Confident Yushchenko addresses mass rally in Ukraine
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Posted on 12/23/2004 9:40:58 AM PST by anonymoussierra
America News ABC Last Update: Thursday, December 23, 2004. 7:04am (AEDT) http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1270876.htm
Tens of thousands of supporters of Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko have massed in the centre of the capital in a fresh show of force to press demands that a repeat presidential election be conducted fairly unlike a discredited poll last month.
"In the past 17 days, we have changed Ukraine peacefully, beautifully, elegantly and without a single drop of blood being shed," Mr Yushchenko said, flanked by family and well-known supporters including Ukraine's world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko.
"We have two roads before us: one of corruption and humiliation; the other, a wider one, the road of truth and justice. We have already set foot down this road."
The crowd then broke into thunderous chants of "Yu-shchen-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!"
The 50-year-old opposition leader, whose face was disfigured during the election campaign by what experts have said was a poisoning, vowed to work to unite his country, badly split over an earlier election ruled fraudulent and thrown out by the supreme court.
"I will be the president of all Ukraine. I will do everything for the unity of Ukraine," he said.
He repeated earlier pledges to pull Ukrainian troops out of Iraq if elected.
He also called on his supporters to return to the square on the day of the vote and remain there "until we celebrate our victory".
Giant television screens were set up on three sides of Kiev's Independence Square which was packed with tens of thousands of demonstrators facing a massive, rock-concert-like stage framed by towering loudspeakers set up on one side of a street that bisects the square.
"I came to defend freedom, to defend my right to choose," said 65-year-old pensioner Nikolai Shevchenko, one of the protesters who braved the freezing night-time air to attend the rally.
"This was a real revolution for real freedom."
Another pro-Yushchenko demonstrator, Tatiana Lysenko, a 45-year-old kindergarten teacher, predicted a victory for the opposition leader.
"If they don't falsify again, he will definitely win on Sunday. It was a revolution for justice, the people wanted to choose a president for a better life," she said.
The protest came four days before voters in the strategic nation of 48 million people return to the polls in a repeat of a presidential vote held on November 21 and rekindled the political passions that resulted in the previous election being declared invalid by the supreme court due to fraud.
The rally also marked exactly one month since the start of mass street protests against the official results of the earlier vote which awarded victory to Mr Yushchenko's pro-Moscow opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who was openly backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to Ukrainian journalists on Tuesday, Mr Yushchenko sought to allay Moscow's concerns over the prospect that he will soon be running his country, but said that while Russia was of core interest to Ukraine he would nonetheless focus on building stronger bonds with western Europe.
"Emotion comes and goes. It is more important to understand one thing: Russia is of strategic interest to Ukraine, so we will always have a strategic policy and a political strategy in relations with Russia," he said.
He told state radio separately that, if elected, his first official visit would be to Russia and he said the questions of whether to make Russian a second official language and to introduce dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship, both ideas backed by his rival, warranted discussion.
The Russian President says he has "no problem" working with either Mr Yushchenko or Mr Yanukovich as Ukraine's leader.
The upcoming re-run election in Ukraine has assumed a major geopolitical significance as the country sits on the East-West fault line between former Soviet republics still dominated by Russia and long-established European and US democracies.
In neighbouring Belarus, whose hardline regime also recognised Mr Yanukovich's disputed victory, police on Wednesday detained about 100 independent observers hours before they were due to leave for Ukraine to monitor the presidential poll, human rights defenders said.
Ukraina Thank you
Putin is KGB always and cannot be trusted at all.
Yuschenko will win.
Thanks to Poland for her support.
No more Katyns and no more gulags!
What a freakin' loser. I'm sorry that I ever felt that he deserved to be elected. I don't know what news report made me start rooting for the "underdog" but now I don't care one way or the other. Let the Ukrainians pound sand with their stupid leaders.
"No more Katyns and no more gulags!"
God willing. Those of us who pray need to get in some knee time on this issue. Religious freedom there depends on this, too.
He is a very courageous man who survived 6000X dose of dioxin and kept going at it.
Having said that, I also find very disapointing his intent to pull out Ukrainian troops from Iraq. This is puzzling indeed, taking into account his general desire to have closer ties with the west.
Confident Yushchenko addresses mass rally in Ukraine
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Yushchenko vs. Yanukovych/Ukraine election ping list!. . .don't be shy.
I feel the same way.
Thank you
Dzieki
"My brother in law is there now as a monitor.
Putin is KGB always and cannot be trusted at all.
Yuschenko will win.
Thanks to Poland for her support.
No more Katyns and no more gulags!"Thank you
I'll bet that's not all he braved.
Thank you
Anyway freedom and democracy are more important than 1650 soldiers
I feel the same way too.
Hoping for the best for the people of Ukraine (and out of Pukin's clammy grasp).
I guess a bit of chloracne doesn't technically count as blood, per se, but I think his sacrafice will be well noted in his country's history...
Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq.
You just know they hate it in Syria, Iran and Saudi.
Islam fears democracy worse than anything. It castrates their entire stranglehold at the lowest level - the individual.
Thank you
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