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FREEDOM FIGHTER: The Cuban-born
ambassador has made a career of promoting democracy.
AP Wide World/Sergei Grits
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for the rocket scientists who
gathered in Pavlograd, Ukraine, to witness the historic
demolition, it was
a bittersweet moment. They had labored for years
in this industrial
town
to perfect the SS-24, an intercontinental ballistic
missile capable of delivering 10 nuclear warheads
straight to the
United States. Now, with the help of American funding,
46 of these giants of the Soviet arsenal were about
to be scrapped.
Carlos Pascual, U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine, was there
at the March 2002 ceremony. “It was very emotional
for the Ukrainian engineers,” he recalls. “They
were once at the very top, and now they live in a world
of uncertainty. While they understand the need to dismantle
these weapons, they are wondering about their future
and
how they are going to apply their skills.”
Helping Ukraine
find peaceful work for its sidelined rocket scientists
is one of the tasks Pascual, ’80,
has taken on in the three years he has spent in Kiev.
In some respects, he says, the country has a lot going
for it.
Roughly the size of Texas, Ukraine has a fairly well-educated
population of 50 million, abundant coal and natural
gas, and some of the best farmland in Europe. Its broad
industrial base includes much of the former Soviet Union’s
space industry. Ukrainian engineers are now working with
Boeing to launch commercial satellites more efficiently
from offshore
platforms along the equator. Other Western multinationals,
including McDonald’s, Nestlé and Philip Morris,
are building factories and establishing economic footholds
in Ukraine.
Yet the nation has had a particularly hard
time distancing itself from its communist past. Since
the 1991 collapse
of the Soviet Union, its standard of living has declined
more
than 50 percent. Most Ukrainian trade is still with
countries of the former Soviet Union, and while the
parliament has
passed laws encouraging Westerners to purchase businesses
and property, foreign direct investment—at $4.9 billion,
one of the lowest levels in the region—has been hampered
by complex regulations, shaky legal protections and
government corruption. Internal political squabbles
have not helped,
either. Although Ukraine held parliamentary elections
in March 2002, the process favored parties loyal to
the president. And during the last year, suspected illegal
arms transfers
to Iraq, government crackdowns on media, and the highly
publicized
murder of an “opposition” journalist have taken
a toll on U.S.-Ukraine relations.
“It’s one challenge
to tear apart a former empire. It’s
a much greater challenge to build a new society based
on the principles of freedom and openness and competition,” Pascual
said in an April phone interview from his office in
the embassy—a
decaying Stalinist-era building in central Kiev that
once housed the local Communist Party headquarters. “Ukraine
is certainly moving forward, but there is a phenomenal
amount of competition internally over the control of
resources and
the control of power.”
Pascual inherited a passion for
democracy from his parents, Cuban refugees who fled
the Castro regime
after his accountant father was detained briefly
for passing out
flyers at a political meeting. The family caught
one of the last flights off the island just weeks before
the United
States severed all diplomatic ties. Carlos was 3
when
they left. Eventually, they settled in El Monte,
a working-class suburb of Los Angeles.
He entered Stanford thinking
he would major in economics,
but switched to international relations after participating
in the Structured Liberal Education program, taking
political science courses, living at Casa Italiana
and studying at
Stanford’s campus in Florence. Poli sci professor Coit
Blacker, who taught Arms Control and Disarmament during
Pascual’s
senior year, remembers the dark-eyed Toyon resident
assistant as eloquent, intense and “a born problem-solver.”
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‘It’s
one challenge to tear apart a former empire.
It’s a much greater challenge to build
a new society.’
|
When
Blacker served as President Clinton’s special assistant
for national security affairs, he hired his former
student. By then Pascual’s résumé included
a master’s from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
and 12 years working in Washington with the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID), focusing on
economic reform
in Africa and the former Soviet Union. One of his initiatives
under Blacker was an innovative plan to reform Ukraine’s
struggling power industry, traditionally reliant on
nuclear energy (think: Chernobyl). Five years later,
Clinton tapped
Pascual for the top job in Kiev.
On the day of the
phone interview, two weeks into the war with Iraq,
the ambassador’s
calendar was packed. He had just come from a lunch
with several members
of the Ukrainian parliament, talking about the U.S.
perspective on the conflict. Earlier, he had met with
the head
of the
Ukrainian space agency to discuss how leftover missile
fuel might be converted into mining explosives. Television
and
newspaper reporters had been trying to get a word with
him all day.
Pascual speaks publicly and to reporters as often
as
he can. “Ukrainians appreciate openness and straight
answers,” he says. “They admire our country and
our accomplishments but are increasingly uncertain
about how America will use its unique place in the
world. From
their experience with the Soviet Union, they fear unchecked
power. So they often ask if this [war] is what America
wants and whether the United States has a commitment
to an international
rule of law.”
One diplomatic imbroglio in 2002 involved
allegations that the Ukrainian president had approved
the sale
of two sophisticated aircraft-tracking systems to Saddam
Hussein.
Although investigators found no evidence that the systems
were delivered, the United States declared a “crisis
of confidence” in Ukraine’s government and suspended
$54 million in federal aid, about a fifth of its annual
assistance to the country. Speaking later before a
university audience
in Kiev, Pascual said, “The main challenge will be
to reestablish trust [between the two governments].” At
the same time, he assured students and faculty that
the United States would continue to help Ukraine secure
and eliminate
leftover Soviet weapons of mass destruction, like the
old SS-24. He also pledged continued U.S. support for
local and
regional government and small-business development,
as well as grants to monitor human rights and freedom
of the press.
Fortunately, he says, Ukrainians seem more willing
than ever to step up and play a role in their nation’s
future. In recent years, the country has seen significant
growth in grassroots organizations—from human rights
and environmental groups to business associations—pushing
for political reforms. “Eventually, I think, democracy
and the rule of law will prevail,” he says.
In the meantime,
his own role will broaden. In September, under a new
Bush appointment, Pascual will return to the
States to coordinate all U.S. support to Europe and
Eurasia, with particular focus on the Balkans and the
former Soviet
Union. “We will make sure that the assistance we provide
to transition countries in the region reinforces our
policy goals for their development as democratic and
market-oriented states,” Pascual told STANFORD in June.
He also will coordinate security assistance, with an
eye toward stemming sensitive technologies and strengthening
export-control
systems.
“I think it speaks to the esteem in which he is held
that he would be appointed to key positions by both
a Democrat and a Republican,” says Blacker, deputy
director and senior fellow at Stanford’s Institute
for International Studies. The post of assistance coordinator,
created in 1992
after the Soviet downfall and expanded in 2001, is
particularly important now “because we’re about
to ‘graduate’ a
number of these countries out of the assistance program,” Blacker
says. “Carlos is uniquely equipped to make the call
as to which countries should be graduated and when.”
The
job will also call upon Pascual’s nation-building
expertise, as he helps the countries forge democratic
laws and institutions and encourages the development
of civil societies that will keep governments accountable.
He
hopes
to tackle the region’s AIDS epidemic as well. “The
base is low, but the rate of infection is arguably
the highest in the world,” he says. “These countries,
with our assistance, need to mobilize now to avoid
a human tragedy.”
This fall, as a Bush-appointed ambassador
(under congressional review at press time) moves
into the embassy in Kiev, Pascual
will resettle in Washington, where his wife, Aileen
Marshall, works with the World Bank. Between frequent
trips abroad,
the new ambassador-at-large will spend a lot of time
in consultation with Congress, USAID and the Defense,
Energy and Treasury
departments.
“It will be hard to leave Ukraine,” Pascual
says, although he will continue to help shape that nation’s
future. “The
Ukrainian people are extraordinarily warm, ready to
open their homes and lives.... They are beginning to define
the
kind of country they want for themselves and their
children. The small-business sector is starting to thrive.
The gross
domestic product is growing. In the end, the development
of a middle class and a strong civil society will drive
the policies that will allow Ukraine to be recognized in
practice—and
not just geography—as a European state.” |
