who started the violence on march 9?
when semenyuk bent over to pick up her hat, a policeman rapped her on the head and hands with his baton.
several young men carrying flowers and wearing “for truth” bandanas joined the group, shouting “let us pass.” as the noise picked up, several hundred protesters crossed shevchenko boulevard to join the fray.
still, the violence amounted to little more than shoving matches until, at 8:20 a.m., about 50 unarmed youths mounted a series of runs at helmeted riot police standing ten deep along the corner of volodymrska and shevchenko boulevard.
that touched off isolated skirmishes among small groups of fist-swinging protesters and baton-wielding police. although these fights made good television footage, they were brief and largely harmless, with few injuries reported.
the skirmishes abated after a column of helmeted riot police moved in from the rear, executing a pincer maneuver.
meanwhile, violence had flared up elsewhere. at 8:15 a.m. a brawl broke out between a handful of protesters and police on a two-story roof at nearby shevchenko university.
television cameras captured an unarmed tetiana chornovol, the 90-pound press secretary of right-wing party una-unso, fighting with police, then being tossed off the roof.
“our [original] plan was to jump on the backs of the riot police to allow demonstrators to dash past police to the statue,” chornovol said.
the sheer number of police on hand at the park – 2,000 officially, 4,000 by some estimates – made that plan unfeasible.
she and 10 colleagues from una-unso were detained and then released by police.
the rumble on the roof coincided with the arrival of kuchma, who threw a curveball by showing up two-and-a-half hours early. kuchma hastily honored shevchenko and departed.
police then opened the park to protesters, who carried out what the opposition a “symbolic cleaning of the monument from the president,” before staging a rally that would culminate in much more violence at the presidential administration leading to hundreds of arrests.
but that's another story.
[march 2001]