ANALYSIS: Moscow newspaper sheds light on case of Heorhii Gongadze (10/29/00)

ANALYSIS

Moscow newspaper sheds light on case of Heorhii Gongadze

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

The October 5 issue of the Moscow daily newspaper Vremya MN has shed more light on the circumstances leading to the disappearance of Ukrainian journalist Heorhii Gongadze.

Mr. Gongadze, 31, is chief editor of the Internet newsletter Ukrainska Pravda (http://www.pravda.com.ua). On the night of September 16, Mr. Gongadze failed to arrive at his home in Kyiv, where his wife and two children were waiting for him. Since Ukrainska Pravda is known for publishing materials critical of the Ukrainian government, many journalists believe that Mr. Gongadze's disappearance was politically motivated.

The Verkhovna Rada on September 21 set up a 15-strong committee to look into Mr. Gongadze's disappearance. The committee is headed by Oleksander Lavrynovych of Rukh. More than 40 journalists accredited to the Parliament asked the lawmakers not to include on the commission those deputies who have been criticized by Mr. Gongadze in his newsletter. The authorities initially said they ruled out political motives in the Gongadze's case, but later admitted that they view a politically motivated kidnapping or murder as one of possible reasons for the journalist's disappearance. So far, there has been no significant progress in the investigation.

Vremya MN suggested that Mr. Gongadze's disappearance might be related to an article by Maksym Strykha from Lviv, which was published by Mr. Gongadze in his Internet newsletter on September 11, that is, five days before his disappearance. Mr. Strykha's article deals with the manner in which signatures were collected for the April 16 constitutional referendum in Ukraine. Following are translated excerpts of that article.

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Title: Citizen Shaft P. from Scientific Street in Lviv as an Initiator of the Constitutional Reform in Ukraine. Who Signed in Favor of the Referendum?

Author: Maksym Strykha, doctor of mathematical and physical sciences, writer, member of the Presidium of the Ukrainian Popular Party Sobor.

Constitutional reform must be carried out because such is the will of the people. It is the people who initiated the April 16 referendum. It is the people who said in the referendum: Ukraine has to be [a] presidential [republic]!

Every day we hear more or less that argument on all radio and television channels from the mouth of the very guarantor [of the Constitution] and the best friend of Ukrainian Olympic athletes, in the speeches of his loyal herdsmen and inciters from the parliamentary majority and, finally, from the symbols of Ukraine's independent, incorruptible and brilliant journalism - Messrs. Dolhanov and Lapikura.

Indeed, they cite the figure of 4 million signatures in support of the referendum, which was reported by the Central Election Commission. And even if everybody realizes that anonymous "initiative groups" were not able to work day and night at the signature-collecting speed of one signature per one signature collector per every 26 seconds, our "implementers" [of the referendum results] do not treat this calculation as evidence [of the falsification of referendum- supporting lists]. If [lawmaker and Democratic Union leader Oleksander] Volkov gives an order, it will be possible to collect one signature even every 16 seconds. Or even every six seconds. It seems that everything is possible in this strange land of Ukraine.

But opposition party activists have not been allowed to look at those lists of signatures. It is clear why. Because the falsification was too obvious. "Initiative groups" did not even use the data bases [on residents] they had collected during previous campaigns. They simply wrote what they liked.

Exactly this was confirmed in testimony given by five activists from the Ukrainian Popular Party, the Ukrainian National Assembly Ukrainian Self-Defense Organization [UNA/UNSO], and the Ukrainian Party Yednist, who managed to carry out a verification process in Lviv. The conclusion from that process is remarkable. None of the 140 signatures on the lists received from Lviv City Council Secretary V. Bilous proved to be authentic. The lists included either non-existent addresses or the names of the people who did not reside at the given addresses.

What is more, the imagination of "initiative groups" knew no boundaries. Below I quote the protocol of the verification process that was signed by Lviv party activists and confirmed by a statement of the leaders of regional branches of the Ukrainian Republican Party, the Ukrainian Party Yednist, the Ukrainian Popular Party Sobor, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the UKRP, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the SDS, the Democratic Party of Ukraine, the UNA-UNSO, the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party, and the KhNS. I quote dotting some letters in the names [because of their foulness (in the protocol they are quoted in full). ...

[Ed. note: The names used are variations on obscene terms. They appear on List No. 7 in positions 6, 14 and 19.]

I will note at once: the authenticity of all those names was confirmed on behalf of the Central Election Commission by the democratic Lviv authorities headed by Ukrainian poet V[asyl] Kuybida, who was born into a family of political exiles to the faraway Komi ASSR. One can only guess what names were put on referendum lists in the south and the east, where local authorities are not headed by such devoted and reliable Ukrainian patriots.

A statement by the Lviv regional branches of the nine political parties said: "We demand that Ukraine's Procurator General's Office instigate criminal proceedings against the initiative group from the city of Lviv that falsified 100 percent of data on referendum lists and impudently denigrated our national, civic and human dignity. With its falsified referendum lists, [that group] inflicted moral damage on and denigrated not only Lviv residents but also all Ukrainians, the Central Election Commission, and the president of Ukraine, Mr. Kuchma, who believed that [the referendum] was really a popular initiative and did not suspect that it was an initiative of those three individuals from the Democratic Union who signed in positions 6, 14 and 19 on referendum list No. 7, which is kept by the Lviv City Council deputy head, Mr. Bilous."

The protocol of the examination was drawn up on June 16. However, one has so far not heard about any actions of the Procurator General's Office in defense of the "national, civic and human dignity" of Ukrainians (apparently, they are devoting quite a lot of time and effort to the [arrested] husband of Yulia Tymoshenko). Instead, 251 lawmakers on July 12 voted together to support the initiative of those three individuals from the Democratic Union. Among them [were] 39 deputies from both Rukhs and the Reform and Order Party headed by Hennadii Udovenko, Yurii Kostenko, and Viktor Pynzenyk [respectively].

This vote convinces [us] that the Procurator General's Office may be right [in not reacting to the above-mentioned demand]. It is inexpedient and impossible to defend what does not exist.

In the meantime, according to political analysts, there is a campaign under way in the Verkhovna Rada in order to recruit 50 more supporters of the constitutional initiative of P. Shaft from Scientific Street in Lviv. This time, recruitment is being conducted among the left wing, in order not to offend the right wing.

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Vremya MN recalled that under Ukrainian legislation, the lists containing signatures in support of a referendum may be destroyed six months after the referendum takes place. This means that in the case of the April 16 constitutional referendum the lists with signatures may be destroyed as soon as next week. The Moscow daily also noted that Oleksander Volkov - the man blamed in the Strykha-Gongadze publication for falsifying the referendum signature lists - did not allow Mr. Gongadze to attend his press conference after the publication appeared on the Internet. Two days later, when Mr. Gongadze disappeared, Mr. Volkov pledged to do everything possible to find the journalist.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

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