Attack on the Luhansk staff of Viktor Yushchenko ����� �� ���������� ���� ³����� ������ CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO Originally published by Channel 5 at www.5tv.com.ua/video

If you had the interests of the Ukrainian people at heart, and wished to earn their gratitude and trust, you would warn them what they might expect from Yanukovych goon squads in the event that Viktor Yanukovych becomes president.  The Yanukovych goon squads in question are the ones that are shown in the video opposite assaulting Viktor Yushchenko's Luhansk staff, and being repelled by Yushchenko security personnel identified by TIGER (����) written on their backs.  One such goon can be seen in the image opposite with his club raised, and the bloodied head of the Yushchenko TIGER that is the product of this club descending can be seen toward the end of the video.

If you had the interests of the Ukrainian people at heart, you would explain to them that � in case of a Yanukovych presidency � they can expect Yanukovych goon squads to not be disbanded for lack of further need, but to be expanded manyfold.  Yanukovych goon squads will still be needed, for example, to deal with recalcitrant strike organizers.  Goon squads will be needed to deal with journalists who persist in exposing corruption.  There will be citizens who ask why it is that in the history of independent Ukraine, not a single person has ever been punished for a contract killing � and the Yanukovych goon squads will be needed to silence such outspoken citizens.  There will be judges who find against gangsters.  There will be opposition printing presses and photocopy machines and computers that need to be smashed.  There will be businessmen who refuse to make protection payments.  There will be boys who refuse to die on behalf of the Kremlin in Chechnya.  There will be reformers who agitate for the implementation of strict monitoring of elections.  And, of course, there will be the goon squads of other clans who have to be engaged for encroaching too far into lucrative Yanukovych drug, prostitution, and gambling monopolies.

If you had the interests of the Ukrainian people at heart, you would warn them that the Yanukovych goon squads will also sometimes target particular individuals for a rather severe beating, as was done in the cases of Oleg Liachko, Valentina Vasilchenko, and Oleh Velichko.  You would remind Ukrainians that some good-squad victims will die of head wounds, as happened in the cases Igor Grouchetsky and Ihor Alexandrov (Oleksandrov).  If you wished to earn the gratitude and trust of the Ukrainian nation, you would warn them that Yanukovych goon squads will hang people, either in forests as was done to Volodymyr Ivasiuk, or in boiler rooms as was done to Petro Shevchenko, or in their own apartments as was done to Miroslava Mayorchuk.  Yanukovych goon squads will torture people to death as was done to Volodymyr Katelnytsky together with his mother, and to Heorhy Gongadze.  Yanukovych goon squads will bomb people, as was done to Maksym Tsarenko.  Yanukovych goon squads will hide their murders under fires caused by exploding television sets, as was done to Vadim Boyko.  Yanukovych goon squads will poison people, as was done to Yuly Mazur or with non-fatal results to Viktor Yushchenko.  Yanukovych goon squads will slit throats, as was done to Vassil Chudik.  Yanukovych goon squads will kidnap people who are never heard from again, as happened to Mykhailo Boichyshyn.  Most often, of course, the Yanukovych goon squads will simply shoot people to death, as was done to Yevhen Scherban together with his wife, and to Boris Derevyanko, and to Vadym Hetman, and to Igor Bondar together with Boris Vikhrov, and to Oleh Breus.  This is to mention only a few cases that lie at hand.

You would earn Ukrainian gratitude and trust by warning Ukrainians that all such evils necessarily follow sooner or later from any seizure of power which depends on such goon-squad tactics as are shown in the video.  You would demonstrate a readiness to cast off Kremlin brutishness and to join the civilized world by warning Ukrainians that the people always suffer under gangster rule, no matter whether the people speak Ukrainian or Russian, or live in the West or the East � and that only one of the two presidential candidates is not a gangster.

Conversely, of course, you earn resentment and distrust � not only of citizens of Ukraine but of people around the globe � by supporting Viktor Yanukovych, the boss of the club-wielding, head-breaking goon squads.




Lubomyr Prytulak