Buffalo Expatriate

The above quote came from Savik Schuster, whose show, Svoboda, is a popular political discussion and debate forum that attracts some of Ukraine’s most prominent personalities to banter over topics while a live audience electronically agrees or disagrees with the statements of the speaker.

He said, “It seems to me that Lutsenko has gone crazy.” Yuriy Lutsenko, who is the current Minister of Interior of Ukraine, made a statement on Tuesday that has ignited debate not only in Ukraine, but has attracted media attention in Russia and other CIS countries.

From Unian:

Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko is opposed to attracting foreign workforce in Kyiv.

Thus, speaking at a session in the Kyiv Directorate of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, the Minister asked the citizenship, immigration, and natural persons registrations department chief about how many residence permits were given to people from the far abroad. Having heard the answer “seventy”, Yuri Lutsenko said: “Do we lack our own workforce? If you want to go to China – you may buy a ticket and often go there on vacation. You may call me a racist, but I will not allow to turn Kyiv into another Kharkiv or Odessa. The instruction is as follows: we give a residence permit only if he marries to our girl. Because shortly I will have to invite the Vietnamese or Chinese to work in police instead of you!”.

Remember that World Bank report that said Ukraine needs more foreign workers to sustain economic growth because of population issues, etc.? Well, apparently Lutsenko disagrees and this is how he chose to express himself. Not to worry, though. Here comes his press agency to the rescue:

The Press Service of the Ministry of Interior has just confirmed Lutsenko’s recent statements, however noted that Mr. Lutsenko’s comments should not be taken so literally, and all he was trying to do is make a point ‘that
registration of aliens is a very serious issue’.

“The Minister’s concern is based on the fact that foreigners in Kyiv committed three times more crimes against Kyivites than crimes committed by Ukrainians against foreigners. This year we deported to their historical homeland 1309 individuals of whom 485 are from the Caucases. It is this category (Caucases) who steal and rob. The Minister, who is aware of these statistics, acted in defence of his own citizens”.

In fact, this defense isn’t even creative. The Russian government has been known for quoting the exact same reasons for slacking on combating racist and xenophobic violence within its borders. Yet when these numbers are quoted, the corruption that occurs in the court systems, particularly in dealing with cases against foreigners is, of course, never mentioned. The lack of respect for legal or human rights during the court process is not mentioned. As well, in Ukraine, the recorded number of attacks against foreigners is far below the actual number of violent crimes committed because they’re often too scared to go to the police. And not without reason. And, for example, these statistics also include the arrests of foreigners who have defended themselves after being attacked.

Can you see why Ukraine will have an extremely difficult time combating the rise of racist and xenophobic violence if even the top level of the government cannot look at the problems and issues for what they are, and instead merging everything together to create an unclear and misleading picture of the situation?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 7:13 am and is filed under International News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.