Russian Language Bill Causes Riots

The English-language version of the Moscow Times reported today that Ukrainians are rioting over an official language law rammed through parliament that would make Russian the official language in 13 of the country's 27 regions.

The law is actually a compromise of sorts from previous attempts to make Russian a co-equal official language with Ukrainian on a national basis. Under Soviet rule prior to independence Russian was the only official language.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a government building in Kiev where Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was expected to give a news conference that was then reportedly canceled.

Demonstrators hurled bottles and sticks at the police, and both sides used pepper spray, reports said. Police also used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Yanukovych is expected to soon sign the bill into law, allowing Russian to be used in courts, schools and other state institutions in the selected regions, mostly in the nation's east. Ukrainian would remain the only national language.

This could become interesting for us. In Lviv where we are flying into a week from Friday, protests have already started with activists blocking entrances to the regional government building and are calling for long-term protests, the paper quoted from Interfax.

More ominously, "politicians pledged to block roads and railways if the bill is not scrapped."

President Yanukovych is regarded as pro-Russian. Our mission trip is in the western part of the country where he's not well-liked and residents want greater ties to the West, both Europe as well as the United States.

In Kiev, the speaker of parliament resigned claiming the vote was illegitimate. His deputy stepped down as well.

Ironically, supporters of the law claim it follows principles set forth under the constitution for the European Union as it applies to ethnic minorities. The bill gives official status to any language spoken by 10 percent of a region's population.

That means in the Chernivtsi oblast, Romanian would be recognized as an official language. That portion of the country actually was a part of Romania between World War I and World War II.

Ukrainian and Russian are Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Romanian is a Romance language closely related to Spanish and Italian that uses the Roman alphabet that we use.

Road signs in the country already use both Russian and Ukrainian for place names where both languages are spoken. In Chernivtsi, Romanian names are also used.