`We will face the tanks if we have to'

By Julius Strauss in Kiev

24 November 2004

IN the first hours of Ukraine's election revolt, rumours swirled that the government was sending in its thugs to crack heads.

Four years ago, the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma did exactly that to stop protests after allegations that he was linked to the murder of a journalist.

But this time thousands of protesters stayed out throughout Monday night, determined not to hand control of the streets to the squads of riot police moved into the capital from different corners of the country.

At 3am they were still dancing, singing and chanting as cars, decked out in the orange streamers of the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, drove slowly past, honking their horns rhythmically.

Overnight thousands more protesters of all ages began to arrive from the regions after a call to come and overturn the official election results, widely judged a blatant attempt to steal the election from Mr Yushchenko. Police turned some back at roadblocks, but others got through.

By yesterday morning the temperature was still firmly below zero but a rare spirit of solidarity and optimism, redolent of the heady days of eastern Europe's liberation in 1989, had taken hold.

Old ladies and middle-aged men brought piles of warm clothes to the protesters, many of whom spent the night on the streets or in tents on Khreshtatyk, Kiev's main boulevard. Others brought bread, coffee, juice and sausages.

Lidya, a 76-year-old pensioner, was unpacking rolls and a large jar of pickled cucumbers she had brought for a group of students.

She said: "My pension is only 280 hrivna a month. But I support these people with all my heart. ``We should have got rid of the bandits that run this country in 1991, but we were fooled. Now we have had enough."

Yuri Gluchuk, the 48-year-old owner of a sausage factory, said: "I am a businessman and I brought 500 kilogrammes of sausages to feed these young people. The authorities are counting on the cold and the hunger dampening people's spirits so we all have to give our support."

Young and old had decked themselves out in orange scarves and plastic anoraks. Slava Shklarov, a 22-year-old watch-dealer and a member of Pora!, an anti-government student movement, had travelled the night before from the western town of Rivne.

He said: "We'll be here until Yushchenko is president. We can't accept this. We need Europe. They are threatening to use tanks against us. But I'll lie down in front of them if that is what it takes."

By midday the numbers on the streets were once again approaching 100,000. From a stage in Independence Square in central Kiev, speakers addressed the crowds, urging them not to give up the struggle.

"We are fighting for democracy and we will win," said Ihor Ostash, an opposition deputy, draped in an orange flag.

A stone's throw away, lorries full of sand and bodyguards blocked the entrance to the unofficial headquarters of Viktor Yanukovich, the Kremlin-backed candidate. Six swarthy-looking men in tight black caps stood sneering at the crowds.

When two opposition supporters approached them, their friends called them back. "Not that way," one said. "We don't want confrontation." An older security guard, speaking quietly, said: "This is my job. But in my heart I too am for democracy. I too am an activist."

In recent years Ukraine has taken on the appearance of a mafia-ridden Balkan state of the 1990s. The few have expensive sports cars and eat in classy restaurants.

The many are on the breadline, struggling to survive. Thuggish men in black leather jackets cruise the city or loiter near the entrances to important buildings.

Interviews with foreign journalists are interrupted by men who refuse to say what their job is. Yesterday that ugly veneer cracked and a jolt of hope and happiness surged through the city.

Westerners were treated as ambassadors of hope. When a German student leader addressed the crowds, tens of thousands cheered.

In the afternoon the crowds moved up the hill towards the Rada, the national parliament. The opposition had called for a no-confidence vote in the central election commission. They crowded into side-streets and a huge park.

"We are against the fact that a person who was twice in prison is chief commander of the army," said Yuri Kovalchuk, 36, a former army officer. Mr Yanukovich, who is from the eastern Donetsk region, served two prison sentences in his youth.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr Yanukovich's deputies refused to attend the parliamentary session but opposition deputies took the symbolic act of acclaiming Mr Yuschenko their president.

As the proceedings were broadcast live on huge screens outside, there were cries of "Yushchenko, Yushchenko!" By nightfall nearly 200,000 had gathered and tens of thousands more milled in the surrounding streets.

Vitaly Paraschuk, 24, travelled from the southern district of Cherkassy to protest in the capital. He said: "It's up to the people to choose the president, not the government. I spent all night in the square supporting Yushchenko.

"I believe that he can become president without violence. But if it comes to it I will not flinch. I will be here. This should have happened 13 years ago."

Maria Florko, 27, a teacher from Lviv in western Ukraine, said: "When we heard what was happening 80 of us came here. We will succeed, there's no doubt. Then we'll finally take our place in Europe."