Ukraine protest, stoked by harsh new laws, gives voice to frustration with their leaders 

 KIEV, Ukraine — Tens of thousands of protesters connected a two-month-old encampment on Independence rectangle here Sunday, but speakers and demonstrators vented their annoyance with opposition political leaders for not providing clear authority or a workable strategy.

Sunday’s rally was the first since leader Viktor Yanu­kovych marked a package of draconian laws that restrict talk, the report media, and the right of assembly and Internet use. His action re-stoked wrath amidst the disagreement.

Looking for a fight, some hundred demonstrators equipped with hefty sticks and baseball bats smashed away and confronted policeman on the road premier up to the assembly, or Verkhovna Rada. They ignited fireworks and chucked flares and pebbles at policeman agents, who answered with flash grenades and blaze hoses, as the warmth dropped into the teens. There were a few pitched battles.

The central Ministry told the Interfax-Ukraine report bureau that 20 security armies were hurt, four gravely. No word was available on the number of injured protesters.

The assault threw strident nationalists — who have been chafing at the lack of direct activity — against the forces of authority. A coach was set on blaze, a first for Kiev but barely unusual in the latest annals of such clashes elsewhere in Europe and round the world.

A speaker addressing the gathering at the location of the confrontation said protesters were requiring that parliament — which recessed directly after transient the legislation Thursday in a fighting, rushed meeting — be called back from holiday to reassess the laws.

One opposition political leader, the previous boxing champion Vitali Klitschko of the UDAR party, waded into the clashes and endeavoured to stop them, with some temporary achievement.

“Violence directs to nothing but mayhem,” the head of the Fatherland Party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, told the big crowd at self-reliance rectangle, known as the Mai­dan. “With radical activities, we destroy our likely victory.”

But earlier, the gathering had chanted “Leader, leader!” to display its sadness with the performance of the politicians who head the three major opposition parties.

Klitschko called for a referendum on early presidential elections and said the parties arrayed against Yanukovych’s Party of districts would begin to set up an alternative government on the grounds that the new laws were unlawfully rushed through the Rada.

“They should have created a provisional government months ago,” said Inna Halak, a protester from a suburb of Kiev who lost her driver’s license Saturday because she was recognised by policeman as a participant in an auto rally against Yanukovych.

What Halak said anxieties her most is that the three main opposition parties — UDAR, Fatherland and Svoboda — are beginning to look out for their own concerns at the expense of the movement’s. The managers of all three parties have conversed about running for leader next year — or earlier, if they do well in compelling an early vote.

The laws marked by Yanu­kovych — one of which requires advocacy assemblies receiving cash from overseas to list as “foreign agents” — scrounged very strongly from Russian legislation. If the opposition divides, that will furthermore reflect Russia’s latest annals.

Klitschko announced that he and the other two party bosses plan to rendezvous Monday to talk about a scheme.

That’s too late, said Halak’s ally Tamara Demchenko. “Yesterday the police took our licenses,” she said. “Tomorrow they’ll take our cars. The day after tomorrow they’ll probably take us.”

Organizers of the Maidan bivouac have posted a video online of the last couple of minutes of Martin Luther King Jr.’s last talk, in Memphis in 1968. Before his well known peroration about having been to the mountaintop, he talks vigorously about not giving in to the policeman or to the administration when flexibility of talk and assembly are at stake. He also takes a cut into at Russia.

“We need such a leader,” Halak said.

Volodymyr Viatrovych, who has written a publication on 20th-
century Ukrainian dispute movements, said monarch, whose anniversary is being observed in the United States on Monday, was motivating because he was a spiritual as well as a political foremost. Ukraine “absolutely” could use such a leader today, Viatrovych said. “And in these tough conditions, such managers will appear.”

other ones weren’t so certain that a lone strong leader would explain the protest movement’s difficulties, but they are growing tired of the politicians. “We need to do certain thing else. This isn’t productive. everyone realises that,” said Natalia Starikova.

“We’re standing here for two months and no change,” said Yevheniy Pakhnyuk.

“We have no lawful means” to battle back against the government, given the new regulations, said his wife, Anna. “So what can we do?” perhaps, said Yevheniy, the nationalists who went off to choose a fight with the policemanman at the Rada have the right concept.

The new laws have not been released yet, so they are not in effect. That will likely occur Monday or Tuesday. persons again mocked them — especially one that makes it a crime to wear a helmet at a demonstration — by wearing all kinds of kitchen strainers and saucepans and cake plates on their heads.

Viatrovych, the historian, said the major distinction between the labour of Ukrainians to be free in the 20th years and the battle against the government today is that there is no longer any need to lift perception of Ukraine as a territory.

“But we have to be made for a long battle against the authorities,” he said, though he forecast that it won’t take the 70 years that Ukrainian nationalists laboured in the preceding years. “And one of the key lessons is, we don’t have to be afraid of utilising new procedures” — or, he supplemented, finding new leaders.