烏克蘭流血衝突 和解有望？
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2014/2/28
2014-02-21 Web
only 作者：經濟學人
 |
| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/112078056@N07/ |
從去年11月至今，原本該是和平收場的抗議活動，最後演變成暴力衝突。遠近馳名的烏克蘭首都基輔，頓時成了戰區。建築物被焚毀，數十人喪生。
停戰協議談了又破裂，衝突愈演愈烈。這場血腥衝突只會加深對立雙方的裂痕，甚至有可能因此引發內戰。不可否認，烏克蘭現任總統亞努科維奇（Viktor Yanukovych）
必須對這次的衝突事件負起責任，但背後真正的關鍵人物其實是俄羅斯總統普丁。
烏克蘭於1991年宣布獨立，目前烏克蘭領土包括原本屬於奧匈帝國的西部地區、以及俄語區的東部與南部地區。但從獨立至今，烏克蘭的政治局勢便長期陷入動盪不安，特別是2004年發生橙色革命之後。橙色革命起因於10月的總統大選期間的貪污與舞弊事件，引發民眾抗議，但革命後的成果令人失望，烏克蘭仍無法擺脫貪污陰影。現任總統亞努科維奇的作為同樣引發眾怒。
2013年11月，亞努科維奇拒絕與歐盟簽定一項貿易協議，引發親歐的反對派團體抗議，他們要求亞努科維奇辭職下台，而亞努科維奇和俄羅斯政府則指控反咬抗議民眾為恐怖分子。這星期亞努科維奇政府發動強勢鎮壓，導致多人傷亡。
對於此次暴力衝突，西方國家應表示強硬態度，例如拒發簽證給亞努科維奇黨羽，並凍結相關人士的海外資產；亞努科維奇必須嚴格約束手下，停止暴力鎮壓。至於抗議民眾，若要避免大規模的流血衝突，也必須做出必要的退讓，撤離基輔的獨立廣場以及佔領的建築物。最好的做法是雙方合組跨黨派聯合政府。
下一屆的總統大選原本是在2015年，應改為今年舉辦，而且亞努科維奇不應參選；在擔任總統期間，他大舉任用親信、迫害政敵、收買媒體、欺騙法庭。不過，要亞努科維奇退出並不容易。但是當他覺得危機解除，便會設法迴避他曾做出的承諾。若真是如此，那些原本協助他鞏固政權的以及因為這次衝突事件而喪失利益的政治勢力，必定會逼退他。
接下來的局勢將如何發展，仍難以判定。目前檯面上的烏克蘭政治人物，沒有人有明確的規劃。獨立廣場的抗議民眾缺乏領導人，這也是一再發生暴力衝突事件的原因之一。依照烏克蘭目前的政治勢力版圖來看，很難有單一領導人可以獲得多數的支持。東部以及南部選民支持亞努科維奇；在首都基輔以及西部地區，則是反對派的天下。若要避免東西雙方進一步的對立，就必須防止俄羅斯插手干預。
許多觀察家表示，烏克蘭的政治亂局，俄羅斯絕對脫離不了關係。普丁一直將烏克蘭視為俄羅斯的勢力範圍，他認為橙色革命是西方國家發動的陰謀。普丁運用經濟制裁以及威脅手段，說服亞努科維奇，暫停與歐盟簽定協議。很明顯的，烏克蘭政府的債務以及俄羅斯低價提供的天然氣，是亞努科維奇對抗議民眾採取強硬態度的最主要原因。當然，亞努科維奇本身也沒有太多籌碼足以抵抗普丁。
普丁必定相當樂見亞努科維奇對內引發更多民怨，對外失去其他國家政治領導人的支持，這表示亞努科維奇更需要他的支持。面對當前的烏克蘭局勢，西方國家必須達成共識，向普丁明確表明，包括烏克蘭在內的前蘇聯成員，如今都已是主權獨立的國家。這次烏克蘭的衝突事件，正巧碰上冬季奧運賽事，西方國家更應趁此機會，明白告知普丁要該適可而止。（吳凱琳編譯）
編按：2月21日晚間最新消息指出，烏克蘭總統亞努科維奇已同意，提前在今年年底舉行總統大選、成立聯合政府，並恢復2004年憲法、縮減總統權力。
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
Ukraine in flames
Putin's
inferno
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published:
February 21, 2014
Feb 22nd 2014 |
From the print edition
The West must take
a tough stand with the government of Ukraine—and with Russia's leader.
CIVIL strife often
follows a grimly predictable pattern. What at first seems a soluble dispute
hardens into conflict, as goals become more radical, bitterness accumulates and
the chance to broker a compromise is lost. Such has been the awful trajectory
of Ukraine, where protests that began peacefully in November have combusted in
grotesque violence. The centre of Kiev, one of Europe's great capital cities,
this week became a choking war zone. Buildings and barricades were incinerated
and dozens of Ukrainians were killed.
Despite talk of a
truce between some of the participants, the horror could yet get much worse.
The bloodshed will deepen the rifts in what has always been a fragile, complex
country. Outright civil war remains a realistic prospect. Immediate
responsibility for this mayhem lies with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's thuggish
president. But its ultimate architect sits in the Kremlin: Vladimir Putin.
Neither East nor
West
The territory that
is now Ukraine has a long and painful history as a bloody borderland between
East and West. But it came into being as an independent nation only in 1991,
when the Soviet Union collapsed. Combining lands in the west that had once been
part of Austria-Hungary, and a Russian-speaking south and east, the new country
always had its doubters. Since then Ukraine's politics have been characterised
by infighting and graft—including in the years following the orange revolution of
2004, a peaceful uprising whose promise was squandered by its rancorous
leaders. Many Ukrainians feel their state has been captured by a corrupt elite,
which cannot be dislodged by the usual democratic means. Kiev is one of the few
European cities where the European Union is synonymous with good government and
the rule of law.
It was Mr
Yanukovych's rejection, in November, of a trade agreement with the EU, in
favour of an opaque deal with Russia, which started the unrest. Soon the
protesters were demanding his resignation, while Mr Yanukovych and Russian
propaganda denounced them as terrorists. How, after three months of tetchy
stand-off, the killing started this week is murky. But most of it was
perpetrated by the president's men.
The response from
the West should be firm. The president's henchmen deserve the visa bans and
asset freezes that America has imposed and the EU is considering. Mr Yanukovych
must rein in his troops and, if he can, the plainclothes goons who are
committing much of the violence. But the protesters, if they want to stop a
full-scale blood-bath, also need to compromise—to quit their symbolic base in
Kiev's Independence Square, and the other buildings they have occupied. The
best option would be for the two sides to form a transitional coalition
government.
A presidential
election is due in 2015: it should happen this year instead, preferably without
Mr Yanukovych. His regime has featured rampant cronyism, the persecution of his
rivals, suborning of the media and nobbling of the courts, now topped off by
slaughter. But he will be hard to move. Built like a bouncer, he twists like a
weasel; he is likely to try to wriggle out of any commitments he makes when he
thinks the crisis has passed. If so, the tycoons who have sustained his power,
and who have much to lose in this madness, must force him out.
What should come
next is less clear. Virtually all of Ukraine's established politicians have
discredited themselves, including Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed opposition
leader. The protesters have no clear champion—one reason the violence may prove
difficult to stop. It is hard to envisage a candidate emerging who will bridge
the underlying fault-lines in Ukrainian society. Mr Yanukovych still commands
support in the east and south; in Kiev and the west, where protesters have
seized government facilities, he is reviled. A split remains terrifyingly
plausible. Avoiding that fate requires, above all, an end to the Russian
meddling. Mr Putin may not have lit the match this week, but he assembled the
pyre.
To most rational
observers, fomenting chaos across the border in Ukraine might seem an odd
ambition for Russia. Not to Mr Putin, who regards Ukraine as an integral part
of Russia's sphere of influence, and saw the orange revolution as a Western
plot to steal it. His economic sanctions and threats helped to persuade Mr
Yanukovych to turn his back on the EU. It is clear that the loans and cheap
Russian gas that prop up Ukraine's teetering economy are conditional on Mr Yanukovych
taking a tough line with the protesters. Mr Putin's bullying and machinations
have brought Ukraine to this pass.
If Mr Yanukovych
clings on, weakened at home and ostracised abroad, Mr Putin will be content,
for he will have another dependent leader to add to his collection of pliable
clients. But he might not stop there. Russian hawks have long wanted to annex
Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that Nikita Khrushchev transferred to Ukraine
(reputedly while drunk). This upheaval could provide a pretext for Mr Putin to
grab it. Either way, a wretched Ukraine will help convince his people that
street protests, and political competition, are the road to ruin.
Confronting the
Kremlin
It is past time
for the West to stand up to this gangsterism. Confronting a country that has
the spoiling power of a seat on the UN Security Council, huge hydrocarbon
reserves and lots of nuclear weapons, is difficult, but it has to be done. At a
minimum, the diplomatic pretence that Russia is a law-abiding democracy should
end. It should be ejected from the G8. Above all, the West must stand united in
telling Mr Putin that Ukraine, and the other former Soviet countries that he
regards as wayward parts of his patrimony, are sovereign nations.
There is a kind of
rough justice in the timing of Ukraine's turmoil. In 2008 Russia invaded
Georgia, its tiny southern neighbour, just as the Olympic games began in
Beijing, prompting formulaic Western protests but no meaningful retribution.
The events in Kiev interrupted the winter Olympics in Sochi, intended to be a
two-week carnival of Putinism. This time the West must make Mr Putin see that,
with this havoc at the heart of Europe, he has gone too far.
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
沒有留言:
張貼留言