JTA - 12.22.2004

Graffiti seen as political tool 


KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) —  Anti-Semitic graffiti in a Ukrainian city may be a political provocation aimed at discrediting presidential challenger Viktor Yuschenko. 

Slogans reading “Kikes get out of here!” and “Yes, Yuschenko!” were spray-painted over several buildings and the World War II memorial in the city of Chernigov early this week, days before Sunday’s presidential election. “I believe that it is an anti-Yuschenko provocation,” said Irina Lipkina, a Jewish leader in Chernigov. A leading member of Parliament told JTA he agrees: “This is a dirty provocation,” said Gennady Udovenko, head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights and Ethnic Minorities.