Why were the dissidents affected by the communist regimes against the hunting of “communist witches”?
This week, Rada of Ukraine, «at the demand of Maidan” has passed a law on “Cleansing the government”. The Latin word “lustration” has the very meaning of “cleansing” but in this case, the matters seems not to be about traditional “lustration”, which particularly in the early 90s was applied in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian MPs decided to investigate the candidates of the public positions not for determining the relations with the Communist Party or the “KGB” but from the perspective of who took what positions during the tenure of the ex-President Viktor Yanukovich. This approach, in my opinion, is as controversial as the “anti-communist” lustration.
First, the current President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was working in the position of the Minister of Economic Development and Trade during Yanukovych’s tenure. Was he “investigated” prior to being elected as a president? Secondly, who are the “judges” that decided how deep this or that person’s cooperation with the Yanukovych regime was. In 1991, in Germany, for instances, during the “post-communist” lustration, there was a Gauck commission, a protestant pastor and human rights activist, Joachim Gauck and his staff were deciding of who and how in the former German Democratic Republic was cooperating with the “Stasi” called “KGB”. This man was so popular that in 2012 he became the President of Germany, almost symbolic, but a very respectable position.
Is there such an authority in Ukraine and other post-Soviet country, whose decisions would be acceptable for the majority of the society and would not be viewed as retribution by one clan to the other? And finally, if it comes to the crimes committed since the times of “Maidan revolution”, then it is purely a legal issue, and not only the representatives of “force structures” of Yanukovich circles but also “Pravy sector” and other national groupings should stand before the court (not the “lustration Commission”). For instances, those who had tied the head of Volynsky marz by the chains on the street and tortured him, and this is not the most horrible crime committed by Ukrainian nationalists. But it is a matter of prosecution rather than political.
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An interesting fact from the past. The Eastern European leaders who were fighting against the Communist regimes and were affected by, such as Lech Wałęsa, Václav Havel, Zhelyu Zhelev, were against lustration and sought to keep the process of “anti-communism” in possibly narrow circles, followed by the same goal of keeping their citizens back from the same retribution and the common desire of writing denunciations. These leaders were able to overcome their dissident “touchiness” and think by state categories, by understanding of what it means to induce the dark instincts of the crowd.
The sentiment towards the crimes of the past must be stable-intolerant. if those implementing them exists, then they must stand before the court, not the “people’s tribunal”, not the “transitional justice” but an “ordinary”, criminal cases investigating court. If the matter is a political one, where the man has worked, whether he had connections with the special services and political parties, what he said, what he wrote, the sentiment to all of this must be the utmost tolerant.
For hot-blooded southern nations like us, where the risk of a “political vendetta” is most likely, probably, the Spanish experience is more applicable. In the mid-70’s, after the death of General Franco, all political parties made a decision by the principle of consensus to mutually forgive the sins of the past. True, the Spaniards failed to completely heal the wounds of the past, however.
… In 2005, a group of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine offered an original option of “lustration”. To disallow all those who have ever participated in the falsification of the elections be engaged in political activities. Can you imagine if such a law is passed in Armenia? There would be almost no political party or politician left.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
