Kaptur Travels to Ukraine with Congressional Delegation, December 16-21

Statement

This week, I am traveling to Ukraine for the ninth time. On November 21, Ukraine held a run-off election for the office of President between Victor Yuschenko and Victor Yanukovych. International observers immediately found widespread fraud and declared the election invalid. Over the last several weeks, supporters of the opposition party have taken to the streets to demand a recount or a new vote in what has been dubbed the "Orange Revolution." The Ukrainian Supreme Court agreed and has called for new elections. Our six member Congressional delegation will add our voices for a free and fair revote in the Presidential elections to be held Dec. 26 in that nation of nearly 50 million people.

The Orange Revolution draws its name from opposition candidate Yuschenko's campaign color of orange. On a personal level, the color orange makes sense to me because the color radiates from a real orange in a somber photo of my great uncle Casimir that I snapped on my first journey to Ukraine 1973 -- when it was Soviet-occupied-and that now hangs on my wall. Casimir is seated at a simple wooden table, staring deeply into the beyond, with the large orange in the center of the table, almost like a fortune teller's ball.

My mother Anastasia and I had given the orange to him, having tucked it in our suitcase in the West. Not having had one for decades, Uncle Casimir would not eat the orange, as much as he desired it. He caressed it, admired it, and treated it tenderly. He simply placed it near his rugged hands, looked deeply at it, and began to utter profound stories of suffering and valor encompassing over half a century. It was the lost history of our family, cut off by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Casimir told us that my immigrant maternal grandmother Teofila (daughter of God), his sister, journeyed to the United States at the age of 17 with her forester husband, John. They came from a tiny village called Burtyn, deep inside that blood soaked land. They came to America by way of Rotterdam in putrid steerage class, in the ship's bowels. They were peasants and with collectivization beginning, they could no longer graze their cows. And therefore could not eat. All they sought was to earn a little money to go back and buy land. After landing in America, speaking no English, they learned how hard it was to earn a living. Their attempted communications with relatives back in Ukraine were all failures. World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, the forced starvation of peasants in the countryside, and then World War II created generational separation.

Uncle Casimir, a carpenter, was twice sent by Stalin both before and after World War II, to Siberia's concentration camps. Twenty years of his life vanished. He endured forced labor, detachment from family, extreme hardship, the death of his comrades. He was forcibly taken from his village because he was a good worker, and he made the fatal error of picking up a man who had been shot by the Bolsheviks and charged with supporting the resistance. Casimir's brother died in the camps. Casimir survived, somehow, on a slice of bread a day, and a scapular hidden beneath his vest.

My first journey to Ukraine inspired a three-decade long quest that now explodes in the hearts of the people of Ukraine, in orange as bright as the orange near my uncle's muscular, beautiful hands. As I look at his eyes in the photograph for the thousandth time, I know that he was looking into the fortune teller's ball, reflecting on the miracle of our visit, and imagining a world beyond his own.

That day has come.

Entry 2: A Ring and the Promise of Youth

Last evening, as I was finishing up last minute details in my Washington office, I came across a small, shiny box I had set aside on my desk. It contained a finger ring with a most unusual azure blue polished stone presented to me earlier this year by Mikail Volynets, now one of the younger, new Members of the Ukrainian Parliament. Mikail told me the ring had come from his mining region and would have special healing powers. He gave it to me as a token of friendship. I decided to wear the ring on this trip for good luck and to remind me of the enormity of the struggle that ordinary people like Mikail face in transforming the politics of their country.

Mikail was first elected earlier this year from the rough and tumble coal mining region of Donetsk, notorious for its corruption. He has been arrested many times and beaten, and the lives of his family threatened. The Presidential candidate from the ruling party, Victor Yanukovych, hails from this same tough mining region where recent elections results appear to have been especially corrupted.

I had befriended Mikail on my many trips to Ukraine before he was elected. I gained admiration for him as I learned how he has spent the last two decades of his life in a most dangerous pursuit-organizing the first independent trade union in the mines of Ukraine. Miners in Ukraine often go to work for no pay. The conditions under which they work are prehistoric. Hundreds die in explosions and mine collapses each year. I asked Mikail once if he wasn't afraid of being killed for his efforts to organize the union and to engage in politics in that region in particular. He told me after working in the underground mines for so many years, he had lost the fear of death. Safety practices are non-existent and catastrophes occur on a regular basis. As I watched him become more and more tense and burdened with the danger and scope of the task he is about, I gave him some motherly advice and asked him to promise me he would take better care of his personal health.

When he visited Congress this year, he came to thank me and let me know he really had listened to me. He looked so much better. Some of the stress lines had softened. He had begun to do breathing exercises to help calm his nerves. He was so grateful to me, but I know I am even more grateful to him for reminding me what youthful courage and self sacrifice mean.

The momentum of the opposition party in Ukraine is with the young. They crowded into the streets of Kiev. They blazed a trail on email. They are building a new future for Ukraine and this election cycle has been a transformational moment for them.

It has been a very long day. As I think about what is ahead, one email I received from a young man in Ukraine keeps inspiring me. It was sent by email at the height of the demonstrations in Kiev's main square:

Dearest Mercy!!!!!!!!!!!!

We love you!!!!!! We love USA!!!!!!!

Friday, December 17

Entry 3: Probing the Truth

The alleged poisoning with dioxin of Ukraine's leading opposition Presidential candidate, Victor Yushchenko, has brought world wide attention to this breadbasket nation tucked neatly below Russia's heavy underbelly. Press reports are stating are stating that Yushchenko's blood levels contained at 100,000 units of dioxin per gram of blood fat, one of the two highest levels ever recorded in a human. This incident follows on many other politically motivated acts of violence in Ukraine. From nations of the world, Ukraine ranks among the highest for assassinations of its parliamentarians, nearly two dozen since its independence twelve years ago.

In 2000, independent investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze was beheaded apparently for his probing efforts to reveal corruption in Ukraine's hierarchy. Ukraine's sale of illegal Kolchuga radar shipments to Saddam Hussein's Iraq caused serious rifts in its relationship with the U.S.

Today, our delegation visited the Austrian clinic, Rudolf Finer House, where the dioxin studies on Victor Yushchencko were performed. We wished to learn more about how the results were verified and ascertain the nature of his condition and the likely causes. Today in Vienna, other theories about his predicament were posed such as he was not poisoned but has contracted leprosy from an unknown source. One critic suggested the doctor who performed the analysis on Mr. Yushchenko was originally from Ukraine and a friend of his with possible political motivations. So verification of the condition is important.

Doctors at Rudolfinerhaus Hospital confirmed that Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin. Dr. Michael Zimpfer, president of the privately-run hospital, said there was "no doubt" Mr. Yuschenko's disease was "caused by a case of poisoning."

Dr. Zimpfer explained though dioxin is not an ordinary household chemical, it can be ordered by any lab. They can ship it to a customer. It contains up to 100 ingredients. Certain chemical blueprints may lead the investigators back to the original producer.

He stated that dioxin, however, may have been used because until recently it could not be detected in the human body. Members of the delegation suggested perhaps those seeking to harm Mr. Yushchenko may only have wanted to severely harm him, or to disfigure him in that his handsome appearance was popularly received. Or they may have believed the large dosage administered to him would result in death with an undetectable cause, not knowing scientific procedures had been developed to track dioxin poisoning. Two years ago tracing methodologies were developed using blood samples. Dioxin adheres to body fat, and there is fat content in the blood that makes it detectable.

A lethal dose in rats is 30 micrograms/kilogram. Dioxin has a 7-year half life in the human body. It interferes with the lipid metabolism and increases the risk of arteriosclerosis. It is not considered to be carcinogenic. Dr. Zimpfer expressed gratitude for offers of assistance from around the world, including the Poison Control Center in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Zimpfer said Mr. Yushchenko first came to see him on Sept. 10 in terrible pain with internal esophageal and stomach lacerations. He stayed 8 days at Rudolfinerhaus during that first visit and then returned to the campaign trail, but checked back into the hospital 12 days later with severe back pain. At the time, doctors inserted a tube into his upper spine to administer pain-killing drugs.

On his first admission, he complained of becoming very ill after about two hours after ingesting food on Sept. 5 stating his first symptom was headache, nausea, and internal pain, later experiencing tremendous pain in his back. Mr. Yushchenko had had dinner with the deputy director of the Ukrainian Secret Service, who recently has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity and is the subject of an investigation. When Dr. Zimpfer could not find the cause of the illness early in September, he and Mr. Yushchenko's wife suggested the cause may not be know to civil medicine. They began looking for potential biological or chemical causes and involved the Vienna Forensic Institute.

During the weeks after initial examination in September, Dr. Zimper noticed in news reports that severe facial lesions, chlorineacne, began to appear on Mr. Yushchenko's face. Later examination showed the lesions all over his body. He called Mr. Yushchenko and urged him to come back to the hospital for further examination. Mr. Yushchenko did this on December 10. More scans were taken and the blood samples sent to Amsterdam where dioxin confirmation was first made. Three separate labs have now confirmed dioxin.

Saturday, December 18

Entry 4: From Independence to Liberty

Today, Saturday, was spent in Kiev meeting with the highest level government officials. We were met at the airport by US Ambassador John Herbst a career diplomat, and a very fine one at that. During these years of Ukraine's transition, the U.S. has appointed excellent ambassadors here, and the results of over a decade of hard work with the European Union at building democracy's institutions here is bearing fruit. He reviewed with us the series of events that have led to Ukraine declaring its recent Presidential election invalid, and scheduling a revote on Dec. 26. We are here to support in every way possible conducting that election in a free and fair manner.

Thousands of election observers will be coming in from around the world, and from within Ukraine to prevent the abuses that characterized the earlier election, particularly manipulation of mobile voting stations and absentee voting. Laws have been passed in parliament to avoid these pitfalls. However, election observers will be critical in assuring a fair vote.

Ambassador Herbst detailed the events that prevented a military crackdown on the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators and attributed numerous contacts and phone calls made to the President and high ranking Ukrainian military and interior officials. He acknowledged the presence of demonstrators in such large numbers had an impact on the Supreme Court and on the government's decision not to use lethal force. He also described the types of intimidation that were used against voters here. For example, he stated that some of the Russian Orthodox churches told their members they would be denied communion for two months if they voted for the Yushchenko candidacy.
We saw these demonstrators parading through the streets on the way to our meetings. I continue to ponder how much Ukraine has changed in my lifetime. When I first drove into Ukraine in 1973, there were no other cars on the road other than military vehicles. Today, though far from an open society, Ukraine is making major strides toward developing liberty's institutions. The impact of this election in inspiring the next generation of Ukraine's youth cannot be underestimated. There is enormous fervor among the young people. Their free assembly is allowed in many regions of the nation. The heated Presidential contest does offer real choices, commercial activity is evident though a rule of business law does not exist, and the media is becoming more robust.

President L. Kuchma spent over an hour with the delegation. It was a very open and positive meeting. We had to meet him at his summer home on the city's outskirts as demonstrators have surrounded his Presidential offices in the center of town. The delegation prevailed upon the President to do all in his power to assure a fair revote on Dec, 26 and thanked him for accepting the decision of the Supreme Court to nullify the vote. He admitted the decision had eased a crisis and we spent a great deal of time discussing progress Ukraine has made over this past decade of independence in civic life, economic growth, seeking accession to NATO, and openness to assembly and free speech.

I extended an invitation to the President to visit Toledo, Cleveland, and Detroit to deliver major addresses on Ukraine's transition to a functioning republic. Members complimented the President on adhering the Constitution's stipulation to serve only two terms. Mr. Kuchma expressed interest in setting up a foundation to encourage young Ukrainians to study but to remain in Ukraine, as there continues to be a serious brain drain.

I raised with him the issue of property land reform and the need to implement legislation and systems to create a functioning real property system. He admitted Ukraine had a long way to go on this, and that he had vetoed bills that were inadequate. He said the agricultural land titling remains an unfinished task and he urged the Rada's reform efforts in this task. Mr. Kuchma also urged the delegation not to see Ukraine through the prism of Russia, but that is a remark frequently made to U.S. visitors.

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