 The "rising sun" of Pora! symbolizes a new dawn |
Stickers posted by Pora! activists on a lamp post in L'viv, Ukraine |
Pora! (Cyrillic: ПОРА!), meaning IT'S TIME! in Ukrainian, is a civic youth organization in Ukraine espousing nonviolent resistance and advocating increased national democracy, in opposition to what they claim is the authoritarian governing style of Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma. The group was established in 2004 to coordinate young people's opposition to the Kuchma government.
Pora! was inspired and partly trained by members of the Serbian Otpor movement which helped bring down President Slobodan Milošević, and is also allied to related movements throughout Eastern Europe, including Kmara in the republic of Georgia (itself partly responsible for the downfall of President Eduard Shevardnadze), Zubr in Belarus (opposing President Alexander Lukashenko), and MJAFT! in Albania.
The group's sources of funding are not disclosed, which has led to so far unconfirmed claims that it is being funded by Western backers such as George Soros or foreign governments. According to Pora! coordinator Andriy Yusov, Pora! has never received U.S. funding and that while 18 members traveled to Serbia in the spring of 2004 and met with Otpor leaders at a seminar in the city of Novi Sad, they paid for themselves.
Pora! is currently supporting Viktor Yushchenko in protests following the disputed 2004 presidential election. It claims to have about 10,000 members. Its methods have apparently been influenced by Gene Sharp's manual From Dictatorship to Democracy. Apart from the mass demonstrations of the "Orange Revolution", the group's tactics have included the use of visually striking posters showing confrontational images such as a giant boot crushing a cockroach, and stickers with "revolutionary" slogans such as "Time to Arise!". Not surprisingly, this has aroused the ire of the Ukrainian authorities and Pora! activists have often been harassed and arrested.
The relationship between Pora! and Yushchenko's electoral block "Our Ukraine" has occasionally been somewhat tense. It is seen as being on the radical wing of the reform movement, loosely allied with Yushchenko's ally Yuliya Tymoshenko, but has occasionally clashed with the more mainstream Yushchenko over tactical matters.
External links
- Pora web site (http://www.pora2004.com/)
- From Dictatorship to Democracy, (http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations.php3?action=printContentItem&orgid=88&typeID=16&itemID=55) by Gene Sharp - Ukrainian, (http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations.php3?action=printContentItem&orgid=88&typeID=13&itemID=252) English (http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations.php3?action=printContentItem&orgid=88&typeID=16&itemID=55).
- Ukraine: The Resistance Will Not Stop (http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/currentaffairs/region/easterneurope/ukr041125) - Radio Netherlands interview of a Pora activist
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