Ukraine’s political opposition yesterday said it would call a country-wide general strike to force the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovich’s government after police used batons and stun grenades to break up pro-Europe protests.
Helmeted police bearing white shields stormed an encampment of protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square as they sang songs and warmed themselves by campfires, the opposition said.
Tension had been building since Friday, when Yanukovich declined to sign a landmark pact with EU leaders at a summit in Lithuania, going back on a pledge to work toward integrating his ex-Soviet republic into the European mainstream.
Tension has been building since Friday, when Yanukovich declined to sign a landmark pact with EU leaders
Live bands had played earlier and the presence of mainly young people, some of whom were in their teens, had brought almost a party spirit to the demonstration when police moved in, first firing stun grenades and then wading in with batons.
TV footage showed police beating one young woman on the legs and kicking young men on the ground. Several people were given emergency treatment on the spot for cuts to the head.
The Interior Ministry said the riot police moved in “after the protesters began to resist the (ordinary uniformed) police, throwing trash, glasses, bottles of water and flares at them”.
Opposition leaders, who late on Friday had urged protesters to continue campaigning for a European future for the ex-Soviet republic, condemned the police crackdown and said it would call a country-wide strike.
“We have taken a common decision to form a headquarters of national resistance and we have begun preparations for an all-Ukraine national strike,” former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, one of three opposition leaders, told journalists.
They wanted the resignation of the government and early parliamentary and presidential elections to force out President Viktor Yanukovich, he said.
Police detained 35 people but later released them, it said. There were no hard figures on how many people were hurt.
“By my count we are talking of tens of cruelly beaten people, perhaps hundreds,” Andriy Shevchen-ko, an opposition deputy, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. “It was absolute savagery.”
Yanukovich said he had declined to sign the EU pact as the cost of upgrading the economy to meet EU standards was too great and that economic dialogue with Russia, Ukraine’s former Soviet master, would be revived.
The protests evoked memories of the ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004-5 against sleaze and election fraud which doomed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency. But those protests took place peacefully without police action and yesterday’s violence was unprecedented in Kiev.
The events set the scene for possibly more confrontation today when a pro-Europe rally has been called. About 100,000 people turned out at a similar gathering last Sunday.