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Ukrainian opposition plans to organize a general strike

KIEV, December 01, 1:44 /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian opposition has planned several protest actions for Sunday. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the leader of the opposition Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party of ex-prime minister Yulia Timoshenko, has called for convening a people’s assembly (veche) outside a monument to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in front of the Kiev State University at midday. However, he has not clarified what results he expects from the action, to which, according to him, the united opposition headquarters attaches great importance.

Batkivshchina also plans to stage a general strike. “This is not an easy task,” Yatsenyuk said. He made it clear that Ukraine’s opposition forces hoped to attract students to their side.

“We are calling on students who are the main driving force of Ukraine’s European integration to join political forces and public organizations and go out on our national action,” Yatsenyuk emphasized.

Ukraine’s former interior minister and opposition member Yuri Lutsenko noted that the opposition could try to block city traffic in the center of Kiev.

About 10,000 advocates of Ukraine’s European integration gathered on Mikhailovskaya Square (outside the St. Michael Cathedral) in Kiev on Saturday evening. The action’s organizers called on the participants to spend the night on the square, using special rest places prepared for them by opposition activists. They can also use the territory of the St. Michael Cathedral located nearby.

The leaders of Ukraine’s opposition parties intend to demand a report from Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko on the causes of cleansing carried out on Kiev’s Independence Square at a meeting of the parliament’s conciliatory council on December 2.

“On Monday, we are going to demand that Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko be summoned to parliament to give a clear answer to a question of who ordered him to disperse the demonstrators,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Batkivshchina party leader, said. He added that a draft resolution expressing no-confidence in the Ukrainian government had already been submitted to Ukrainian parliament.

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