02/07/2001 | Broker

Thousands March in Kiev Over Political Crisis
By PATRICK E. TYLER
New York Times, 7 February 2001

MOSCOW, Feb. 6 - Thousands of protesters waving Ukrainian flags and
chanting, "Ukraine without Kuchma," streamed into Kiev today in a
mostly peaceful protest march demanding the resignation of President
Leonid D. Kuchma, who is struggling to overcome a deepening political
crisis.

The crowd, estimated at 3,500 to 5,000, tried to break through a
police cordon around the presidential administration building but was
turned away, witnesses said. Ukrainian television reported a number
of scuffles among the protesters, the police and counterdemonstrators.

The crisis is being fueled by the continuing release of recordings of
Mr. Kuchma's private conversations with senior aides and political
figures in which his voice is heard ordering the abduction of a
prominent journalist, threatening a judge and discussing how to
protect the head of one of Ukraine's largest energy companies after
he had reportedly "put a hundred million, at least" into his "pocket."

The demonstration today, as with those that blocked the center of the
capital in December, signals a determined effort by opposition
parties and their followers, many of them camped out in freezing
temperatures.

Western officials and Ukrainian political experts said they were
unable to predict the course of events in one of Europe's largest
countries. The United States and European states have made a major
investment in Mr. Kuchma, a former manager of a Soviet missile
factory, since he came to power nearly a decade ago.

Ukrainian television reported tonight that the protesters began
streaming into the capital at 8 a.m. from across the country. Some
had marched for days from western cities, and they were joined by
protesters in the capital who set up the tent city. They have
promised to stay until Mr. Kuchma resigns.

The event that set off the crisis was the disappearance in September
of Georgy Gongadze, a journalist whose Internet news site,
Ukrainskaya Pravda, is a frequent critic of the corruption that has
plagued the country in Mr. Kuchma's two terms as president. After Mr.
Gongadze's headless body was found in November, an opposition leader,
Oleksandr Moroz, produced the first recordings in which Mr. Kuchma's
voice can be heard ordering Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko to "get
rid" of Mr. Gongadze.

A new batch of recordings was released last week that inflamed the
controversy. On one of those recordings, Prosecutor General Mikhailo
Potebenko reports a problem with a legal case against Sergei Salov, a
lawyer in the Donetsk region who worked for the opposition in the
parliamentary elections in 1999. Mr. Salov was charged with
"spreading false information about the president" by handing out
leaflets stating that Mr. Kuchma had died of excessive drinking. The
judge hearing the case ruled that the charge should be changed to an
"insult" against the president and that Mr. Kuchma should be called
to testify.

On the tape, Mr. Kuchma telephones Gov. Viktor F. Yanukovich of
Donetsk and says the judge should be tortured. It is not clear what
action, if any, was taken against the judge.

In another recording, the head of the state tax administration,
Mikhailo Azarov, reports that the chief of Naftohaz Ukrayiny, the
state pipeline company, Igor Bakai, had been audited. "At a minimum,
you put in your pocket a hundred million, at least," Mr. Azarov
recounts from his conversation with Mr. Bakai. "I understand, of
course, that I will not expose you. I give you two weeks, a month at
maximum. Destroy all the papers."

Mr. Kuchma replies, "Good," and says he had spoken to Mr. Bakai,
telling him that he could not expect to be protected forever.

Mr. Bakai resigned in the spring and is now a Parliament member.