
He offered to install opposition leaders as prime minister and vice prime minister — a proposal that they swiftly rebuffed in part because there was little support for it on the street, but also because it would have solidified Mr. Yanukovych’s own grip on power.
Mass protests continued to spread across the country over the weekend, including new attempts to seize regional administration buildings in eastern and southern Ukraine, areas that are typically strongholds of support for Mr. Yanukovych and his pro-Russian policies.
One of those opposition leaders, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, the leader in Parliament of the Fatherland Party, officially informed the president on Monday night that he would not accept the post of prime minister.
In its statement, the majority Party of Regions warned that Ukraine had been pushed to the brink of civil war, and squarely blamed the three main opposition leaders, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, of the Fatherland Party who Mr. Yanukovych proposed as prime minister; Vitali Klitschko, the former champion boxer who was offered a post as vice premier for humanitarian affairs; and Oleg Tyagnibok, of the nationalist Svoboda Party.
In a statement released earlier in the day, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a Fatherland leader and former prime minister who was jailed by Mr. Yanukovych, urged that the deal be rejected. “The people want fundamental changes in their lives, justice in Ukraine and path to European values,” she said. “This is their last chance. Politicians still don’t understand that the people are ready to achieve their goal at the cost of their lives, health and physical freedom.”
“The whole country for three months has heard hysterical calls of this irresponsible trinity for an all-Ukrainian mobilization, the appeals to stand until the end, the calls to overthrow the regime and to take power into their own hands,” the party stated, adding, “Today, the very existence of an independent Ukraine is under threat.”
In addition to repealing the new restrictions on dissent, officials said that a special session of Parliament on Tuesday would also begin to address a rollback of constitutional changes broadly expanding the powers of the presidency that had been made at Mr. Yanukovych’s direction earlier in his term.
The aggressiveness of the statement, even as Mr. Yanukovych has begun offering concessions, underscored the divisions that are certain to emerge as any compromise with the opposition takes shape. Already, Mr. Yanukovych has said he is prepared to remove Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, a staunch ally since protests began in late November.
Yet, in a sign of how successfully Mr. Yanukovych has reshaped the political system to his advantage, a return to the Constitution as it existed in 2004, absent other changes, would largely serve to empower a Parliament now solidly controlled by his Party of Regions.
Ms. Lukash, the justice minister, accused the opposition of contradicting its own avowed support for European values by storming the ministry building even as officials worked on the legal technicalities of some of Mr. Yanukoyvch’s proposed compromises, including a rollback of constitutional changes that broadly expanded presidential powers earlier in his term.
Despite a thuggish reputation, Mr. Yanukovych has repeatedly proven himself to be a wily negotiator. After backing away from the deal with Europe, which would have required him to free Ms. Tymoshenko, as well as to undertake painful austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Yanukovych secured a desperately needed $15 billion financial rescue package from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“I will have to address the president of Ukraine with a request to stop negotiations if the building of the Justice Ministry is not freed immediately and negotiators won’t be given a chance to resolve the conflict peacefully,” Ms. Lukash said in a video statement. “Also, if the Justice Ministry building is not freed immediately I will have to address my colleagues, members of the Council on National Security and Defense, with a demand to discuss the introduction of a State of Emergency.”
At the same time, he avoided having to declare that Ukraine would join Russia’s customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which the Kremlin has clearly wanted as part of a deal.
For days now, however, there have been increasing signs that the authorities do not have the capacity to enforce an emergency decree and that such a declaration would risk escalating the unrest and also expose the government’s limitations. Regional administration buildings, headed by appointed governors, have been seized in several cities, while others have been surrounded by protesters even as the police prevented them from entering.
Still, Mr. Yanukovych’s allies have grown increasingly uneasy as the country has descended into chaos, and international leaders have raised a growing outcry over evidence of abductions, beatings and other abuse of protesters by the authorities or their surrogates. On Monday, the Party of Regions issued a statement accusing protest leaders of attempting a coup, and of encouraging the occupation of government buildings.
In rebuffing Mr. Yanukovych’s offers, the opposition leaders said they were no longer in a position to dictate the terms of a settlement. Many of the protesters on the street, further infuriated by evidence of kidnappings and abuse by the authorities or their surrogates, have said that they will not relent until Mr. Yanukovych resigns.
On Monday afternoon, protesters in Kiev withdrew from a Justice Ministry building that they had seized just the night before. But Oleksandr Danylyuk, the leader of a faction called Common Cause, which led the occupation, warned that his group was prepared to seize it again depending on developments in Parliament on Tuesday.
In recent days, video emerged of the elite Berkut riot police stripping a protester naked, then forcing him to pose for photographs holding an ice scraper, before hitting and kicking him and forcing him onto a police bus. Another protester froze to death after being kidnapped at a hospital in Kiev where he had sought treatment for an eye injury, but instead was taken to the woods outside the capital and severely beaten before being left in the cold. Another protester kidnapped with him, who survived, said it was clear that the captors were connected to the authorities.
“If tomorrow the requirements are not met to restore constitutional order, organize presidential and parliamentary elections and stop the terror against the Ukrainian people, we will take over all administrative buildings,” Mr. Danylyuk wrote on Facebook.
At least three other protesters died from gunshot wounds during clashes with the police, though the precise circumstances of their deaths remain in dispute and under investigation. The deaths have outraged Ukrainians and thousands of people attended funerals for the three men in recent days.
In its statement, the majority Party of Regions warned that Ukraine had been pushed to the brink of civil war, and squarely blamed the three main opposition leaders, Mr. Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing champion who was offered a post as vice prime minister for humanitarian affairs, and Oleg Tyagnibok, of the nationalist Svoboda Party.
With the Parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada, due to convene in a special session on Tuesday, a former speaker, Volodomyr Lytvyn, announced on Sunday that 17 lawmakers had formed an association to “work on finding solutions to the conflict in Ukraine, the eliminate the state of emergency and civil war.” He said the group comprised 10 independent lawmakers and seven members of the Party of Regions.
The aggressiveness of the statement, even as Mr. Yanukovych had begun offering concessions, underscored the divisions that were certain to emerge as any compromise with the opposition takes shape. Already, Mr. Yanukovych has said he is prepared to remove Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, a staunch ally since the protests began.
Among the issues to be considered by the Parliament is a demand by the opposition for repeal of a package of laws pushed through on Jan. 16 that severely restricted political dissent in Ukraine, included heavy limits on free speech and assembly. Mr. Yanukovych has offered to consider changes, but his opponents said they want the law revoked.
Even as they rejected Mr. Yanukovych’s main overtures, opposition leaders said they were bracing for the possibility that he would seek to declare a state of emergency and attempt a severe crackdown on the protests.
An amnesty program for dozens of detained protesters will also be part of the discussions. In a statement issued his office, Mr. Lytvyn said that Ukraine was facing an urgent national crisis. “State and society are disconnected,” he said. “The threat of a split in Ukraine is real. It is actually a state of siege. It stops life. Civil conflict is degenerating into a civil war.”
Volodymyr Lytvyn, a member of the Party of Regions in Parliament and a former speaker, said on Monday that he did not believe there were sufficient votes to support such a declaration.
After the negotiations on Monday night, Ukraine’s justice minister, Olena Lukash, also said that there was a tentative agreement to grant amnesty to detained demonstrators, but only once protesters withdraw from roadways and numerous public buildings they have occupied.
Mr. Yanukovych has also suggested that the cabinet could be reorganized on Tuesday, with changes in senior positions.
