Main weekly events from Infobank News Agency
| 11 October 1999 | 78 |
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST NATALIYA VITRENKO
PARLIAMENT CALLS ON UKRAINIAN PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR ANY OF KUCHMA'S OPPONENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
PARLIAMENT BEGINS HEARINGS ON 2000 DRAFT BUDGET
PRIME MINISTER SIGNS DOCUMENTS WHICH SHOULD ACCELERATE CREATION OF
FREE TRADE AREA WITHIN C.I.S.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST NATALIYA VITRENKO
KRYVY RIH. N.Vitrenko's aide, Nataliya Sokurenko, gave the details of
the grenade attack against the presidential candidate Nataliya
Vitrenko to the Infobank correspondent. N.Sokurenko said that
N.Vitrenko's itinerary included three meetings with her supporters in
Kryvy Rih region, in the Salut movie theater (Kryvy Rih), in Zhovti
Vody and in the conference hall of the Ingulets ore-concentration
plant, located 26 km off Kryvy Rih. On the eve of N.Vitrenko's meeting
in the Salut movie theater, the administration found a note which ran:
"Dont't come to the meeting with N.Vitrenko or you will be blown up
together with that (swear word)". The meeting, however, went on
without any interruptions.
The meeting at the Ingulets plant hall began at 17.30 and ended at
19.30. At 19.45 Mrs.Vitrenko left the hall and went to her car.
According to N.Sokurenko, Nataliya Vitrenko was escorted to the car by
herself and lawmaker Nataliya Rymar, flanking the presidential
candidate on the right and on the left. The group also included a
Verkhovna Rada official, Volodymyr Ovcharenko. Before the attack
bagan, they were just discussing the recent murder in Kyiv of the head
of South-Western Railways, Mykhailo Olijnyk, which occurred Oct.1.
Lawmaker Volodymuyr Marchenko followed the group at some distance
behind.
The first grenade was hurled at N.Vitrenko from the right, said
eyewitness N.Sokurenko. The grenade was spotted by Volodymyr
Ovcharenko who managed to kick the grenade off with his head. Thanks
to this the grenade exploded 3 meters away from N.Vitrenko and her
escort, with the splinters hitting the wall of the hall and a group of
Vitrenko's supporters who stood there. Being wounded in the leg,
N.Vitrenko fell to the ground and was shielded by Volodymyr Marchanko
and one of the bodyguards who piled over her. "I was thrown 10 meters
away by the explosion", says N.Sokurenko.
The second grenade was hurled from the left by a man who then ran away
from the place, continues the eyewitness. The grenade hit the ground
some distance away from where N.Vitrenko was lying. The explosion torn
away a leg of one young woman, Alla Kushnikova from the nearby city of
Marhanets, seriusly wounding another woman.
In the aftermath of the attack, 47 persons applied for medical aid, 18
of them wounded quite seriously, says N.Sokurenko. "In a couple of
minutes following the attack the by-standers were afraid to approach
the wounded, fearing more grenades or mines in the vehicles of
N.Vitrenko's team", N.Sokurenko continued. There were only 3
road-worthy ambulances in Inhulets but even they were low on gasoline.
N.Vitrenko was first carried to the lobby of the hall and in 40
minutes after the attack she was driven to the city hospital.
N.Sokurenko doubted the police report that Olexandr Moroz's Kryvy Rih
election staff is behind the attack. In her opinion, the attack's goal
was to remove from the presidential race two most powerful opponents
of the incumbent President. The police allegations may have been done
to settle the score with O.Moroz's chief of staff in Kryvy Rih, Serhy
Ivanchenko who is also a businessman. Some time before N.Vitrenko's
visit to Kryvy Rih, the police tried to press charges against Moroz's
election team in Kryvy Rih, accusing them of damaging communal
property by writing anti-Kuchma slogans on buildings.
Immediately after the attack, the police detained two citizens of
Russia who lived in the village of Lozovatka near Kryvy Rih,
suspecting them of being involved in the attack. Incidentally, Serhy
Ivanchenko, head of O.Moroz's Kryvy Rih election team, comes from the
same village. The police also detained the chief editor of the Kryvy
Rih Evening, Inna Chyrchenko, suspected of having passed the grenades
to the attackers. Serhy Ivanchenko rendered financial assistance to
the newspaper. Some Kryvy Rih Evening reporters have also been
detained and the police arrested the newspaper's computer hardware.
Serhy Ivanchenko is wanted by the police.
Nataliya Vitrenko's aide says it is unlikely that Inna Chyrchenko, a
mother of 3 children and a charity worker, is implicated in the
attempt on N.Vitrenko. Neither does she believe that Serhy Ivanchenko
is involved. She referred to Kryvy Rih prosecutor, Vasyl Kravets, who
said there is no evidence against Ivanchenko. Besides, says
N.Sokurenko, she received calls from several eyewitnesses who
maintained that the detainees were not the persons who hurled grenades
at Nataliya Vitrenko.
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES MUST BE ELIMINATED FROM THE RACE IF THEY
SUBMIT UNTRUE INCOME DECLARATIONS, LAWMAKERS SAY
KYIV. Oct.5, Ukraine's parliament passed the first reading on the
changes to the law on the presidential elections, whereby the Central
Election Commission is to eliminate from the list of candidates those
nominees who have been found by the Supreme Court to have submitted
untrue income declarations, or if a candidate violated the election
law or the Constitution and these violations can seriously affect the
election results.
PARLIAMENT CALLS ON UKRAINIAN PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR ANY OF KUCHMA'S
OPPONENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
KYIV. On October 6 the Supreme Council passed its address to the
people of Ukraine concerning the presidential election due to be held
in the country October 31. The Parliament says that incumbent
President Leonid Kuchma and his people consciously violate the most
important principle of democratic elections, the principle of equal
opportunities for each candidate. According to the Supreme Council,
only a new President can ensure democracy in the country and bring it
out of the crisis.
The Parliaments says that unlike in 1994, the year of the previous
presidential race, this year we see "a flagrant violation of one of
major constitutional rights, the right of free speech and access to
information"; the main tool employed by "mass media fully controled by
executive power" is "praising one candidate and throwing mud at his
rivals".
Ukrainian legislators draw the Ukrainian people's attention to the
fact that President Leonid Kuchma promised not to run for a second
term of office unless the economic situation in the country improved.
They believe we have had no improvement and all the improvements in
the economic sphere referred to by the President are "illusory".
It has been stated in the Parliament's address that in all parts of
Ukraine's political spectrum, whether it is left-wing, right-wing or
center, there are individuals who are capable of rescuing the country,
bringing it out of the crisis and reviving spiritual values. Ukrainian
lawmakers beleive that it is only by electing one of these politicians
as President, even if his/her views are differents from those of a
considerable part of the country's electorate, can citizens ensure one
of their main rights that authorities are trying to deprive them of,
the right to have a fair choice, to freely express their thoughts,
even being in minority, as well as the right to freely vote for their
candidate in future.
PARLIAMENT BEGINS HEARINGS ON 2000 DRAFT BUDGET
KYIV. Oct.7, Ukraine's finance minister, Ihor Mityukov, submitted to
parliament the draft of the state 2000 budget, with a UAH 554 million
surplus, or 04% of the GDP. The head of parliament's budget committee,
Yuliya Tymoshenko, said the budget is unreal, since it has been based
on unreal macroeconomic indicators.
According to the government experts, the expenditure is set at
26,515,907,700 and the revenue at UAH 27,070,447,700. The GDP is set
at UAH 150.8 billion, or up 2% on the 1999 level. Payments on foreign
and domestic debt are set at UAH 16.4 billion. The government sets UAH
2.237 billion for defense, UAH 2.182 billion for education and UAH
2.581 billion for social programs. Revenue from taxes is set at UAH
17.267 billion.
The head of the budget committee said that the proposed budget will
hardly be implemented because the government was too optimistic about
the forecast growth of the GDP. According to the committee experts,
the GDP will shrink by 1%, not grow by 2% as the government predicts.
She also said that the government actually ignored the budget
resolution, specifically the ban to submit a draft budget with a
surplus. She also pointed out that the government expects to cover
most of the expenditure by concentrating in the budget all the 20% of
depreciation deductions, a proposal which parliament has not approved
so far.
The budget committee members were surprised to find that the draft
budget cuts the revenue from rental payments for domestic gas almost
twice (by UAH 214.5 million) and payments for the transit of gas via
Ukraine by UAH 1.089.8 billion. This will only benefit the national
Naftohaz Ukrayiny company - at the expense of the state budget,
believes head of the budget committee, Yuliya Tymoshenko.
Having analysed the draft budget, Ukraine's Accounting Chamber says
the government failed to consider some factors which can raise the
revenue by UAH 4.7 billion while ignoring the factors which may reduce
the revenue by UAH 2.2 billion. The government without valid reason
overestimated the ceiling of the domestic state debt, as of late 2000,
by UAH 9.8 billion, says the Accounting Chamber, while the main
macroeconomic indicators for 2000 have not been substantiated well
enough. Therefore, both the Accounting Chamber and the budget
committee recommend to revise the draft budget thoroughly before it
goes to parliament's first reading debates.
Speaking in parliament, the head of the Reforms and Order party and
former vice-prime minister, Vikltor Pynzenuyk, proposed to impose
rigid control over budget expenditure. He proposed to stop the
construction and renovation of all buildings and offices related to
the branches of power (parliament including), to suspenf the purchases
of equipment and materials for these buildings, to cancel all benefits
to civil servants, lawmakers including, to cancel all non-budgetary
funds and concentrate all the money in a single budget account, to
impose a moratorium on endless state festivities. "Without these
measures, Ukraine will be in for very grave financial slump, due to
large payments on the foreign and domestic debt next year", said
Viktor Pynzenyk.
PRIME MINISTER SIGNS DOCUMENTS WHICH SHOULD ACCELERATE CREATION OF
FREE TRADE AREA WITHIN C.I.S.
SIMFEROPOL. At the meeting of heads of governments of the C.I.S.
countries held in Yalta (Crimea) Ukrainian Prime Minister Valeriy
Pustovoitenko signed 17 documents out of the 22 that had been
approved.
One of the documents he has signed is an agreement on the internal
procedures that are necessary to carry out in order to enforce an
agreement on the creation of a free trade area within the C.I.S. The
Ukrainian delegation insisted at the meeting that the free trade area
be launched as soon as January 2001.
Another document signed by Mr. Pustovoitenko in Yalta is an agreement
on the order of customs clearing and customs control of the goods
moving within the free trade area. Ukraine has also joined the C.I.S.
joint program of combating terrorism and "The Reliable Pipeline
Transport Program". At the same time the Ukrainian Prime Minister
refused to sign a document on allocations in 2000 for the creation and
development of a common air-defense system of the C.I.S.
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