UKRAINIAN NATIONALIST HECKLED IN CRIMEA

Leader of the nationalistic Ukrainian People's Party Yuri Kostenko is visiting the Crimea. The main goal of this visit is to go underwater off the Crimean coast to hoist his party's banner on the sea floor. Mr. Kostenko held a press conference in Simferopol. He started it in the Ukrainian language though in the Crimea few people speak it. Member of the Communist Party Sergei Nikulin stood up and demanded that Mr. Kostenko speak Russian. The representatives of the Union of the Soviet Officers made the same request. Kostenko refused and said that “he was not going to react to a lack of culture among communists”. The leader of the Ukrainian People's Party made also a reference to the statement attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who presumably had said in 1999: “we will waste Chechens in the johns”. “However, I will react as a man and a master of sports in alpinism to this gross-out, but rather at the spot where Putin teaches you: in the johns, said Yuri Kostenko”. A ruckus that followed made it impossible to continue the press conference. The two men were engaged in a heated exchange and the meeting with journalist had to be closed. Yuri Kostenko came to the Crimea to try to mediate in the conflict between two groups in the Crimean branch of his party. Many Crimean activists are unhappy with their leader Oleg Fomushkin. They are accusing him of fraud. The Ukrainian People's Party has very few followers in the Crimea. The planned hoisting of the banner on the sea floor would hardly enhance its popularity.

LEONID GRACH BLASTS UKRAINIAN REGIME

Former speaker of the Crimean Parliament Leonid Grach spoke yesterday at an Internet Conference: http://www.fraza.com.ua/interview/20.10.05/13119.html). He answered a number of questions and gave the following description of the situation in the Ukraine:

“People are tired of a maniacal search by the regime for internal and external enemies. People are tired by political bickering among the higher-ups in their manoeuvring to carve up the state property, by “clean hands” plundering the state budget. This budget has its sources not in a growth of productivity but in ripping off the population by taxes. This power is annoyed by everything and in particular, by its own people. The population is tired of electoral fraud at all levels, of faked electoral protocols submitted both by presidents and by members of Parliament. Criminal clans remained powerful as they used to be. They formed their own parties and are consolidating their political positions”.

POLITICAL PRISONER IN CRIMEA

A young Crimean went on a hunger strike to protest his politically motivated arrest and detention. The 20-year old Victor Sazhin had been arrested in the Crimean city of Armiansk on September, 21 by a court order on accusation of having blocked a group of Victor Yushchenko supporters at the approaches to the Crimean peninsula. The incident goes back to December 17, 2004 when the pro-Yushchenko propaganda motorcade was stopped for a short period of time on its way to the Crimea. The orange militants were then let go without any violence and could continue there journey. They hoped to win over supporters in the Crimea where Mr. Yushchenko had and still has a very low rating. After Yushchenko took-over his presidential position he immediately initiated a campaign of repressions against his political opponents and those who had supported them. More then 18 000 low level bureaucrats were arrested on charges of corruption. Thousands fled to Russia. The new regime is especially ruthless towards Russian speaking regions in the Ukraine and the Crimea. The parents of Victor Sazhin say that their son is in depression. They fear he may commit a suicide. Political forces fighting for the self-determination of the Crimea are preparing a series of protests against orange persecutions. They insist on release of Victor Sazhin and demand they all charges against him be dropped.