International practice or return to KGB?

Lviv — Father Borys Hudziak, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), publicized a memorandum on a visit paid to the UCU by a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine. The document says that the SBU representative had the purpose of, first, convincing the rector that it is his duty to warn the students against possible unlawful actions of political character and, second, obtain Father Hudziak’s signature under a letter the SBU administration addressed to him so that this signature would confirm that the rector had been informed and warned. Because the officer refused to leave the original or at least a copy of it with the rector, the latter refused to even read it and went public with a memorandum detailing the meeting.

Father Hudziak’s principled position expressed in this document, relates his disagreement with an approach when a discussion of students’ civic activity has to take place behind closed doors and among third persons. An expression of loyalty to such methods may sow suspicion, rather than build trust. “The population of Ukraine continues to fear and distrust both state security and police personnel because of the woeful track record of law enforcement and because of the diffuse practice of police intimidation of honest politicians, journalists, common citizens and the impudent extortion practiced by security institutions and police with respect to middle and small business,” says Father Hudziak.

He informed the members of the rector’s office about his conversation with the SBU representative and discussed it with UCU teachers and students. The collective opinion of the UCU rector’s office is that Ukraine needs, more than ever, open communication among the participants of sociopolitical life, and the formation of the common space of trust. Thus, having goodwill and hope for building this trust, the English translation of this document was handed out to the participants of the General Assembly of the European Federation of Catholic Universities, which recently took place at the UCU. It has also been circulated in electronic format. “We hope that representatives of law enforcement agencies understand the incompatibility of the methods of totalitarian past with the goals of building free society which honors human dignity. Their methods damage also the dignity of the SBU officers themselves for they are forced into morally erroneous situations. Our common task is to prevent the inertial drift of Ukrainian society towards stereotypes of old-time submission which threatens, at the same time, both the political and spiritual security of our citizens. We also express our solidarity with those civic circles that honor honest and open communication and consider it to be a condition for healthy human and societal relations. We also call on the government bodies to join this honest and open cooperation,” reads the commentary of the UCU rector’s office to Father Hudziak’s memorandum.

In contradiction to this, Volodymyr Kryvoshyia, head of the Lviv Oblast SBU Administration, said to The Day that the SBU agent met with the UCU management within the framework of the current legislation. “The goal of the meeting was to clarify the norms of the law on the inadmissibility of violations of the law during protest actions in which the UCU students could participate,” he said. “I am not ready to say whether the SBU administration will respond to the rector’s memorandum.” A similar statement was made by Maryna Ostapenko, SBU’s spokesperson, in an interview given to Deutsche Welle: “The norms of legislation were explained to the rector, in particular, that involving students in illegal activity and possible mass unrest are against the law. It was all within the legal framework.”

Volodymyr Horbulin, head of the Civic Council at the SBU, does not place much value on the UCU incident and refuses to comment on “such small topics,” saying only that “this kind of practice exists in all countries of the world. Everything simply depends on the finesse and diplomatic abilities of the person who tackles this assignment. If the SBU agent who talked to the university rector has this result, he might have to consider working somewhere else.”

Myroslav Marynovych, vice rector of the UCU, former political prisoner:

“In the Ukrainian Catholic University there is the same psychological opposition between the administration and student body as is found in every other university. In its foundation lies the perennial opposition of interests of those who manage and those being managed. However, in the UCU there is, fortunately, no disagreement between the two sides when it comes to the defense of human dignity. Let people count for themselves how many universities there are in Ukraine in which the rectors are prepared to sacrifice their office if only to secure for their institution and students freedom of expression, in particular through protests. The Ukrainian Catholic University can fulfill its mission, which is borne of freedom, only in conditions of freedom.”

Ihor BALYNSKY, political expert, teacher at the Faculty of Journalism, Ivan Franko Lviv National University:

“We don’t know for sure what purpose the SBU representatives were pursuing with this conversation. We don’t know what was in the letter. After all, we can only surmise who needs it and what for. Therefore, I could express only a couple of conjectures about why this incident took place and what can be behind it from the political viewpoint. I am not inclined to think that the SBU is returning to the KGB methods and is trying to use pressure to influence certain political processes. It is more likely that we are dealing with the following situation: the SBU is trying to secure the conception of Ukraine’s political situation that the current government has, namely that protests against Tabachnyk or the ratified Kharkiv treaties are groundless and lack motivation, and thus can be, from their point of view, threats to the very notion of the government’s stability and effectiveness, which is the main goal of Viktor Yanukovych’s team. In other words, the secret services are trying to secure a balanced political situation. This also is taking place in the sense of protecting themselves against unnecessary political worries, while students are, in my opinion, a social group that cannot be controlled and which is capable of causing troubles for the current government. It seems to me that one of the possible goals of the SBU agent’s visit to the UCU rector is that there are only two universities in Ukraine — the UCU and Kyiv Mohyla Academy — that are demonstrating their disagreement sufficiently clearly, loudly, and publicly — not only on the level of student protests but also on the level of consolidated position of these universities’ administrations regarding the situation in the sphere of education and the current political situation in Ukraine. My third assumption about the purpose of this conversation is that I would link it to the fact that the efficiency of the political opposition, regarding certain decisions made by Viktor Yanukovych’s team, is seriously lacking. The opposition is actually unable to influence any decision passed by the government. The only civic opposition to the government’s decisions are non-political social campaigns, such as student initiatives and protests. Therefore, I do not rule out that the SBU is trying to monitor the directions that lie beyond political activity and are a civic stand, a civic initiative. I don’t have any more explanations of what has happened. Assessing the action of the UCU rector, I believe that he has acted with a fair share of courage and in an absolutely correct way. Assessments of this type of actions, either from politicians, the government, or secret services, have to be discussed on the public level. If this affair is hushed up without giving it a public resonance, this practice may become routine and will spread to various spheres of our life. Father Hudziak is a person who was shaped in a non-Ukrainian context, in the US political traditions. Therefore, this kind of decision is normal, customary for him. In general, it seems to me that such conversations took place not only with the UCU rector. However, no other rector, except Father Hudziak, was able to speak [publicly] about this. This is, in fact, the problem of the current situation in Ukraine.”

Ihor HULYK, political expert, chief editor of the newspaper Lvivska Poshta:

“This situation is a consequence of the empty statements about deep reforms, and in various spheres of Ukrainian society at that, which we have been hearing for 20 years now. There was talk about reforming the law enforcement agencies, in particular the SBU, back under Kuchma. Back then they spoke about the KGB-zation of higher education institutions and the cultural and educational sphere in general, and that the SBU has to fulfill only its direct functions. It turns out nothing has changed. In fact, within less than 100 days after the new team came to power we can see how fragile were those attempts to reform the SBU which we have observed until now. After all I would not categorically deny that under Yushchenko the SBU was not used in functions not inherent to it. That is, we saw that the SBU did everything it could busy itself with — the issues of history, archives, etc. This is all very wonderful, but the SBU is, above all, charged with catching foreign spies, rather than ‘taking care’ of the culture and education people as it was under the communist regime — it has to stop short on the threshold of a private dwelling. On the other hand, I am surprised at the lack of professionalism on the part of the SBU agent who came to the rector of such a respectable university as the UCU to fulfill, mildly speaking, an improper task. Furthermore, since I started speaking about unrealized reforms, frequent statements were heard under Yushchenko about the fundamental transformation of our higher education system, in particular what concerns universities — their transition to the Bologna system, their autonomous status, etc. I understand Father Hudziak. This university is less dependent than other state universities on various kinds of state bodies, ministerial clerks, etc. However, I imagined a situation in which this officer came not to Rector Hudziak, but a different university that is fully or partly funded by the state, has state-approved programs, etc. This is to say that there are words and more words — about reforms, changes, the apolitical character of the SBU and other law enforcement agencies, reforming of the higher education system, and giving autonomy to universities. All this has remained on paper, but the value of these words was less than the price of the paper they were written on. However, in the story with Father Hudziak there is one more situation — an indicator of society’s resistance potential. It seems to me that even several years ago this conversation would have probably remained between its two participants. However, by going public with this story the UCU rector forestalled the future steps that are perhaps being planned by the government. Because when this story became public knowledge, it ruled out its recurrence in the future.”

Yurii BOBALO, rector, Lviv Politechnic National University:

“The statement of Father Borys Hudziak, rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, stunned me: in all my years of rectorship (previously I was also a vice rector for research), I have never heard so much as a whisper from SBU officers with a request to provide them with any information or take any obligations before them, notably regarding informers. None of our vice rectors has complained to me about any such issues… How would I react if I heard this kind of improper proposal? I would probably find a way to inform journalists about this.”