Quotable notes

"They died of natural causes provoked by alcohol abuse. ... Half of them consumed alcohol immediately before death. That is why I will not lay flowers to the memorial to the dead journalists when it is erected."

- Ihor Smirnov, internal affairs minister of Ukraine, referring to the 18 journalists who disappeared and/or died under mysterious circumstances in Ukraine during the last decade, as quoted by the UNIAN news agency on October 5 and cited by the BBC Monitoring Service.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 28, 2001, No. 43, Vol. LXIX

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