Ukraine is a shrinking industrial giant and former breadbasket, a country of celebrated artists and poets with a highly educated and literate people. Its recent history has been a series of traumas: World War I and the Russian revolution, the purges of the 1930s, World War 11, Chernobyl - and independence.

The Challenge of Independence
That independence should be included in a list of Ukraine's traumas is itself a great tragedy for the fledgling nation of 52 million. Like the gross domestic product (GDP) of other former Soviet republics, Ukraine's GDP has decreased over 60% since the country became independent in 1991. Over half of the economy is legally unrecognized and therefore untaxed. For some neighboring countries, the private sector has been the vehicle of economic recovery. In Poland, for example, the private sector's contribution to GDP increased from only 18% in 1989 to 52% in 1996. But in Ukraine, the private sector remains stifled by licensing requirements, frequent visits by inspectors, and other legal arrangements permitting government employees to exact illegal "side payments".

Beside this petty corruption, there is much "grand corruption", the pilfering of state assets. For example, the current Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament,Alexander Tkatchenko, was accused of' embezzling $70 million intended for Ukrainian farms. He then allegedly used his post (deputy speaker at the time) to cover up the crime and force the resigna- tion of the man investigating him, Prosecutor General Vladimir Datsuk. In another case, President Leonid Kuchma dismissed the Prime Minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, for corruption. Lazarenko is DOW an influential Member of Parliament.

Why accusations but no convictions? First, MPs have parliamentary immunity. Second, the courts lack a tradition of independence from the executive branch. They are used to doing the bidding of the executive branch rather than holding it to the requirements of law. Third, judge's salaries are so low (between $50 and $100 a month) that judges easily succumb to bribery.

There have been many presidential anti - decrees, most of which have not been Implemented. (The last one, known as "Operation Clean Hands", expired in early 1998 and was replaced by "A Concept on Combating Corruption and Organized Crime (1998- Typically, the President signs such decrees, the Cabinet of Ministers draws up a watered-down implementation plan, neither the government nor any non -govern mental organization (NGO) effectively supervises implementation, little is accomplished, and then a new degree is drawn up, beginning the cycle again.

The Rewards of Integrity
One of the few politicians ever to attempt to break this cycle, Serhiy Holovaty, lost his cabinet post in August 1997. More recently, the courts stripped him of his position as an elected deputy in a dubious and probably extra- power play.

As Minister of Justice from September 1995- 1997, Holovaty drafted and attempted to coordinate implementation of Clean Hands. Clean Hands had been designed to tackle corruption in at least five ways: 1) investigating and dismissing corrupt officials; 2) strengthening legal procedures to ensure corrupt officials do not benefit from lighter sentencing options; 3) revising laws to curb corruption in the judiciary; 4) developing a civil servants' code of ethics; 5) gathering statistics on the effects of corruption and the extent of' the shadow economy.

Holovaty met resistance at the highest level of government, especially within the Cabinet's Secretariat and the Cabinet itself. The Kiev Post accused the "reactionary government" of firing Holovaty because he had proved to be more than window dressing.

The Cycle of Inaction
Why this cycle of inaction? Why has the government failed to implement integrity reforms needed to pull the economy out of a deep depression? Why have the Ukrainian people not demanded that its government serve it better? There are at least three reasons.

First, the mechanisms of governmental accountability in Ukraine are weak. Ministers are not necessarily drawn from elected members of Parliament. They are appointed without parliamentary approval. And the Cabinet's "Apparat", an unwieldy bureaucracy in the old Soviet manner, directs the Cabinet instead of receiving orders from it.

Second, Ukraine has neither a democratic nor a capitalist heritage. Unlike the Czech Republic, no democracy existed in Ukraine before the collapse of the USSR. Unlike Poland, Ukraine lacked a private sector before that collapse. Without such a heritage, the control mentality of the "command economy" generates opposition to the very regulatory and administrative reforms that could encourage private sector growth.

Third, institutional actors able to undertake needed reforms did not, and even today do not, exist in Ukraine. Until 1991, the. executive was the only branch of government with real power (and indeed power was concentrated even within that branch). Today, there are only a few viable NGOs in Ukraine. Most of these are run by parliamentarians. Few are interested in touching the anti-corruption agenda in any meaningful way, since working against governmental corruption is likely to displease an executive that still views other institutional actors, including civil society, the media, and even Parliament, as competitors to be kept at arms length. Without stronger governmental and non-govemmental institutions to pressure and monitor the executive branch, little incentive exists to take any concrete steps to curb corruption. This is why the development of civil society - and a fundamental change in the attitude of government towards civil society - are so critical.

Unshackling of Civil Society
The Ukrainian Legal Foundation is one of the few reform-oriented NGOs in Ukraine. There a number of young, talented reformers, including Holovaty, its president, have taken refuge from the government. While the new Concept calls for the inclusion of NGOs in the monitoring of implementation of anti -corruption reforms, government officials tend to be hostile to the idea - or, more accurately, bewildered.

The idea that NGOs might either provide input for an anti-corruption program or help monitor its implementation is foreign to a government still run by bureaucrats most of whom were Communist party apparatchiks for most of their career. Their reaction resembles that of a Cabinet meeting caught off guard by a 12-year old child who, having been admitted, presents a report she has prepared on debt financing or pension reform: "What is this person doing here? Surely we can handle this matter without her help."

That explains the government's attitude. What explains the failure of civil society to mobilize? Since NGOs are discouraged from working with government, their work must either be ineffective or risk government hostility - in a country where the government's hostility might again mean imprisonment, death, or worse. There is a great post-Soviet joke tat may seem relevant here: "During the Soviet era, government oppressed civil society, now they just ignore us. Which is worse?" But, in fact, the problem is more complicated. The government is only part of the problem. The lack of' public mobilization also creates little incentive for government action. There is at least one handy explanation for public inaction.

After more than seventy years of communism in which the state penetrated every aspect of social, economic, and political life, the Ukrainian people are simply not aware that they have the right and responsibility to mobilize if they expect change to occur. As author Slavenka Drakulic wrote in Cafe Europa:

Suddenly there is such a thing as public interest. It is difficult for people to grasp that, in the end, it is our interest and our problem, and our citizen's right to act in the name of it. But how do you define a common, public interest, and how do you fight for it? It is a new issue, because it is something that could become an issue only in a democracy, where one can actually do something - start some action, organize a pressure group or lobby, and influence public opinion. [But] people don't think in this way; they are not prepared for it, either by their political leaders or by then- media.

Strengthening Civil Society
The Ukrainian government's hostility to civil society is not unknown in the West. For example, the current Conservative Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, recently labeled groups opposing his policies as "special interest groups" and vowed to ignore them. These are the very groups whose participation is so desperately needed in Ukraine: teachers, doctors, union members, police officers, students, senior citizens, women's groups, and so on. In Ontario, the government's attempt to ignore civil society will not have the same consequences as in Ukraine. No matter what Mike Harris does, civil society in Ontario will not go away. In Ukraine, however, civil society barely exists and needs constant stimulation.

What now? One possibility is that economic ruin, seemingly imminent already, could propel Ukraine towards post-Soviet neo- of the sort Belarus has. A more hopeful possibility is that Ukraine's citizens will become more active, demanding better services and more integrity. For that to occur, however, the public needs,to form strong grass- NGOs, a civil society, to force reforms on the government and then to monitor their implementation. A media independent of government and of oligarchic interests is also needed to keep the citizenry informed about government. Only then will the preconditions exist for a democratic revolution in Ukraine.