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UNIAN news agency, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, 3 Mar 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mar 03, 2004
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LVIV, 3 March: The chairman of the Lviv Regional council, Mykhaylo Sendak,
met OSCE Secretary-General Jan Kubis on 1 March. The meeting took place in
an unofficial setting in one of Lviv's coffee houses. The meeting was
attended by the deputy president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe, Ukrainian MP Ihor Ostash; and the chairmen of standing
deputy commissions and members of the Lviv Regional council presidium, Oleh
Kanivets and Roman Hayduchok, UNIAN learnt at the press service of the Lviv
Regional council today.
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Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, left, shakes hands with Yan Kubis, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, prior to their meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 2, 2004
AP Photos/ Sergei Supinsky, Pool (Bild 1)
(Click on image to enlarge it)
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At the meeting, Kubis asked questions about the sociopolitical situation in
Lviv Region and its development prospects ahead of the presidential
elections [scheduled for 31 October]. Sendak asked Kubis to pay attention to
the fact that the executive power, which is subordinated to Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma, uses administrative means to pressurize local
government bodies. Specific examples of pressure on Our Ukraine's
[right-of-centre opposition bloc] sympathisers were given, including
ruination of businesses and ungrounded criminal cases against deputies of
the Lviv Regional council.
The OSCE secretary-general was told that such actions in Lviv Region were
coordinated by the brother of the head of the Ukrainian presidential
administration and first deputy chairman of the State Tax Administration of
Ukraine, Serhiy Medvedchuk, who is a former head of the State Tax
Administration in Lviv Region.
Kubis was also told about the instances when chairmen of District state
administrations and other state officials were dismissed only because they
expressed their [negative] attitude to Ukraine's intention to join the
Single Economic Space [with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan] as deputies
and not as members of the executive branch.
The OSCE secretary-general was surprised to learn about instances of the
presidential power's intrusion into the work of local government bodies and
of the Lviv Regional council. Sendak told Kubis about his meeting with the
US ambassador to Ukraine [John Herbst]. Kubis advised the chairman of the
Lviv Regional council to step up cooperation with ambassadors of foreign
states in Ukraine and to objectively inform them about the activities of the
central and regional executive powers regarding the local opposition.
Kubis said that during his meeting with ambassadors of European states he
would inform them about the developments involving the highest
representative body in Lviv Region.
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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