Kravchuk May Banish Emigre Critics

President Leonid Kravchuk has threatened to banish Ukrainian-Americans and other returned emigres whose criticisms of the sluggish pace of political and economic reform marred Independence Day celebrations here over the weekend.

Foreigners who “openly call for opposition to government, Supreme Soviet (parliament) and the president’s policies” or who “attempt to divide the people so inter-ethnic . . . discord erupts, will be expelled beyond the borders of Ukraine without the right to ever visit it,” read a statement issued on Kravchuk’s orders and printed in newspapers Thursday.

The announcement shocked many of the 447 emigres who came to Kiev from the West on the government’s invitation to attend a four-day World Forum of Ukrainians that ended Monday.

“It’s politically unsophisticated and shows that Kravchuk doesn’t understand democratic processes,” said Askold Lovynskij, an American lawyer and co-leader of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, an umbrella organization that represents many of the almost 1 million Ukrainian-Americans.

“Besides, Kravchuk wants to have his cake and eat it, too,” Lovynskij asserted. “He wants us to give investments, charity, even to raise money for embassies. But he doesn’t want to hear our criticisms.”

The Ukrainian president has been increasingly intolerant of his critics at home, and his patience evidently reached the breaking point at the weekend forum when foreigners began questioning his reform programs.

Ukrainian emigres have been instrumental in funding democratic organization such as the unofficial grass-roots Rukh movement, but they have generally hesitated to put their money behind the government.

Yuri Shynko, a Ukrainian-Canadian who is president of the powerful World Congress of Free Ukrainians, which unites emigres from about 20 countries, criticized the Kravchuk government for “preserving the (Communist) command system that permits neither democratization nor market reform.”