Open Letter
01.27.2014

To the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel

Dear Angela:

My name is Vladimir Viacheslavovich Kochetkov-Sukach. I am a father of four children, all of whom study at the Kiev Valdorf school “Sofia.” [based on the German educational model]. I work in the field of investment and alternative energies. I joined Maidan in its first days. Back then, we demanded the signing of the EU Association Agreement. We stood in the rain and protested peacefully. When someone attempted to make a shield above the protestors – to protect them from the rain – the police came in and removed it. But we remained standing nevertheless. Thus passed the first week. Yanukovych did not hear our demands, but he noticed us. On the night of November 30, he sent the Berkut riot police that beat up and arrested students. That next Saturday, we went to the streets again, marched to the Mykhailivska Square, and we spent the entire day standing there. WE WERE SCARED! But on Sunday, our entire family again joined in the protests, and more people than ever were on the Kiev central square that day! The regime all but ignored us. Instead, they sent provocateurs who organized a showy storming of the Administration of the President, after which the Berkut riot police beat up journalists and activists, followied with the arrests of those just beaten up.

We made it to the streets again this time, erecting the first barricades. We asked the politicians for advice, and we were told that this was a peaceful protest and that we should fight for the release of those previously arrested by the police. And we remained standing. No one listened to us, but we built new barricades to block the roads for state officials going to work in cortege. And they noticed us. That night, the Berkut riot police came. They beat us up, they dismantled the barricades in the presidential administration quarters, and no one heard us, again. We then returned to peaceful protests, while the regime started organizing its showy Anti-Maidan, recruiting participants through the enticement of financial rewards. The people brought there were mostly state-employed officials, they were paid tax-free funds to participate in regime-sponsored actions. And then the Berkut riot police came again.  And they again started beating up the people on Maidan. But we remained standing many hours through the night until the dawn. And we did not succumb and did not retreat. And no one heard us, again.

On December 15, additional elections to parliament took place, and the regime falsified everything that was possible to falsify. The courts recorded no violations. But we have not retreated from the Maidan.

Then, the opposition managed to pass through parliament an amnesty law for the activists. But no one listened to us again. The courts paid no attention to the law and did not release anyone. Instead, they proceeded with kidnapping people out on the streets and throwing them into prisons. And we remained standing!

And then, on Christmas Eve, they ran after Tanya Chornovol, who was going home to her children. They caught her, beat her up, and left her in the snow to die. But she survived. They shot at other people, they cut them with their knives, they burned their cars across the country. But we have not given in!

Then, we decided that we might be heard if we approached Yanukovych’s home and told him all this in person. And we arrived in Mezhygiria. But no one heard us again. Instead, the police started visiting our homes. They forced us to sign protocols confirming that we had not stopped at the demand of the road police. And they took away our driver’s licenses. They visited my home ten times. My children stayed quiet during these visits, without moving, so that they – the visitors – would not know that someone was at home. There were 2,050 such families in Kiev – similar to mine! But we have not stopped! We started picketing the courts and the prisons, demanding from them to see the truth and listen to the arguments presented by our lawyers. Again, they did not listen to us. But they noticed, and they sent the Berkut riot police to the Kiev-Sviatoshyn court, and they beat us up again. We in return blocked the riot police buses on the road, encircled them, and demanded them to remove their masks. We remained standing for many hours, and many people joined us, but they beat us up again. Yurii Lutsenko – a former PM – was among the victims. But we remained standing, and they gave in. They showed their faces: it was the Kiev branch of the Berkut riot police, our neighbors, who believed that we were doing all this only for financial rewards. You are angels. And we remained standing on Maidan, and the road police kept visiting us to revoke our driver’s licenses, targeting those who were present at the Sviatoshyn court-house. But we remained standing. We prepared food and brought it to Maidan. We sang songs, recited poetry, danced, listened to lectures, and went on the night guard. Members of the ruling Party of Regions laughed at us. They started firing journalists from TV channels, and they insisted that we wait for the 2015 presidential elections.

They did not listen to us, they laughed at us; they blocked the roads so that we could no longer deliver food and firewood to Maidan, but we kept standing. And we came again to Mezhygiria and brought a court order to Yanukowitch from the People of Ukraine so that he would finally hear us! And he did – and so the parliament dragged through dictatorial laws violating all possible procedures. Now all of us – the millions of those who have never participated in the demonstrations, peaceful protests during the past two months – have been turned into criminals. And we started wearing protective head gear – helmets, pots, and rabbit ears – and we returned to Majdan. And they did not hear us again. And then we said: we give you 30 minutes, and if you do not let us into the parliament which “voted” these laws, we will come there on our own. But they did not let us in. We moved forward, and they started beating us again, throwing grenades and shooting at us. But what could we do now: we knew that you, Chancellor Merkel, do not listen to us. Our general prosecutor had by then designated us as criminals (prison terms of eight to fifteen years). But we still remember our childhood – just as you do yours. And you know, just as we do, what it means for a child to sit behind the door without moving! And we said – enough is enough! WE ARE AFRAID! But we will never bring ourselves to prison cells. And then a storm started. And it lasted for many hours: tear gas, grenades, bullets for the hogs, sticks covered with nails, clubs, Molotov cocktails, the freezing cold, water pumps. .. HELL, but we did not give in! Again and again, we moved forward.

That night, bands of criminals and thugs – titushky  – were brought to town. Hundreds of them. They were given clubs, and they marched through the town destroying cars and beating up people! They called our slogans, mixing up the words: they wanted to look like us – the people of Kiev. I myself called the police reporting POGROMS: you know the word. And the police came.. looked around.. and raced away. We tried to stop the police but they did not even look in our direction. And I called again and again, to no avail: then we took matters into our own hands, and we stopped the pogromshchiki, and we asked them: how much have you been paid; 30 euros for a night! 30 euros for a mass action that involved beating up the people. 30 euros to make us scared. 30 euros to force us to lose trust in ourselves, to force us back into the swamps for the money being stolen by Yanukovych, the ruling Party of Regions, and the communists. The communists! Stealing from our children, using this money for the vacations which they spend in YOUR Europe. 30 euros to make all European politicians sleep well at night, to force them to accept Yanukovych as a legitimate president. There will be no sanctions! And we got scared again! They stopped beating us up – they started killing us. As early as the next morning. They started shooting at targets, snapping people from hospital beds and cutting them into pieces, alive; they striped them naked and raced them through the snow; they arranged traps for activists when they hurried to the rescue of their friends. They beat them up, destroyed their cars, and forced them to kneel on the snow for hours in a row, in the park just across the parliament and Ministry of Health that stated, publicly, that we may be, and should be, arrested from our hospital beds.

You are not yet tired of reading this? This is not the end. We, again, did not give in, and we did not retreat. The entire country became fearless and marched to the streets. And the Berkut riot police no longer keeps up with beating and shooting. And it is a bloodbath…. Cherkassy, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, I do not know where else.

Chancellor Merkel, what would you say to my children? My eldest daughter is playing the violin. Together with her classmates, she is going to a festival of evritmia in Germany in May. My second one is playing the harp. She also rides horses. My son is learning to play the bandura – just as the Cossacks did in the past.  My youngest is still in kindergarten, but she likes to make dolls.

What should I tell them, Chancellor Merkel?

Signed,

VoKochet

Translated by Iryna Vushko
Edited by Bill Risch