prilesnaya stat'ya
08/21/2003 | peter byrne
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/08/20/007.html
prilesnaya stat'ya.
vse bolee ili menee dostoverno krome episoda-2.
Episode 2. Year 2001. Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnichenko flees to the West and takes along recordings that contain the president's conversations. One of the tapes contains Kuchma discussing measures to silence the journalist.
pust' askol'd, kupchinsky, tyler, lafranier, warner i ko. napishet chto dejstvitel'no proizoshlo.
smooch,
peter
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003. Page 7
Ukraine: The Soap Opera
By Yulia Latynina
In Ukraine, a new political soap opera is being shot. It is called "I hereby request that my death be blamed on Kuchma." A letter that essentially says the same thing was received by Ukrainian human rights organizations. It is signed by Igor Goncharov, a former officer in the police organized crime department, who died suddenly in a prison hospital in early August.
Let me remind you what the previous episodes were about.
Episode 1. Year 2000. Opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze's beheaded body is found in the Taroshchansky Woods. The opposition immediately proclaims that President Leonid Kuchma was personally involved. It is difficult to imagine how this accusation could possibly be proven, but a fantastic coincidence occurs in the following episode.
Episode 2. Year 2001. Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnichenko flees to the West and takes along recordings that contain the president's conversations. One of the tapes contains Kuchma discussing measures to silence the journalist.
But the string of sudden coincidences doesn't stop there.
To Our Readers
Has something you've read here startled you? Are you angry, excited, puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage?
Then please write to us.
All we ask is that you include your full name, the name of the city from which you are writing and a contact telephone number in case we need to get in touch.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Email the Opinion Page Editor
Episode 3. Year 2002. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office arrests a gang of Ukrainian "werewolves in uniforms," or policemen, that specializes in kidnappings and assassinations. The gang is headed by Goncharov, and it is him that the opposition accuses of executing Gongadze's murder. He denies everything and then dies in the prison hospital. His lawyer says Goncharov was tortured and that his death was hardly natural.
And now we have Episode 4. Following Goncharov's death, a journalists group called the Institute for Mass Information receives a letter signed by the departed. "Our government officials were involved in these kidnappings and killings," the letter says.
And on to the investigator who questioned Goncharov. If the letter is to be believed, there was something extraordinary going on between the two. Normally, it is up to an investigator to make a suspect talk, especially if a political killing is involved. In this case, it was the exact opposite. According to the letter, the head of the "werewolf gang" said he knew who ordered the killing and who executed it, but it was the investigator who refused to write his confession down, threatening to stage the suspect's death instead.
Episode 5 is likely to start when the opposition gets a hold of the "audio and video evidence," the whereabouts of which are mentioned in the letter signed by the deceased.
There are three types of regimes. There are dictatorships, where people are killed on a regular basis, but the prosecutors do not look into the crimes committed by the president because it is considered the government's supreme right to slaughter its citizens in these countries. There are democracies, where any suspicion that a president may be guilty of murder will cost him his job.
And then, there is a country called Ukraine, where the president is a suspect in a murder case, but no one seems to care. Where one half of the prosecutor's office beats into defendants the president's version, and the other half, using the very same methods, promotes the opposition's version.
Such extraordinary coincidences as tapes with overheard conversations, post mortem letters, etc., only occur in Latin American soap operas or in the news from Ukraine. It is hard to say if it was Kuchma's stupidity or an incredible set of circumstances that led to Gongadze's murder. All in all it is difficult to say what happened to Gongadze, apart from the fact that he was killed. His death was used by the opposition as deadly kompromat against the president, and, probably, whenever there was no hard evidence they had to add it -- like a spoon of fatty sour cream to the tasty Ukrainian political borsch. There is only one thing that the opposition did not take into account -- in countries where the investigative authorities are no different from the bandits, kompromat is devalued completely.
Yulia Latynina is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta.
prilesnaya stat'ya.
vse bolee ili menee dostoverno krome episoda-2.
Episode 2. Year 2001. Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnichenko flees to the West and takes along recordings that contain the president's conversations. One of the tapes contains Kuchma discussing measures to silence the journalist.
pust' askol'd, kupchinsky, tyler, lafranier, warner i ko. napishet chto dejstvitel'no proizoshlo.
smooch,
peter
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003. Page 7
Ukraine: The Soap Opera
By Yulia Latynina
In Ukraine, a new political soap opera is being shot. It is called "I hereby request that my death be blamed on Kuchma." A letter that essentially says the same thing was received by Ukrainian human rights organizations. It is signed by Igor Goncharov, a former officer in the police organized crime department, who died suddenly in a prison hospital in early August.
Let me remind you what the previous episodes were about.
Episode 1. Year 2000. Opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze's beheaded body is found in the Taroshchansky Woods. The opposition immediately proclaims that President Leonid Kuchma was personally involved. It is difficult to imagine how this accusation could possibly be proven, but a fantastic coincidence occurs in the following episode.
Episode 2. Year 2001. Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnichenko flees to the West and takes along recordings that contain the president's conversations. One of the tapes contains Kuchma discussing measures to silence the journalist.
But the string of sudden coincidences doesn't stop there.
To Our Readers
Has something you've read here startled you? Are you angry, excited, puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage?
Then please write to us.
All we ask is that you include your full name, the name of the city from which you are writing and a contact telephone number in case we need to get in touch.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Email the Opinion Page Editor
Episode 3. Year 2002. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office arrests a gang of Ukrainian "werewolves in uniforms," or policemen, that specializes in kidnappings and assassinations. The gang is headed by Goncharov, and it is him that the opposition accuses of executing Gongadze's murder. He denies everything and then dies in the prison hospital. His lawyer says Goncharov was tortured and that his death was hardly natural.
And now we have Episode 4. Following Goncharov's death, a journalists group called the Institute for Mass Information receives a letter signed by the departed. "Our government officials were involved in these kidnappings and killings," the letter says.
And on to the investigator who questioned Goncharov. If the letter is to be believed, there was something extraordinary going on between the two. Normally, it is up to an investigator to make a suspect talk, especially if a political killing is involved. In this case, it was the exact opposite. According to the letter, the head of the "werewolf gang" said he knew who ordered the killing and who executed it, but it was the investigator who refused to write his confession down, threatening to stage the suspect's death instead.
Episode 5 is likely to start when the opposition gets a hold of the "audio and video evidence," the whereabouts of which are mentioned in the letter signed by the deceased.
There are three types of regimes. There are dictatorships, where people are killed on a regular basis, but the prosecutors do not look into the crimes committed by the president because it is considered the government's supreme right to slaughter its citizens in these countries. There are democracies, where any suspicion that a president may be guilty of murder will cost him his job.
And then, there is a country called Ukraine, where the president is a suspect in a murder case, but no one seems to care. Where one half of the prosecutor's office beats into defendants the president's version, and the other half, using the very same methods, promotes the opposition's version.
Such extraordinary coincidences as tapes with overheard conversations, post mortem letters, etc., only occur in Latin American soap operas or in the news from Ukraine. It is hard to say if it was Kuchma's stupidity or an incredible set of circumstances that led to Gongadze's murder. All in all it is difficult to say what happened to Gongadze, apart from the fact that he was killed. His death was used by the opposition as deadly kompromat against the president, and, probably, whenever there was no hard evidence they had to add it -- like a spoon of fatty sour cream to the tasty Ukrainian political borsch. There is only one thing that the opposition did not take into account -- in countries where the investigative authorities are no different from the bandits, kompromat is devalued completely.
Yulia Latynina is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta.