Thousands demonstrate in Ukraine against Russian language moves

Mar 17, 2010, 19:04 GMT

Kiev - More than five thousand people in the west Ukrainian city of Lviv on Wednesday demonstrated against the recent appointment of an official calling for wider use of the Russian language.

Marchers gathering at Lviv central square accused Dmitro Tabachnyk, named last week as Ukraine's new Minister of Education, of planning a government campaign to undermine use of Ukrainian, and of placing the Russia's interests over those of his own country.

Tabachnyk, a historian entering politics in the early 1990s, has been one of Ukraine's most outspoken critics of past government support to the Ukrainian language, and has called for the Russian language to receive equal status under the law.

Government language policy is a politically-sensitive issue in Ukraine, with roughly 40 per cent of the population speaking Russian as a first language, and 60 per cent speaking Ukrainian.

The Lviv marchers carried banners reading, in part, 'Down with Tabachnik, down with traitors!' 'We oppose Russification!' and 'Knowledge is not tobacco, Tabachnyk is no minister!'

Smaller protests took place took place on Sunday in the cities Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv.

Calls for Tabachnyk's removal have gained traction in some regional governments, with the provincial legislatures of Lviv and Ternopil on Wednesday approving resolutions he should be sacked.

Tabachnyk in comments to the Interfax news agency said that, though he considered public demonstrations 'a normal event in democratic civil society,' calls for his removal from office less than a week after his appointment, was 'a witch hunt.'

He called on opponents not to assume he would push for dramatic changes in current Ukrainian language law, his personal opinions notwithstanding.

'One should not confuse my political views, moreover those expressed during an election campaign, with my actions as an official,' Tabachnyk said.

Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's newly-inaugurated President, during election campaigning promised his administration would move to reverse laws giving Ukrainian language priority in most official communications.

Yanukovych's Thursday appointment of Tabachnyk to the Education Ministry was widely seen as a first move in a programme to give Russian equal status with Ukrainian.

Ukrainian currently is by law the only language permitted for use in courts, higher education, and by government officials in the former Soviet republic.

The rules, coming into effect after Ukraine's 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution, are a substantial irritant to many of Ukraine's ethnic Russians.

Russian is heavily-favoured in Ukrainian business and media.

Almost all Ukrainians speak and understand both languages, but some experience difficulty in using one or the other correctly in written form.