Security forces begin crackdown on organized crime in Crimea (02/14/99)

Security forces begin crackdown on organized crime in Crimea

by Nathan Hodge
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - With the passage of a new Constitution for the Crimean autonomous republic on December 23, 1998, the peninsula seemed poised for a reduction in tensions. President Leonid Kuchma officially presented the document to the Crimean leadership in a signing ceremony on February 5, but the celebration was overshadowed by a public campaign of arrests aimed at Crimean officials.

The adoption of the Constitution was an acrimonious process. The region's Crimean Tatar minority appealed to President Kuchma for a veto, arguing that the Constitution made no provisions to protect minority rights. The Constitution, which establishes Ukrainian as an official language, also provoked ire in Moscow. During debates in the Russian Duma over the ratification of the so-called "big treaty" between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Russian legislators leveled accusations of "forced Ukrainization" against the Constitution's authors.

While hot air circulated in Moscow, Crimea began to heat up. First, the offices of Mustafa Jemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (the Tatar's unofficial Parliament) were firebombed on January 14. Soon afterwards Ukrainian state security forces began reeling in Crimean officials in a crackdown on organized crime.

Even as Leonid Grach, the chairman of Crimea's Communist-dominated legislature, gloated over his triumph in getting a separate Constitution for Crimea, the criminal clean-up of Crimea appears to be a reminder to him of Kyiv's hold over the region. The Crimean branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the arrests of 11 Kerch and Yevpatoria city council members during the past week, and Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko has promised the arrests of several Crimean mayors, whom he accused of sheltering criminals.

At a press conference on January 28 in Symferopol, Minister Kravchenko said that corrupt Crimean mayors were responsible for "escalating tensions in the region," and that investigations are under way against municipal officials from Kerch, Symferopol and Yevpatoriia for involvement in shadow business, Interfax reported.

The firebombing of the Mejlis appears to be unrelated to the anti-crime campaign, but Mr. Jemilev told the Kyiv Post that he believed the incident was planned by Crimean Communists. Mr. Grach, also the leader of the Crimean Communist Party, denied any connection.

As he lobbied for the adoption of the Constitution, Mr. Grach had railed against Tatar activists for trying to "create a Kosovo" and had warned of the "emergency of a criminal revolution" on the peninsula. With the Security Service of Ukraine cleaning house, however, the Kuchma administration, has reminded Mr. Grach that the Constitution does not guarantee real autonomy.

In an interview with the newspaper Den (Day), Serhii Kunitsyn, the president's representative to Crimea, took direct issue with Mr. Grach. "I can only accept statements about a 'criminal revolution' ironically," he said. "The fight against crime was going on well before his [Grach's] time. It really picked up speed with the appointment of Internal Affairs Ministry and State Security generals [Oleksander] Kosianenko and [Hennadii] Moskal."

He also made a gesture to the Tatars. "The Constitution has provoked the formerly deported peoples [of Crimea], particularly Tatars, who comprise 12 percent of the population," he said. "The Constitution does not represent their interests," he added.

The center's control

Mr. Kunitsyn's statements were also a reminder to the Crimean leadership that the "Yalta option" is still available. Last January, 400 Internal Affairs Ministry troops raided municipal offices in Yalta after President Kuchma ordered the ouster of Oleksander Kalius, the democratically elected mayor of that resort city. Volodymyr Marchenko, a government official in charge of resorts and sanatoria, was installed in his place.

"The actions of the MVS [Ministry of Internal Affairs] are in step with Grach's promises of a clean-up," observed Andrii Nikiforov, director of the Crimean Information Agency, a Symferopol-based news service, "but it is all orchestrated from Kyiv."

Mr. Nikiforov said the campaign is part of the consolidation of the center's hold on the region, despite the Kuchma administration's assurances of greater autonomy for Crimea. "In effect, this is a continuation of the same campaign that was stared in Symferopol and Yalta last year," he said, adding "Now they're extending it into the regions, using the same tactics."

Mayor Kalius was sacked on allegations of "mishandling privatization." The Kuchma administration has used such measures on several occasions to rein in recalcitrant or independently minded local governments. Government black berets ejected Odesa Mayor Eduard Hurvits last May by storming city hall, and Uzhhorod Mayor Serhii Ratushniak fled the country in October 1998 after prosecutors issued an arrest warrant. Both had been strong critics of the Kuchma administration and had competed for power with centrally appointed oblast administrators.

Oleksander Dombrovskii, press spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Symferopol, told the Kyiv Post that the Crimea-wide campaign has yielded dozens of arrests, including that of six Kerch City Council members and five members of Yevpatoria City Council.

Interfax reported that Yevhen Maidonov and Yurii Mykhailov, both Kerch City Council members, have been charged with tax evasion and weapons concealment, and committing "serious" but unspecified crimes.

The Associated Press reported on February 9 that Yevpatoria City Council members Serhii Paramonov and Iryna Pavlenko were arrested by police while allegedly receiving payoffs for commercial rental permits.

Crimea's turf war

A series of high-profile contract killings has rocked the region in recent years; many observers see Crimea as the center of a turf war over a potentially lucrative tourist trade. In the past, the peninsula was the playground of the Soviet elite, but tourists from the former USSR have increasingly abandoned Crimea's beaches and sanatoria for cheaper, more tourist-friendly destinations such as Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus.

Prominent casualties of contract killings have included Oleksii Holovizin, head of the Crimean State Property Fund; Dmytro Holdych, first vice minister for resorts and tourism of Crimea; and Valerii Kuzin, head of a municipal energy works.

Internal Affairs Minister Kravchenko also announced that ministry officers had rounded up members of the so-called "Sankov gang," whom he charged with masterminding the February 1998 assassination of Oleksander Safontsev. Mr. Safontsev, then the first vice prime minister of the autonomous republic, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb at a recreation facility outside of Symferopol.

Mr. Kravchenko also claimed that he knows the identity of the man who ordered the killing, but said that he couldn't name him for fear of hampering the investigation.

A manhunt continues

In addition to the current housecleaning, the Crimean Internal Affairs Ministry is continuing a manhunt for Yevhen Supruniuk, a former chairman of the Crimean Parliament. Mr. Supruniuk is being sought in connection with an attack on his predecessor, Serhii Tsekov.

Mr. Supruniuk cut a colorful figure during his term, and allegations of corruption have followed him since he left office in October 1996. In August 1996, while still in office, he disappeared from his post only to resurface with a strange account of abduction by armed men. Last year he published an account of his alleged adbuction titled "Chronicle of a Plummeting Peninsula, or, The Story of My Adbuction," but law enforcement officials in Crimea say he has never furnished any evidence to support his account.

Mr. Dombrovsky said the Internal Affairs Ministry has appointed a special group to track down Mr. Supruniuk and his accomplices. "We are following leads in the case as far as Switzerland, Russia and Armenia," he said, adding that the investigative team is cooperating with Interpol, as well as Russian and Armenian authorities. Mr. Dombrovsky added that Internal Affairs does not know his exact whereabouts, but said that he may be taking refuge in Russia.

Even though Crimea is now entitled to its own anthem and coat of arms, the leadership of the autonomous republic has little new power of which to boast. Even the clause in the Constitution most prized by Mr. Grach - the right of the Crimean government to retain control over excise and income-tax revenues collected on its territory - is in question.

In the Den interview, Mr. Kunitsyn, a member of the pro-Kuchma National Democratic Party, sounded a dismissive note about Crimean budgetary autonomy "If any ... acts of the Crimean Rada and government contravene the Constitution of Ukraine, the laws and Constitution of Ukraine supersede them," he said, referring to final revisions in the Constitution. "The [state] budget law is higher than the Constitution of Crimea."

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