Anti-government protesters in Ukraine removed some barricades and ended their nearly three-month occupation of Kiev’s city hall Sunday, as the deadline for an amnesty for hundreds of activists around the country neared.
“All the formal requirements of the law for amnesty of the members of the protests in January and February have been fulfilled. We demand that the law is enacted immediately,” said Arsen Avakov, a lawmaker from the opposition Batkivshchyna party.
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Avakov added that the opposition “reserves the right to whatever forms of protests it finds appropriate,” unless the amnesty is put into force immediately.
Late Sunday evening local time, Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka released a statement saying that protesters had fulfilled all the requirements necessary for the amnesty law to go into effect on Monday. The statement did not clarify whether the charges against protesters had been dropped, but implied that they would, following court procedures and reviews of each case, as stated by Ukrainian law.
"The [amnesty] law comes into force from Feb. 17, 2014, and stipulates that charges against people having committed offences ... will be dropped," the statement said.
Police and protesters on Hrushevskoho Street left the positions they had held for nearly a month, and allowed a front loader to clear a path for vehicles to get through Sunday afternoon. At least five protesters were killed there during violent clashes between police and protesters between Jan. 19 and 22. Until Sunday, the two groups were in a tense standoff on the street, which leads to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
Meanwhile, protesters vacated the city-hall building on central Khreschatyk Street, which had been used to board hundreds of protesters since it was overtaken on Dec. 1, 2013.
Still, the general state of affairs in Kiev remained tense Sunday evening, as hundreds of masked protesters with wooden clubs and metal pipes stood on the footsteps of the city-hall building. Dressed in fatigues and bulletproof vests, the group vowed to retake city hall, should Pshonka not close all the cases against detained protesters.
Just after 1 p.m. local time Sunday, a small group of the masked protesters chased down and bludgeoned three police officers who were walking nearby, in what appeared to be an unprovoked attack. A separate group of masked protesters stopped the attack, and helped the policemen get away. It is unclear whether the officers suffered serious injuries.
Masked men chased down, beat three police officers walking down khreschatyk st near #Kyiv city hall bldg. @KyivPost pic.twitter.com/kcvH5mFvlu
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 16, 2014
In western Ukraine on Sunday, anti-government protesters left regional administration buildings in Lviv, Ivano-Frankovsk, Poltava and Ternopil.
The developments come after the government conceded to the demands of opposition leaders and activists on Friday, and released all 234 protesters detained over the course of the nearly three months of protests. To date, the release was one of the most significant concessions made on the part of the government to protesters.
Last month, Ukraine's then-prime minister, Mykola Azarov, tendered his resignation and that of his cabinet of ministers, effectively. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych accepted his resignation soon after. Serhiy Arbuzov, a deputy prime minister under Azarov and a close ally of Yanukovych, is currently the acting prime minister.
Speaking on Sunday from a stage in Kiev’s Independence Square, the center of the EuroMaidan anti-government protest movement, protest leaders vowed to keep pressure on Yanukovych and his government, by leaving the main tent city on the square intact, and continuing to occupy the nearby Trade Unions building and Ukrainian House.
Citing recent activist kidnappings and beatings, protest leaders also warned Yanukovych that protesters would be ready to respond with actions of a much greater magnitude than before, should he resort to force again in lieu of a peaceful resolution.
One of the leaders, Arseniy Yatseniuk, head of the opposition Batkivshchyna party, told the crowd of tens of thousands on Sunday that he had turned down a second offer from Yanukovych to become the country’s new prime minister, a move that could obstruct further negotiations. The president first offered the position to Yatseniuk in January.
“Viktor Yanukovych thought I would accept his offer to head the country's government. You can't buy me, Mr. President. Go ahead and buy your henchman.” Yatseniuk said.
Yatseniuk and other opposition leaders have said they will refuse cabinet positions if offered to them, so long as the current constitution is in place. They have demanded that the 2004 constitution, which lessens the powers of the president and puts more into the hands of parliament and the cabinet of ministers, be restored.
Opposition lawmakers said they would try to pass legislation in parliament to restore the former constitution this Tuesday. Yanukovych and his ruling Party of Regions, which holds the majority in parliament, has thus far rejected the idea.
But resurrecting Ukraine's former constitution might not be enough to quell anti-government demonstrations.
Oleksiy, a masked 28-year-old protester, who was blocking the entrance to Kiev’s city hall along with hundreds of others Sunday afternoon, told Mashable that more than anything he wanted Yanukovych out of office. Oleksiy did not give his full name because he feared he could still face criminal charges for his role in the protests if the amnesty law does not go into effect this Monday.
“We have a convict for a president. He must go.” Oleksiy said. “Two ways to do this: [Yanukovych] allows new presidential elections as soon as possible, and if not, then we force him out."
Protests in Ukraine began last November after Yanukovych spurned a comprehensive deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia, which soon after agreed to buy $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds to help the cash-strapped post-Soviet country stave off default.
They transformed from pro-European protests following the rejected EU deal to anti-government demonstrations bent on seeing Yanukovych and his cabinet resign after police violently dispersed a group of more than 300 peaceful protesters on Nov. 30, 2013.
The situation intensified on Dec. 1, 2013, when police and radical protesters clashed near the presidential administration in Kiev, and then again in late January on Hrushevskoho Street, after parliament pushed through strict anti-protest laws that Yanukovych quickly signed.
Hrushevskoho Street being cleared, reopened. Two front loaders doing the work. #EuroMaidan Self-Defense standing by. pic.twitter.com/MCFlsk2enS
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 16, 2014
Crowds during the mass rallies last December occasionally numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but dwindled in January and February. Sunday’s rally brought out less than 50,000 people to central Kiev.
Ukrainian opposition leaders will go to Berlin this Monday to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ask for assistance in finding a solution to the political gridlock in Kiev.
Yatseniuk said their message to the chancellor will focus on three key topics: “We need a visa-free regime, financial assistance from the European Union and investment, as we need new jobs to appear, and the reform of judicial and law enforcement system.”
Yatseniuk also implied that he would push for a promise of EU membership in the future. “Ukraine needs to be a member of the European family sooner or later,” he said.
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Christopher J. Miller is an editor at English-language newspaper the Kyiv Post in Ukraine.