MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - By passing new legislation which introduces “lustration”, the practice of purging left-wing elements from government positions, Ukrainian lawmakers have invoked the old specter of McCarthyism, a term which has become synonymous with baseless accusations, witch-hunting and reckless opportunism, experts say.
"Instead of defending democracy, lustration as per this bill would be more likely to turn into a mechanism of selective political persecution of officials and would destroy independent institutions," writes Ukraine Business Online, citing Volodymyr Yavorsky, a lawyer and a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
McCarthyism got its name from the notorious Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led a frenzied anti-communist witch-hunt which stretched from the floor of the American Senate to the hills of Hollywood in the early 1950’s. His swift rise to power coincided with increasing anti-Soviet paranoia among policy-makers in Washington. In February 1950, Joseph McCarthy gave an infamous speech, claiming that he had obtained a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring," within the US State Department. Needless to say, the senator failed to prove his charges. However, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Senator McCarthy initiated numerous investigations against alleged Communist collaborators. As a result, many Americans lost their jobs and some were even incarcerated, despite their guilt remaining unproven. Approximately 30,000 books were removed from US public libraries, having been deemed "pro-Communist." "The Reds have made our screen, radio and TV Moscow's most effective Fifth Column in America!" a popular sign from the McCarthy era read. The infamous American Senator’s meteoric career rise ended in 1954, when US Army sources reported that McCarthy had abused his congressional privileges.
As a result of the anti-communist hysteria, Congress passed the Communist Control Act, which was signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on 24 August 1954. The bill was a de-facto ban on the Communist Party of the United States, depriving party members of "the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States".
The Ukrainian leadership and particularly President Petro Poroshenko are demonstrating a strikingly similar stance to that of Joseph McCarthy, experts claim. President Poroshenko has insisted that in the Ukrainian parliament, "the majority of people represent a 'fifth column' which is controlled from abroad, whole factions… and the danger of this is only rising," as cited by RT. He added that he was "proud" that during his presidency, "the Communist faction ceased to exist." Ironically, the President's announcement coincided with the 60th anniversary of the infamous Communist Control Act of 1954.
"This political force should be liquidated," underscored Pavlo Petrenko, Ukraine's justice minister, referring to the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), according to Capital, a Ukrainian media outlet.
It should be noted that the CPU is still one of the most widely-supported political parties in the country. In 2012 the party won 13 percent of the parliamentary vote; over the decades it has remained an influential force in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada.
Thus, Ukraine's authoritarian initiative contradicts Article 12 of the EU's "Charter of Fundamental Rights," which reads: "Political parties at the Union level contribute to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union," stress experts.
Kiev has cracked down on the CPU under the pretext of its alleged support of the Ukrainian rebels' movement. In fact the Communist party members, particularly its leader Petr Simonenko, have been the only vocal critics of the irresponsible and ruthless bombardment of peaceful civilians in eastern Ukraine since the beginning of Kiev’s so-called "Anti-Terrorist Operation".
"The allegations against the CPU voiced by the Ministry of Justice officials include, for example, statements such as: "[individual CPU representatives] overtly expressed negative attitudes regarding the actions of our military in Eastern Ukraine," writes Volodymyr Ishchenko, the Deputy Director of the Center for Society Research.
In addition to the anti-Communist crusade being launched by Kiev and the right-wing extremist parties, a new controversial "lustration" bill was passed on August 14 by Ukrainian law-makers. The term "lustration" can be defined as "the limitation of the rights of individuals that belong to particular categories from holding certain positions in state public service, as well as a limitation of the rights of those individuals to be elected to certain positions," notes Volodymyr Yavorsky, a human rights specialist. However, the proposed law has certain defects, Yavorsky stresses.
The bill "appears to be rather populist and some of its positions are contrary to the recommendations of the Council of Europe, the principles of international law and, in addition, run contrary to the previous experiences of other countries who cleansed their ranks when Communism fell," the expert explains in an Op-Ed which was published by the Kyiv Post on August 19.
The biggest problem, according to Yavorsky, is that the bill seeks to ouster practically all senior civil servants (approximately half a million) from their positions and bar them from being rehired for an entire decade. Police personnel, the tax police and "almost the entire composition of the prosecutor's office" will be affected by the legislation. However, the bill neither guarantees that the officials will be replaced with qualified personnel, nor clarifies the "mechanism of dismissal." The populist law is likely to "destroy the targeted structures," Yavorsky underscores, adding that "no country ever reformed law enforcement structures by completely replacing [their] entire staff."
This McCarthy-era practice which is being adopted by the Ukrainian authorities will only worsen the situation in Ukraine, which is already torn apart by the civil war, claim experts. Instead of protecting democracy and human rights, the Ukrainian leadership is plunging the country into havoc and fear with its embarrassing witch hunt.
