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.
"Islam fears democracy worse than anything. It castrates their entire stranglehold at the lowest level - the individual."Thank you that is truth what you write!
thank you
"Clean election without the fraud and intimidation.
Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq.
You just know they hate it in Syria, Iran and Saudi."Thank you
Hope he pulls it off. He deserves it, and America needs this.
Thank you
my tagline . .
well all I can tell you is this. "IF" he wins eastern ukraine will awaken and there will be two ukraines. The elections will be fraudulent just like the first time in his favor. To push 30% of the population on top of 60% of the popultion. It probably will not be very bloody since most internal army units are eastern controled.
If the above scenario happens. What occurs will be very predictable. West drops all ties with the east ukraine republic they will become isolated in the manner of belarus. In the end Russia will recognize them and 10 years down the road, transdnestria,belarus,eastern ukraine will re-integrate. Why is the west trying so hard to make this happen? Do they want the western part to join eu/nato and is that the ultimate goal? I m sure that would benefit Poland the most.
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