Ukraine gets tough with minority

Father Dmitry Sidor plays the melodic anthem of the Rusyn nation. He says this tune dates back some ninety years, to when his people had their own autonomy within Hungary. The leader of the Rusyn movement in Western Ukraine says nowadays life for this ethnic group has turned from sovereignty into a fight for survival.

“The pressure of forced assimilation is so strong that if we don’t fight for our status, in just 15 years Rusyns will only be mentioned in schoolbooks,” he says.

The land of the Rusyns lies at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine. Over the centuries it has been part of four different countries, losing its autonomy when it became part of the Soviet Union. Now it belongs to Ukraine.

But the leader of the Rusyns says they are entitled to live in their own sovereign state - just as they did almost a century ago. The nation has its own language and culture and more than a thousand years of history behind it. Ever since the fall of the USSR, the Rusyns have been asking the Ukrainian government to agree to a self-governing autonomy.

“They’ve been reluctant to even talk to us. That’s why our council made its own decision to restore Rusyn statehood. But there’s no separatism here. We’re ready to live alongside Ukrainians, respect their money and language and be a part of their land, but with our own autonomy,” Father Dmitry Sidor explains.

But Pyotr Getsko, prime-minister of the self-proclaimed state, says that they recently received a summons from the SBU, the Ukrainian security service, accusing both him and Father Sidor of separatist activities.

Getsko says that a Rusyn government has already been formed and has even prepared passports for the new country.

“We will have our own national guard, our own army to protect our borders, our own police. We will print our own currency, have our own treasury and banks. We will have all branches of power - including a parliament, or Soym,” he said.

According to Getsko, the new country will have up to 700,000 citizens. Kiev, on the other hand, speaks of just 10,000 Rusyns.

Ukraine’s security services are firm in their view that the Rusyns' actions are illegal.

“These separatist organisations are small and pose no real threat. They’re not supported by regional or central authority. We know what they’re doing and we will prosecute them in full accordance with the law,” says SBU head Valentin Nalivaychenko.

Rusyn leaders believe they know the reason behind such attitude to them. Uzhgorod, the capital of the region, looks just like any other Eastern European city but this place has strategic value. Almost 80 per cent of Russian gas sold to Europe travels through this territory. Should their plans to become a separate country succeed, the Rusyns will receive billions of dollars of gas transit profits from Kiev.

Fact box

Rusyns are an indigenous people of the Carpathian region dispersed in several Eastern European countries. In Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Serbia, the Rusyns are officially recognised as a national minority.

In 1992 and 2002 local authorities in Ukraine’s Zakarpatye region asked parliament to recognise the Rusyns as a separate ethnic group.

In August 2006 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended Ukraine’s government consider granting the Rusyns a national minority status.

It was not until 2007 that the Zakarpatye Regional Council recognised the Rusyns as an ethnicity.

In October 2008, participants of the second European Rusyn congress signed a memorandum on restoring Rusyn statehood. Ukraine’s authorities were given until December 1 to launch the recognition of the Podkarpatskaya Rus republic.

Related links:

Ethnic group seeks autonomy in Ukraine

Yushchenko praises Ukrainian nationalism

How Russian decision will affect world’s unrecognised states

Poland threatened by ‘Kosovo scenario’

Republic of Srpska: another breaking point in the Balkans?

Activists call for Russian autonomy in Estonia

Greenland votes to freeze out Denmark

Independence divides Denmark islands