The Independent: Kuchma May Face Impeachment for Theft and Bribery
02/13/2001 | Broker
Kuchma may face impeachment for theft and bribery
Party leader who released secret tapes says they contain enough evidence of corruption, and possibly murder, to oust the President
By Patrick Cockburn in Kiev
13 February 2001
Alexander Moroz, the Ukrainian politician who first released the secret tape recordings implicating President Leonid Kuchma in a plot to silence an investigative journalist, is to seek the impeachment of the Ukrainian leader.
Mr Moroz, the leader of the Ukrainian Socialist Party, told The Independent in an interview in Kiev yesterday that Mr Kuchma's taped discussions with his senior lieutenants provided enough evidence of crimes such as bribery and theft of state funds for the Ukrainian parliament to impeach him.
He said Mr Kuchma could be impeached for crimes other than planning the abduction of Georgy Gongadze, the journalist, whose headless body was discovered in a forest near Kiev late last year. On the tapes, whose authenticity the President still denies, Mr Kuchma is heard suggesting to his officials that they arrange for the kidnapping of Mr Gongadze by Chechen bandits.
Mr Moroz, a highly respected member of the Ukrainian parliament, expressed his disgust at the general tenor of the conversations in the presidential office. "I felt like washing my hands after I heard them," he said. "They never talk about running the country: only about whom they planned to fire, put in jail, have followed or kidnapped. I felt ashamed for my own government."
In the aftermath of further demonstrations in Kiev over the weekend demanding his resignation, Mr Kuchma yesterday met the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Dnipropet-rovsk, about 150 miles south-east of the capital. Ukraine is deeply in debt to Russia because of its reliance on Russian energy, but the meeting is unlikely to divert attention away from the scandal over the Ukrainian leader's role in the disappearance of Mr Gongadze.
Mr Kuchma may incline more towards Russia in an effort to counter-balance US and west European criticism of his record. "Never since the destruction of the USSR did Russia have such a wonderful chance to get a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, a country with 52 million people," the Moscow daily Izvestiya said caustically yesterday. "The only problem is that the pro-Russian president is Leonid Kuchma."
Mr Kuchma, 61, who formerly ran a plant making missiles, was re-elected President of Ukraine last year with the backing of financial oligarchs, a cowed media and regional government officials who were told their jobs depended on getting out the vote.
Mr Moroz said it was unclear to him why the government should have been so determined to eliminate Mr Gongadze, who ran a small internet newspaper called Ukrainskaya Pravda. He said the most probable explanation was that "in any dictatorship the truth hurts and senior officials think they can never be punished".
Despite admitting that DNA tests show a 99.6 per cent certainty that the headless corpse found in a forest in November is that of Mr Gongadze, the government still refuses to admit he is dead. Alyona Prytula, his girlfriend and current editor of his internet paper, says the reason is that an admission by the government that Mr Gongadze is dead would force them to open an official investigation into who murdered him.
Aside from the DNA tests, there is plenty of other evidence that the body now in a morgue in Kiev is his. Ms Prytula wears a medallion cut in half on a chain around her neck. The other half was found with the body. A ring and bracelet belonging to him were also found close to the corpse. He had eaten a melon on the day he disappeared and forensic scientists found pips in the stomach of the corpse.
Nevertheless, why somebody should have taken such apparent trouble to conceal the identity of the corpse – by cutting off the head and using acid to obliterate other marks – and then left personal ornaments near by remains a mystery. The body was reportedly buried in a shallow grave with a hand protruding, which led to its discovery. Mr Moroz wonders why the body was left close to where he lives.
The answer may be that nobody expected too many questions to be asked. Mr Gongadze was little known. Before his death his website paper had only 3,000 readers a day. This has risen to between 50,000 and 70,000 since Mr Moroz revealed to parliament that he had tapes on which Mr Kuchma could be heard repeatedly making foul-mouthed threats to kidnap the journalist. Ms Prytula said: "The awful thing is that a lot of people only started looking at our paper after the scandal broke."
The government may also not want to release the body because Mr Gongadze's funeral would be massively attended and could turn into a political demonstration against Mr Kuchma.
A sign of official nervousness is the closure of a square in central Kiev where demonstrators normally gather. Many Ukrainians are suspicious that the government's sudden determination to build a monument to independence on the square in the depths of winter is an excuse to move protesters to a less sensitive spot.
Party leader who released secret tapes says they contain enough evidence of corruption, and possibly murder, to oust the President
By Patrick Cockburn in Kiev
13 February 2001
Alexander Moroz, the Ukrainian politician who first released the secret tape recordings implicating President Leonid Kuchma in a plot to silence an investigative journalist, is to seek the impeachment of the Ukrainian leader.
Mr Moroz, the leader of the Ukrainian Socialist Party, told The Independent in an interview in Kiev yesterday that Mr Kuchma's taped discussions with his senior lieutenants provided enough evidence of crimes such as bribery and theft of state funds for the Ukrainian parliament to impeach him.
He said Mr Kuchma could be impeached for crimes other than planning the abduction of Georgy Gongadze, the journalist, whose headless body was discovered in a forest near Kiev late last year. On the tapes, whose authenticity the President still denies, Mr Kuchma is heard suggesting to his officials that they arrange for the kidnapping of Mr Gongadze by Chechen bandits.
Mr Moroz, a highly respected member of the Ukrainian parliament, expressed his disgust at the general tenor of the conversations in the presidential office. "I felt like washing my hands after I heard them," he said. "They never talk about running the country: only about whom they planned to fire, put in jail, have followed or kidnapped. I felt ashamed for my own government."
In the aftermath of further demonstrations in Kiev over the weekend demanding his resignation, Mr Kuchma yesterday met the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Dnipropet-rovsk, about 150 miles south-east of the capital. Ukraine is deeply in debt to Russia because of its reliance on Russian energy, but the meeting is unlikely to divert attention away from the scandal over the Ukrainian leader's role in the disappearance of Mr Gongadze.
Mr Kuchma may incline more towards Russia in an effort to counter-balance US and west European criticism of his record. "Never since the destruction of the USSR did Russia have such a wonderful chance to get a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, a country with 52 million people," the Moscow daily Izvestiya said caustically yesterday. "The only problem is that the pro-Russian president is Leonid Kuchma."
Mr Kuchma, 61, who formerly ran a plant making missiles, was re-elected President of Ukraine last year with the backing of financial oligarchs, a cowed media and regional government officials who were told their jobs depended on getting out the vote.
Mr Moroz said it was unclear to him why the government should have been so determined to eliminate Mr Gongadze, who ran a small internet newspaper called Ukrainskaya Pravda. He said the most probable explanation was that "in any dictatorship the truth hurts and senior officials think they can never be punished".
Despite admitting that DNA tests show a 99.6 per cent certainty that the headless corpse found in a forest in November is that of Mr Gongadze, the government still refuses to admit he is dead. Alyona Prytula, his girlfriend and current editor of his internet paper, says the reason is that an admission by the government that Mr Gongadze is dead would force them to open an official investigation into who murdered him.
Aside from the DNA tests, there is plenty of other evidence that the body now in a morgue in Kiev is his. Ms Prytula wears a medallion cut in half on a chain around her neck. The other half was found with the body. A ring and bracelet belonging to him were also found close to the corpse. He had eaten a melon on the day he disappeared and forensic scientists found pips in the stomach of the corpse.
Nevertheless, why somebody should have taken such apparent trouble to conceal the identity of the corpse – by cutting off the head and using acid to obliterate other marks – and then left personal ornaments near by remains a mystery. The body was reportedly buried in a shallow grave with a hand protruding, which led to its discovery. Mr Moroz wonders why the body was left close to where he lives.
The answer may be that nobody expected too many questions to be asked. Mr Gongadze was little known. Before his death his website paper had only 3,000 readers a day. This has risen to between 50,000 and 70,000 since Mr Moroz revealed to parliament that he had tapes on which Mr Kuchma could be heard repeatedly making foul-mouthed threats to kidnap the journalist. Ms Prytula said: "The awful thing is that a lot of people only started looking at our paper after the scandal broke."
The government may also not want to release the body because Mr Gongadze's funeral would be massively attended and could turn into a political demonstration against Mr Kuchma.
A sign of official nervousness is the closure of a square in central Kiev where demonstrators normally gather. Many Ukrainians are suspicious that the government's sudden determination to build a monument to independence on the square in the depths of winter is an excuse to move protesters to a less sensitive spot.