Former Polish president and Nobel peace prize winner Lech Walesa has claimed personal credit for averting a bloodbath during Ukraine's "orange revolution" last year.
In a remarkable account of the behind-the-scenes tensions, Walesa says that he convinced Viktor Yanukovych, who had declared victory in rigged presidential elections, to revoke an order to the armed forces to crack down on tens of thousands of protesters in Kiev's main square.
Civil war fear
At the time there were fears that violence could spark a civil war in Ukraine, where the mostly Russian-speaking east backed Yanukovych, while Kiev and the west of the country hosted huge demonstrations in support of his eventual usurper, Viktor Yushchenko.
"[Yanukovych] said an order had already been given to the security forces," Walesa told the Observer newspaper on Saturday.
"I told him: `You will lose. You have no chance to win. The only choice you have is between defeat with bloodshed and defeat without,'" he said.
Throughout the crisis, Yanukovych publicly insisted on a peaceful resolution, but events were on a knife-edge.
At the time, no one was certain of the loyalty of the security forces.
As Moscow and the West backed different candidates, Ukraine was paralyzed and thousands ensconced themselves in central Kiev, waving the orange flags of Yushchenko's party.
On Nov. 23, Yushchenko invited the former shipyard electrician -- Poland's president from 1990 to 1995 -- to mediate with Yanukovych.
Walesa arrived as the Yushchenko camp was emboldened by the Ukrainian supreme court's decision to postpone recognition of the disputed election results.
Yushchenko's allies claimed that Russian special forces troops were already in Ukraine, waiting for the order to crush the protests.
A Ukrainian Interior Ministry officer said 10,000 of his troops were on standby.
"If you don't withdraw your orders, you will lose after bloodshed, and perhaps eventually be hanged from a lamppost," Walesa said he told Yanukovych.
"I said: `Here, with these witnesses in this office, will you tell me that you will order those people on the streets to be beaten, or not?'"
"After this talk of bloodshed, he said he would withdraw the command," he said.
For the nation
Walesa won Yanukovych's promise to open negotiations with Yushchenko, "for the sake of Ukraine."
"So I went to the people in the square and told them: `In this situation, the real threat is provocation, so don't let yourselves be provoked,'" he said.
A member of the presidential press service could not confirm the details of Walesa's meeting with Yanukovych, but acknowledged the contribution that he had made to initiating the round-table talks that broke the deadlock.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of