July 3 2003, 11:13 Interfax-Ukraine

Ukrainian opposition claims current powers responsible for crisis in the food market

Ukrainian opposition considers "adventurist reforms" of current power in the country's agro-industrial complex to be the main cause of the crisis, currently in place on the food market.

The opposition issued a joint statement, which the parliamentary faction of Socialist Party of Ukraine handed to Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Wednesday.

The statement reads as follows: "Deliberate destruction of the basis of industrial production in the village, orientation on the sectors of low-capacity production, contradicting both to the past practices and to global trends, feckless destruction of the links between industry and agriculture, ignoration of the universally accepted principle of state support of farming, systematic ruination of the established course of rural life, of the production management and social security, counterposing of people against each other on the basis of property and land shares, imposition of reactionary and archaic patterns of economic management, aimed at depriving peasants of their land, have entailed catastrophic consequences".

The opposition puts responsibility for organisation of last year's harvest and the procurement campaign on the previous government. The essence of this campaign consisted in "using administrative levers for extraction of the 2002 crop from agricultural producers at underrated prices". "This swindle was accompanied by unconcealed campaign of falsification and writing-ups, under the pressure of the power, which found expression in artificial overrating of the harvested crop by at least 10 to 12 million tonnes and drop of the grain prices to absurd figures. The peasants were robbed at least 7 billion hryvnias [5.33 hryvnias = $1]", the opposition's statement proceeds.

In these conditions the declarations of President Kuchma "first, about successes of agricultural reforms, and then - about his concern of situation on food market" sounded especially cynical, the opposition says.

The oppositional political forces and their factions in Parliament have once again stated the necessity of changing the system of power in the country and stopping the authority of its current representatives.