Lutsenko's Narodna Samooborona organization [People's self defence] is requesting supporters to picket the Prosecutor-General's investigative administration building in Kyiv tomorrow where their leader, former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko is to be questioned. The turn-out will be an indicator of the support he can muster.
LEvko thinks that 'nachal'stvo' got a shock in Kharkiv when they saw Lutsenko's crowd-pulling power last week. Some reports say that Yanukovych himself couldn't pull such a crowd when he last visited the city.
More on today's events from 'Unian':
The campaign against Lutsenko has escalated significantly with today's search of his apartment.
Search in Lutsenko’s flat aimed at disrupting protest action in Kyiv
Institute of Global Strategies director Vadym Karasyov is convinced that the search in the flat of ex-Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko is aimed at disrupting potential protest actions in Kyiv. He said this in an interview to UNIAN.
“This is an attempt to behead the upcoming protest march, which had all chances to turn into rather a serious mass action in the center of the capital. This is an attempt to not only disrupt the march, but also to bring Yuri Lutsenko out of the frames of the current and future political play, by means of accusing him of crimes and, thus, creating him an image of a negative hero”, V.Karasyov said.
The political scientist regards the search as a move to frighten not only Yuri Lutsenko, but also People’s Self-Defense activists.
According to the expert, these actions indicate that the anti-crisis coalition tries to divide the current opposition into its components, and to sort them out with different methods: with the President – from the position of appeasement and quasi-compromises, with BYuT – by means of other instruments, and with People’s Self-Defense – using a strong-arm scenario."
The president's chief of staff has already sprung to Lutsenko's defence, calling the Prosecutor General's office 'and instrument of blackmail.’ Opposition politicians will be thinking hard how to react if Lutsenko continues to be harassed.
Nachal'stvo are giving Narodna Samooborona a powerful focus for their vague campaign.
A prescient article in today's 'Donbass' newspaper, printed on the eve of the search of Lutsenko's apartment defends 'Samooborona's' right to stage public meetings, and criticises the orchestrated campaign which is being led by the present Minister of Internal Affairs Chushko and the odious deputy P-G Renat Kuzmin against its leader Yuriy Lutsenko.
The article concludes: "Analyzing similar actions, you are involuntarily reminded of the arrests of participants of the "Ukraine without Kuchma" campaign in 2001. Any excuse is being sought in order that Lutsenko suffers the same fate as Yulia Timoshenko and ends up in prison even before the planned 'March for Justice'. The policy of fighting those who think differently using repression is returning. Perhaps as a matter of fact, in order to prevent this, movements such as 'People's self defence' are necessary."
2 comments:
This is turning into an awful day for Ukraine. Kinakh defecting to the Regions, and a political talk show on UT1 being shut down - the government is acting with haste in it's attempts to kill off Democracy.
My greatest worry is that something should happen to Lutsenko. And afterwards his memory will be politically exploited by the Yulia to advance her own popularity and ambition. Which will be completely undeserving by her as she is NOT NOT NOT supporting him nor has she in the recent past (when he was dismissed by Rada.) No fiery, impassioned speeches, no solidarity, and will not until such time that it becomes politically advantageous.
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