Ukrainian-related news stories from RFE

With the kind permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, InfoUkes Inc. has been given rights to electronically re-print these articles on our web site. Visit the RFE/RL Ukrainian Service page for more information. Also visit the RFE/RL home page for news stories on other Eastern European and FSU countries.

Return to Main RFE News Page
InfoUkes Home Page

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report Vol. 5, No. 29, 12 August 2003

A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by the Regional Specialists of RFE/RL's Newsline Team

UKRAINE

SUSPECT IN GONGADZE MURDER DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY. An independent Ukrainian journalist group, the Institute for Mass Information (IMI), reported on 5 August that a person regarded as a key suspect in a long-running murder case had himself died in police custody.

Ihor Honcharov, an alleged gang leader, had been in custody since his arrest in May on charges of extortion and murder.

Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun earlier this year said he believed that Honcharov was linked to the murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.

Gongadze, an outspoken critic of President Leonid Kuchma and government corruption, disappeared in September 2000. His headless corpse was later discovered, triggering one of Ukraine's biggest post-Soviet scandals.

Nearly four years later, no one has been charged in the murder. A former bodyguard of Kuchma -- who secretly recorded the president -- released excerpts which implicated Kuchma in Gongadze's disappearance. But Kuchma has steadfastly denied any link to the journalist's disappearance or death.

Ukraine's political opposition and independent journalists -- as well as many Western governments and groups -- had accused state investigators of deliberately blocking the probe because it might implicate senior government officials, possibly including the president. But last year investigators identified 13 members of a criminal gang they said was led by Honcharov and which might have knowledge of the murder.

All 13 were apparently former policemen and intelligence officers known as "werewolves" -- the term for former police officials who have turned to crime.

Prosecutor-General Piskun said he believed it was likely the so-called "Honcharov band" killed Gongadze. Honcharov was scheduled to give evidence about the case later this month.

But now Honcharov is dead. A Ukrainian police official who did not want to be named confirmed that Honcharov died on 1 August, apparently while being transferred by ambulance from jail to a hospital. He said the cause of death was being investigated. IMI, which works closely with the France-based journalists' defense group Reporters Without Borders, says Honcharov was cremated on 3 August, eliminating any chance of an independent autopsy.

According to IMI, Honcharov had passed a 17-page handwritten letter to the group to be opened in the event of his death. IMI member Alla Lazareva says the organization has frequently reported on the Gongadze case and that is why she thinks Honcharov passed the letter to them.

IMI says in the letter Honcharov claimed to have information about Gongadze's killers, including audio recordings and a confession that he said he had hidden but was willing to reveal to investigators in the presence of independent witnesses. Honcharov also predicted he would be murdered by an official -- whose name he gives -- and that the death would be presented as suicide or illness.

Lazareva says the IMI's first priority is to establish whether the letter is genuine. "We're not certain yet because we are unable to carry out detailed tests to confirm its authenticity," she says.

To explain why IMI has already published some excerpts from the letter on its website, Lazareva says, "Our position was this -- we obtained this information, we thought that it was of importance to the public and therefore we publicized what we had -- although we blacked out some names, because since there is a presumption of innocence until he is proved to be a criminal, one shouldn't refer to him as such."

She says the IMI "does not have the technical capability to check the authenticity of Honcharov's handwriting. But experts can do this. That's why there are criminologists and specialists at the Prosecutor-General's Office who are obliged by law to carry out this work and to compare Honcharov's handwriting samples taken while he was giving evidence and being kept in jail. They can say whether he wrote this or not."

Lazareva says that on 6 August IMI handed a copy of the letter to Deputy Chief Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was due to question Honcharov later this month.

"As far as we know, we are not the only ones that have a copy of this letter. A few other people have copies," Lazareva says.

She says the Prosecutor-General's Office has promised to keep IMI informed of developments.

"Perhaps now that the Prosecutor-General's Office is involved the cause of death will be investigated. At least I hope so," she says. "Because either this person [Honcharov] really did make all these statements, in which case it's a truly horrible story, or it's a fake and therefore we need to know who did it and why."

But the American author of a book about the Gongadze killing, Jaroslav Koshiw, doubts that investigators will solve the murder. He says that in the past investigators have named and blamed criminals for Gongadze's death but have subsequently had to admit they were wrong.

"So really, periodically what we're getting from the authorities is a pretend investigation suggesting to the population that they're...[abreast of developments], that they are looking for the killers and so on -- when really they are not bothering with an investigation," Koshiw says.

Koshiw's book, "Beheaded: The Killing of a Journalist," is a comprehensive analysis of documents, evidence, and investigations into the Gongadze case by Ukrainian authorities as well as journalists. Koshiw says he has no doubt that President Kuchma and other high officials are connected to Gongadze's death.

"There is more than ample evidence for a trial of the president and his associates who took part in the kidnapping and then the death of Gongadze," he says.

Koshiw says he believes the accusations against Honcharov were fabricated and the authorities have no desire to find the truth. He says that if Honcharov was really cremated, that displays either poor judgment or an attempt to prevent the true cause of death from being discovered.

"It shows to me the tremendous irresponsibility by the authorities, in this case the police, to so quickly cremate somebody who died in mysterious circumstances and who they were suggesting might have been a possible witness," Koshiw says. "They create a bizarre atmosphere that helps rumors."

Koshiw believes the truth about the Gongadze murder will only emerge if Ukraine gets a government that really wants to build a state based on law and order.

OUN, UPA COME CLOSER TO OFFICIAL RECOGNITION -- WHY NOW? The bland statement issued on 11 July by the presidents of Poland and Ukraine, Aleksander Kwasniewski and Leonid Kuchma, respectively, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in Volyn in 1943 did not go as far as Poland had insisted (see http://www.kuchma.gov.ua/activity/173790009).

One of the main issues that Poland pressured Ukraine on was to include in the joint statement a denunciation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and to seek to bring members of these organizations, who were allegedly involved in the massacres of Poles, to justice.

The statement fails to mention OUN or UPA. Instead, it condemns atrocities committed against both Ukrainians and Poles, thereby placing the 1943 conflict within the framework of a Polish-Ukrainian civil war (as both sides were Polish citizens). Poland had pressured Ukraine to define the 1943 events as "genocide" against Poles, using widely contradictory death tolls of between 30,000-100,000 (see RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report," 4 March and 8 July 2003).

The Volyn anniversary touched a raw nerve in Ukrainian society for four reasons.

First, criticism of Poles and Poland is a far less controversial issue in Ukraine than criticism of Russians and Russia. Russophile centrists and national democrats both insisted that Polish crimes against Ukrainians had to be condemned alongside any criticism of Ukrainian crimes. Ukrainians and especially Poles believe that they have only ever suffered at the hands of others, never themselves committing crimes against other peoples.

Ukrainians have been accustomed to being accused of serving in the German police in World War II. Poles meanwhile, have continued to harbor the myth that they alone within Europe did not collaborate with the Nazis. The 24 June 1+1 television channel's (controlled by the Social Democratic Party-united [SDPU-o]) weekly discussion program "Podviynyy Dokaz," which was devoted to the Volyn event, showed how the ranks of the German police in Volyn were filled by Poles after Ukrainian policemen fled to the UPA in 1942-1943.

The well known historian Yuriy Shapoval pointed out in the discussion that the ultimate root of the Volyn conflict lies in the fact that both Ukrainians and Poles looked upon Volyn as their territory. This meant that compromise was impossible, Shapoval believes.

Second, Poland overplayed its hand and was forced to ultimately backtrack. Prior to 11 July, Poland laid out a long list of demands to Ukraine, most of which Kyiv never agreed to. The manner in which Poland pressured Ukraine led to a counterreaction at the perception that Poland was attempting to revive its role as an "elder brother" toward its eastern neighbor by capitalizing on Kuchma's international isolation and domestic unpopularity.

Third, Volyn-1943 is only an issue for ideologically committed political parties on the left and right in Ukraine, with the former condemning the OUN and UPA (as in the Soviet era) and the latter calling for their rehabilitation and honoring them as "national heroes." Historical issues and national symbols are not an issue for ideologically amorphous centrists who will vote in parliament in any manner ordered to by President Kuchma (recent examples include parliamentary support for a CIS free-trade zone and condemnation of the 1933 artificial famine as "genocide").

The indifference of centrists to historical issues can be seen in the educational system. Long-time Minister of Education Vasyl Kremen is a high-profile member of the SDPU-o. Kremen has promoted the domination of the Mykhaylo Hrushevskyy school of Ukrainian history throughout the educational system. Hrushevskyy was denounced in Soviet propaganda starting in the 1930s and continues to be by the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU).

Ukraine's school textbooks adopt an inclusive approach to the most controversial period of Ukrainian history, World War II. In school textbooks Ukraine's war effort has been expanded to include the UPA which, it is now accepted, fought both the Nazis and Soviets. The UPA, whom Poland wished Ukraine to condemn for the 1943 Volyn events, has long been rehabilitated in Ukraine's educational system and in patriotic inculcation in the armed forces.

Fourth, the Ukrainian state could not agree to join Poland in condemning the OUN and UPA when it itself had still not made up its mind about these two organizations. Another complicating factor was that the OUN and UPA were not organizations that represented the Ukrainian state (unlike the Home Army [AK] which represented the Polish government in exile).

The Volyn-1943 commemoration, completing unfinished business before the end of the Kuchma era, and the need to obtain western Ukrainian votes in the 2004 presidential elections are three factors that have spurred the momentum in the Ukrainian state's recognition of the OUN and UPA. The National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS) presidential think tank recently obtained a directive from Kuchma to prepare a presidential decree "On steps to establish the rights of fighters for the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian state." NISS Director Anatoliy Halchynskyy said that the decree would finally establish "political and historical justice towards those individuals -- members of the OUN and UPA fighters, who struggled for the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian state in the 20th century."

In early 2003, the Ministry of Justice and the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences signed an agreement to research the "scientific analysis of documents and preparation of proposals to outline an official position on the activities of the OUN and the UPA." A collection of documents is to be prepared by a special governmental committee led by Institute of History Director Stanislav Kulchytskyy, which has been given a budget of 250,000 hryvni ($47,000).

These steps, coupled with the need to dent Viktor Yushchenko's unquestioned popularity in western Ukraine before next year's elections, make it likely that the OUN and UPA will be officially recognized (and thereby de facto "rehabilitated") by presidential decree and by parliament, which is controlled by a slim propresidential majority. Opposition is only likely to come from the Communists and, in relation to OUN, from the Socialists. As in the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the 1933 famine, Kuchma is once again able to divide the left and right opposition.

"RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" is prepared by Jan Maksymiuk on the basis of a variety of sources including reporting by "RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. It is distributed every Tuesday.

The past year has witnessed the emergence of three distinct trends in approaches both in Russia and some other CIS states to their shared Soviet legacy. One such trend is nostalgia for the relative security of the Josef Stalin era. Second, certain anniversaries of former republican or Soviet leaders are commemorated, while others are ignored. Third, in the ongoing process of state building, both Belarus and Russia are reintroducing Soviet symbols, either together with tsarist ones (in the case of Russia), or in an adapted form (Belarus).

In March 2003, outpourings of nostalgia were seen across Russia on the 50th anniversary of Stalin's death. The Public Opinion Foundation found that 36 percent of Russians viewed Stalin in a positive light, compared to the 29 percent who viewed him negatively. The Russian State Archives, and those of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Protection Service, prepared an exhibition on the Stalin era, including some personal effects and letters from Soviet citizens written on his death.

Vladimir Malynkovitch, a Russophile Russian-speaking liberal based in Kyiv, is alarmed by this high level of nostalgia for Stalin. In his opinion, Russian television now shows more Stalinist films than it did during the Leonid Brezhnev era, when Malynkovitch was briefly arrested as a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and then expelled from the USSR.

Meanwhile, the leaderships of CIS states are selectively commemorating the anniversaries of certain Soviet leaders. In January 2003, Moldovan President and Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin bestowed the Order of the Republic on former Moldovan Communist leader Ivan Bodiul on his 85th birthday. Bodiul was first secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia from 1961-80. In March, the Russian State Duma voted to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the former chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Nikolai Kosygin. Kosygin headed that body from 1964-80. And in February, Ukraine celebrated at the official level for the first time the 85th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Shcherbytsky, who headed the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1972-89. Bodiul and Shcherbytsky resolutely opposed Romanian and Ukrainian nationalism, respectively.

The commemoration of Shcherbytsky's anniversary was nonetheless surprising because his period in office is associated with Russification, the wide-scale arrest of Ukrainian dissidents and the Brezhnev "era of stagnation." In addition, Shcherbytsky went ahead with the May Day parade in 1986 just days after the Chornobyl nuclear accident. By contrast, the 95th anniversary of the birth of Petro Shelest, Shcherbytsky's predecessor as Communist Party of Ukraine first secretary, which also fell in February 2003, was ignored. Shelest is often compared favorably to Shcherbytsky because he supported the Ukrainian language and culture and is therefore believed to be closer in spirit to the Ukrainian national communists of the 1920s.

Such contrasts between Shelest and Shcherbytsky are, however, artificial. Writing in the May issue of the Kyiv monthly "Krytyka," leading historian Yuriy Shapoval says it is absurd to claim Shelest was a "liberal" and Shcherbytsky an "orthodox communist." What differentiates them the most, Shapoval believes, is that Shcherbytsky knew how to hold on to power for 17 years with support from Moscow. This is the reason why Ukraine's contemporary centrist elites admire Shcherbytsky so much.

Leonid Kravchuk and the "sovereign communists" within the Communist Party of Ukraine were also seen as "national communists" in 1990-94 both in Ukraine and abroad when Kravchuk was parliamentary speaker and then president. But Ukraine's "sovereign communists" evolved into centrists, and it is those centrists who are today commemorating Shcherbytsky's anniversary, but not Shelest's, even though it would have been more logical for them to take Shelest, who was removed in 1971 after being accused of "national deviationism," as their role model rather than Shcherbytsky. Yet on Shelest's anniversary no newspaper articles or books were published or flowers placed on his grave.

Belarus and Russia, meanwhile, are selectively resurrecting Soviet symbols. In Belarus, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is the quintessential Soviet Belarusian patriot who presides over a regime steeped in Soviet nostalgia. In 2002, Belarus adopted a new anthem that, in fact, is the Soviet Belorussian anthem ("My Belarustsy," composed in 1955) with references to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin removed. In Russia, President Putin and his party of power are seeking to incorporate both tsarist and Soviet symbols in a new Eurasianist ideology.

Russia under former President Boris Yeltsin had difficulties introducing new national symbols. In April 1997, the Communist Party moved in the Duma an amendment to restore the Soviet flag and anthem. The proposal obtained 239 votes with only 90 against, but fell short of the 300 votes necessary for constitutional amendments. In a January 1998 vote, only a quarter of the Duma deputies backed the new (non-Soviet) flag, coat of arms, and anthem favored by Yeltsin. The majority of deputies voted to preserve the Soviet anthem.

As late as 2000, only 11 percent of Russians knew the lyrics of the Russian national anthem, whereas 79 percent could sing the Soviet one. Putin overcame Yeltsin's inability to resolve which national symbols Russia should adopt by reviving the Soviet-era anthem with new lyrics. In a State Duma vote in December 2000, only nine months after Putin came to power, 378 deputies voted to reinstate the Soviet anthem. Only a small minority of 53 from the SPS and Yabloko factions opposed the move.

In Russia, the tricolor flag and tsarist coat of arms have been restored alongside the revamped Soviet anthem. The Russian military has similarly reinstated Soviet Red Army insignia. Russia's national symbols therefore reflect a fusion of tsarist and Soviet symbols that make up Russia's emerging Eurasianist identity. Recent moves to bolster this new Russian identity appear to be rooted more in pragmatism than nostalgia. Faced with a dwindling poll of manpower to draw on, Moscow has invited all CIS citizens regardless of ethnicity to serve in the Russian armed forces. And the Russian Foreign Ministry is currently preparing a campaign to have Russian declared an official working language throughout the CIS.

U.S. MILITARY EXONERATES TANK CREW IN DEATH OF UKRAINIAN JOURNALIST IN IRAQ. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a news release on its website (http://www.centcom.mil) on 12 August that the U.S. tank that fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April -- resulting in the deaths of Ukrainian Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Spanish Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso -- was deemed to have acted appropriately under the circumstances. Kyiv had officially requested that Washington probe circumstances surrounding Protsyuk's death (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 April 2003). The tank crew "properly fired upon a suspected enemy hunter/killer team in a proportionate and justifiably measured response," according to CENTCOM, which added, "The action was fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement." The crew reportedly discovered only after it fired a single, 120-millimeter tank round at the building that the structure was the Palestine Hotel. CENTCOM expressed regret over the deaths of the journalists. "The journalists' death at the Palestine Hotel was a tragedy and the United States has the deepest sympathies for the families of those who were killed," CENTCOM said. JM

UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS INDIA. Ukraine and India signed agreements on 12 August on the mutual protection of secret information and on cooperation in tourism, Interfax reported, quoting Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Markiyan Lubkivskyy. The accords followed a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoliy Zlenko and his Indian counterpart Yashwant Sinha. Zlenko and Sinha also discussed ways to boost Ukrainian-Indian cooperation in the political, economic, scientific, and humanitarian spheres. JM

MOLDOVAN OFFICIAL SAYS LEAVING CIS IS NOT ON IMMEDIATE AGENDA. European Integration Department Director Andrei Stratan told RFE/RL's Romania-Moldova Service on 13 August that Moldova would consider leaving the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) if and when it is officially accepted as a candidate for EU accession and if the union explicitly demanded such a move. Until that time, Stratan said, Chisinau can see no reason to leave the CIS. The EU has offered Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus special status as "new neighbors," but not membership. Stratan, who is also deputy foreign minister, said the department he heads will present a "Conceptual Framework for Moldova's EU Integration" to Premier Vasile Tarlev by 25 August. That framework will then be forwarded to EU experts, whose remarks are to be considered by the European Integration Department tasked with developing a "European Integration Strategy" that will take into account the experience of all EU candidate countries, Stratan said. MS

TRANSDNIESTER CANCELS FREE-TRADE REGIME WITH UKRAINE. Separatist leader Igor Smirnov has canceled Transdniester's free-trade regime with Ukraine less than one month after if was instituted, Infotag reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 21 July 2003). The new decree came into effect on 12 August, when Smirnov reimposed customs duties on imports of meat, fish, and dairy products from Ukraine, as well as on foodstuffs, alcoholic and soft drinks, soap, and detergents. The Transdniester authorities said the measure was prompted by Ukraine's flooding of local markets with these and other goods. This resulted in a substantial drop in prices, which led local producers to complain they were facing serious losses. MS