East, West meet nose to nose in Ukraine - Article

[Ulysses]

East, West meet nose to nose in Ukraine

By MARK MacKINNON

UPDATED AT 5:51 AM EST Friday, Nov 26, 2004

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KIEV -- They were two university students who grew up just a few hundred kilometres away from each other in the heartland of Ukraine, but their points of view could hardly have been further apart.

The two -- one covered head to toe in orange, the colour of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, and the other wearing a parka given to him by establishment candidate Viktor Yanukovich's camp -- stood almost nose to nose outside their country's parliament yesterday, each trying to persuade the other, with increasing irritation, why his man should be president.

"Tell me, honestly, that you think the presidential elections were clean, that they were fair," said orange-clad Alexei Potapenko, a 20-year-old resident of Kiev, his face flushed with passion.

His opponent in the debate, a 22-year-old named Vladimir from the industrial city of Dnepropetrovsk who wouldn't give his last name, spun on his heel in frustration. There was nowhere for him to go. He was surrounded by a sea of orange, other Yushchenko supporters attracted to the loud argument.

"America," Vladimir spat as he forced his way through the crowd, a one-word rebuttal that encapsulates the feeling in the country's large Russian minority that street demonstrations for Mr. Yushchenko have been organized by a White House eager to ensure the pro-Western reformer wins the presidency.

Scenes such as this were repeated all over Kiev, as trainloads of Mr. Yanukovich's supporters, most of them from the pro-Russian east, arrived in the capital yesterday. (Mr. Yushchenko's support base is the Europe-looking west.) Violence that was feared never materialized, the two sides instead engaging in a very public meeting of the minds.

"You've been misinformed," a crowd of Yushchenko backers told a surrounded coal miner from Mr. Yanukovich's hometown of Donetsk. "You don't get proper information in Donetsk."

The coal miner acknowledged that he had never watched Channel 5, the lone Ukrainian television station that gives the opposition extensive coverage. It reaches only about 40 per cent of the country. However, he angrily rejected the idea that he had been fooled into supporting Mr. Yanukovich, who was declared the winner of Sunday's presidential vote amid allegations of massive fraud.

Tensions spiked as Mr. Yanukovich's supporters, mostly miners and metal workers and almost all of them men, set up tents on a hill overlooking Khreshchatyk Street, which was occupied for a fifth day by hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters.

"We're here because we love our country and we love our president and because we want to make sure there are no problems," said Vitaly Virupayo, a 46-year-old who operates a banya (steam bath) in the town of Dneprodzerzhinsk. He was clad in military fatigues and waving a Yanukovich flag as he stood outside Ukraine's Supreme Court with about 50 other Yanukovich supporters.

Others in the same crowd acknowledged that organizers had come to their mines and factories and offered them roughly $10 a day above their usual wage if they travelled to Kiev to join Yanukovich protests.

The only reported clashes yesterday were a few alcohol-inspired fistfights between rival groups -- but that was enough to convince some that things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Parents said they were pulling their children out of school, while there was a rush to buy U.S. dollars and euros as a hedge against further instability.

Many were worried yesterday that fighting between the two camps would give President Leonid Kuchma an excuse to call in the police and army to crush the demonstrations.

"Since the thugs arrived, people have started to get really scared that there will be violence," said Sergey Bondarenko, a 29-year-old economist who joined the pro-Yushchenko blockade of the country's parliament last night.

"Everybody is just waiting."