US Unrolls the Red Carpet for the Hero of the Orange Revolution

WASHINGTON, DC -- The United States is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the man behind a democratic movement that Washington would like to see spread to other parts of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the world.

Yushchenko is to arrive in the United States Sunday and will be welcomed by President George W. Bush to the White House the following day.

The trip, through Thursday, marks his first visit to the United States as Ukraine's president.


Hero of the Orange Revolution
Yushchenko is scheduled to address the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, an honor that recently has been reserved for only the closest of US friends, such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi and Afghan President Hamid Kharzai.

"President Yushchenko's election is inspiring the spread of democracy throughout the world, in spite of threats and intimidation. We welcome him to this cathedral of democracy and look forward to hearing from him," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said in a joint statement.

Bush frequently mentions the "orange revolution" the pro-western opposition politician rode to power when he touts his support for the support of liberty and democracy in the world.

The US leader recently suggested that he would like to see a similar democratic uprising sweep the former Soviet republic of Belarus and its authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Yushchenko is also scheduled to meet Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The Ukrainian leader, who is looking to strengthen economic ties with the United States, is to speak Monday before the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

His visit is a departure from chilly relations with former president Leonid Kuchma, whom Washington criticized for his authoritarian ways and for selling radar to Saddam Hussein's Iraq despite an international embargo.

The United States and its European allies cannot claim responsibility for the democratic protest movement that enabled Yushchenko to run for a second time against Kuchma's chosen successor and Moscow's favorite, former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, after Yanukovich won a fraudulent presidential vote last year.

During his US visit Yushchenko will also take a side trip to Chicago, home to a sizeable community of Ukrainian immigrants. His wife Katherine Chumachenko was born in Chicago into a family of Ukrainian immigrants.

Ukraine's US-born "first lady" formerly worked at the US State Department, in public relations at the White House and at the US Treasury Department, all of which led her husband's adversaries to accuse her of being an "agent for the CIA".

Chumachenko received Ukrainian citizenship Friday.

In the run up to Yushchenko's visit Washington has signalled that it wants to avoid any public friction over the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Iraq, a decision taken by Kuchma and confirmed by his successor.

"We understand the commitment that the Ukrainian government has made to its own people," Rice recently said, referring to Yushchenko's campaign promise to pull Ukrainian troops from Iraq.

"The one thing that I am very certain is that Ukraine will do it in a way that does not in any way endanger the mission or endanger the forces of others there," she said.