Our Black Sea friends

Ukrainian protesters won the world's heart last winter when they overthrew the corrupt authoritarian leader, Leonid Kuchma, in the now-famous "Orange Revolution." Last week, the leader and the current president, Viktor Yushchenko, visited the United States -- Ukraine's foremost international ally during the demonstrations. He spoke to a joint session of Congress, the first leader of a former Soviet state other than Russia to do so, according to an April 6 International Herald Tribune article. He also visited with Ukrainian-Americans in Chicago and President Bush in the White House.\nThe reception he received outdid even Tony Blair's. Cheers of "Yushchenko" resonated throughout the chamber where some lawmakers wore orange in solidarity with Ukraine's conversion. Politically polar opposites President Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy gushed over the Ukrainian leader. Kennedy presented the visitor with the 2005 Profile in Courage award while Bush called Yushchenko "an inspiration to all those who love liberty," according to an April 5 Associated Press wire report.\n came not only to give thanks and bask in the limelight, but also to ask for further help in securing the international stature of his nation. Primarily, he sought Washington's support in Ukraine's potential entries to the NATO alliance, the European Union and the World Trade Organization.\nMeeting those requests will take extensive diplomatic footwork. Leaders of the countries that made up the original core of the European Union -- states such as France and Germany -- have treated the new Ukrainian government with a cold shoulder. After inducting eight nations from the Central European region with Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey still in the queue, Brussels won't hasten to open its doors to Ukraine. Moscow will also try to block NATO membership for Kiev; many Russians see Ukraine as a natural part of Russia and do not want to see it join the alliance of Western powers founded to combat Russia's predecessor, the USSR.\nYet the United States must do everything needed to surpass these hurdles to bolster democracy in and near Ukraine.\nBecause entrance to those international institutions might take time, Washington might consider strengthening a new organization that Ukraine and Georgia will soon form. The United States could help the "Democratic Choice coalition," as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk termed it in an April 1 interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Den. The proposed organization would act as a group for newly democratic nations to join immediately while waiting for entrance to more established international alliances. \nBecause Georgia's current leadership came to power in the "Rose Revolution," a demonstration-led movement that laid the groundwork for Ukraine's own a year in advance, Tblisi is as enthusiastic as Kiev about promoting democracy in the former Soviet Union. While plans remain vague, Tarasyuk said the group would seek to put human rights at the forefront of foreign policy priorities, hence directly advancing the most important of American interests.\nStrong support of Ukraine and the coalition will encourage dissidents in authoritarian nations across the world to seek their mission more boldly knowing that international support and aid lies ahead for those who democratize. The United States could encourage the group, for example, to take a leading role in the situation in Kyrgyzstan to ensure a stable democracy manages to take hold in that nation after the first people's revolution of Central Asia.\nIf we do not extend a hand to our Ukrainian friends, those seeking democracy worldwide might falter along the path. Yet if we embrace the "Democratic Choice coalition" fully, we can strike the death blow against dictatorship in the post-Soviet area.