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	UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT KUCHMA NOT WORRIED ABOUT ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTS
	Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 31 Mar 04 BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mar 31, 2004 Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma has said he was not worried about the 9,000-strong anti-government protest that ended in Kiev shortly after midday on 31 March. The protesters accused the government of hoarding billions of dollars in budget revenues to spend them on government-backed candidates' presidential election campaign. Kuchma said people had the right to voice their concerns. He stressed that the protest focused on economic demands rather that the controversial constitutional reform his supporters are pushing through parliament. The following is an excerpt from report by Interfax-Ukraine news agency: "Quit Ripping Off People" March 31, 2004 ArtUkraine.com photo (Click on images to enlarge them)   Kiev, 31 March: Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma has said today's protest rallies in Kiev were a proof that the people were supporting the processes taking place in Ukraine. He said this during a joint news conference with [visiting] Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.   "The people want to come and voice their demands," he said, "and no-one stops them from voicing their problems". He stressed that the protesters "came to the cabinet of ministers building with economic demands".   He told the conference that the cabinet of ministers was "absolutely the right place" for the protesters to come. He added that he saw the development "as a sign of big progress in the political forces' understanding of what is going on in Ukraine". He said he was happy that the [main opposition bloc] Our Ukraine [led by Viktor Yushchenko] had reached the conclusion that changes to the constitution were irreversible.   Speaking at the rally outside the cabinet building, Viktor Yushchenko said that today's rally was focusing only on social issues, and that he did not want to speak about constitutional reform. [Yushchenko is a vehement critic of the constitutional reform bill. The reform would transfer most of the president's powers to a parliament dominated by Leonid Kuchma's supporters ahead of the 31 October presidential election, which Yushchenko hopes to win.]   Yushchenko said at the rally that 78 per cent of the public though pensions and wages were the main issue for the country, 56 per cent thought the fight against corruption and crime was more important, and only 3.3 per cent thought a political reform was urgently needed. But the government is focusing solely on the constitutional reform, he said.   "We know that the constitution actually needs to be protected from the man who is supposed to guard it, the president, and from the Constitutional Court," Yushchenko said. He stressed that only the Ukrainian people could now protect the constitution. [Passage omitted: details of the protest] A demonstrator shakes his fist and chants anti-presidential slogans during a protest in front of the governmental building in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 31, 2004 AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov   [The protest, in which about 9,000 people took part, ended without incidents, Radio Era reported at 1300 gmt.] FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY

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