200 in D.C. recall murdered journalist, seek justice in Ukraine (09/22/02)

200 in D.C. recall murdered journalist, seek justice in Ukraine

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - With the remnants of tropical storm Hanna making its way across the nation's capital on Sunday evening, September 15, a crowd of close to 200 gathered in front of the statue of poet Taras Shevchenko to honor murdered investigative journalist Heorhii Gongadze and other journalists and political activists whose unsolved deaths have haunted Ukraine over the past 10 years.

The evening vigil was part of a two-day commemoration, "Requiem 2002: Face the Truth," organized by the Gongadze Foundation and the Forum of Ukrainian Students in America. The following day, a small group of students also held a demonstration in front of the Embassy of Ukraine.

Addressing the crowd from under an umbrella held over her by one of the students, the slain journalist's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, recalled that terrifying evening on that day two years ago when her husband failed to come home.

Heorhii Gongadze's headless body was later found outside of Kyiv, and the release of surreptitious recordings made in the Ukrainian president's office suggested high-level complicity in his disappearance. To date, however, the case has not been solved and, many believe, not even adequately investigated.

"The struggle continues," Ms. Gongadze said, and, thanking those who came that evening, she added that "together we can achieve change."

Among those present that evening was Mykola Melnychenko, the former presidential security officer who made the secret recordings, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter. They, like Ms. Gongadze and her children, received asylum in the United States.

As Ms. Gongadze and her two young daughters stepped back and stood hand-in-hand in a line of students beneath the granite base relief of the shackled Prometheus, representatives of congressional panels that deal with Ukraine, human rights organizations and the presidents of the two Ukrainian American central organizations paid their respects and spoke about the need for reform in Ukraine.

U.S. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who co-chairs the U.S. Helsinki Commis-sion, in a statement read by staff advisor Orest Deychakiwsky, noted that in the past five years 11 journalists are known to have been killed in Ukraine and a number of political activists and opposition figures have died "under questionable circumstances."

Investigations of these deaths "have gone nowhere," he said, and repeated expressions of concern by U.S. and international bodies "have been met with stonewalling and obfuscation."

Rep. Smith said he hopes Ukraine's new procurator general will conduct a "full investigation" of these deaths and that President Leonid Kuchma will "make the clear choice for democracy" in response to former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko's recent call for him to make the ultimate choice between "democracy and dictatorship."

In a statement read by his legislative director Sean Kevelighan, U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer (R-Colo.), co-chairman of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, said that, as the son of a Ukrainian immigrant, he was elated when Ukraine gained its independence in 1991.

"But today's gathering reminds us that Ukrainians, 11 years later, are still not completely free," he said and called on Ukraine's leadership "to solve these cases of murder and render swift justice to the guilty."

Ukraine's latest parliamentary elections demonstrated that the Ukrainian people are no longer willing to "yield to oppression of their liberty and human rights," Rep. Schaffer said, adding that his congressional colleagues share the caucus's concern about freedom of the press and speech in Ukraine.

Rep. Joseph Hoeffel (D-Pa.), a member of the House International Relations Committee, in a statement read by his senior legislative assistant, Lorri Elder, expressed his hope that Mr. Gongadze's murder will be solved and that "the world would hold the Ukrainian government accountable for any potential wrongdoing related to his death."

The United States takes democratic freedoms very seriously, he said. "If Ukraine wants to play ball," he added, "it also has to play by the rules."

The president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, Michael Sawkiw, paid tribute to Heorhii Gongadze for dedicating his life to the search for truth. "And even his tragic death has served that end by making that truth more evident," he said.

Mr. Sawkiw called on the Ukrainian diaspora to unite and redouble its efforts to help Ukraine achieve democracy and economic development.

Ihor Gawdiak, the president of the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council, suggested that the death of Mr. Gongadze and others who strove for a better Ukraine reflects the unrealized hopes of Ukrainians today and of the 19th century poet, before whose statue they gathered that evening, who yearned that one day Ukraine, too, would have its own Washington and his righteous law.

"Sadly, however, 11 years after independence, most Ukrainian Americans and most citizens of Ukraine are still waiting for their Washington. They are still waiting for Ukraine to become what they had hoped for," Mr. Gawdiak said.

Mark Palmer, the vice-chairman of the board of Freedom House who had served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary, was undiplomatically frank in his assessment of what the killing of Mr. Gongadze represents. He called on the English-language bard, William Shakespeare, to make his point. The Ukrainian journalist's death was "murder most foul," he said.

"One of the things that unites dictators, and tyrants and corrupt leaders across history and in our time is that they murder their opponents in cold blood," he said, citing the current leaders of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Iraq and China. "And this was an example of that."

"I think today it's hard for some of us who spend time in Kyiv to believe that Kuchma will go, and freedom will come, and that justice will be done for Heorhii," Ambassador Palmer said. "But I think that we all should take heart from the past, from his courage and from the fact that you all are here on this rainy evening to believe that freedom will come and that his fight was not in vain."

Ambassador Palmer said the Gongadze case epitomizes Ukraine's many problems, which include rampant corruption and criminality - "at the highest levels of the government" - the absence of a free media and an adequate and honest judiciary, and a weak Parliament.

On the positive side, however, his murder served to focus international attention on injustices in Ukraine and inspired a broad-based civic movement for openness, freedom of expression and democracy in Ukraine, he said.

Alex Lupis of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which got involved in the Gongadze case immediately after learning that he had disappeared, called Heorhii Gongadze a "pioneering" journalist who tried to circumvent attempts of government control by publishing on the Internet.

"Unfortunately, Heorhii's disappearance and murder falls into a long pattern of state-sponsored harassment of independent and opposition journalists in Ukraine," he said. As a result, he added, the number of brave investigative journalists in Ukraine is dwindling.

Oleksander Yeliashkevych, once a member of Ukraine's Parliament who is now seeking asylum in the United States after beatings and threats on his life for expressing opposing political views, said he did not believe that the procurator general's office would do a thorough investigation of the Gongadze murder.

"That would be the same as the Americans entrusting the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist act to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden," he said.

Also speaking at the evening vigil was Bigeldin Gabdullin, a magazine editor forced to leave Kazakstan, who spoke about the lack of press freedom in his country.

The speakers were introduced by students from Ukraine and two former Ukrainian diplomats.

The musical part of the Requiem vigil program featured bandura soloist Julian Kytasty and singer Vika Vradii. Both won acclaim at the first Chervona Ruta Ukrainian song festival in 1989. Ms. Vradii, or simply Vika, as she is known professionally, sang the song that brought her fame at that festival, titled "Hanba" (Shame), in which she shouts this reproach at the ruling government elites.

At the conclusion of the evening Serhiy Kudelia of the Forum of Ukrainian Students in America read a letter calling on President George W. Bush to help democracy in Ukraine. He said the letter would be presented to the White House on Monday.

Also on Monday, a dozen protesters - mostly students - picketed in front of the Embassy of Ukraine, chanting and carrying protest signs.

The demonstration ended after Mr. Kudelia read aloud an appeal to the diplomats serving in Ukraine's diplomatic missions abroad and presented it to Ukrainian Consul General Valentyn Nalyvaichenko.

The appeal calls on Ukrainian diplomats "to be true to themselves" and "to speak the truth and to serve the people of Ukraine and not their corrupt and discredited leadership."

An Embassy spokesman later told The Weekly that Ambassador Kostiantyn Gryshchenko was out of town, traveling to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly and to San Francisco with Ukraine's deputy procurator general, who was visiting the United States in conjunction with the investigation of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and of the Gongadze killing.

The Forum of Ukrainian Students in America was formed in December 2000, after the murder of Mr. Gongadze, Mr. Kudelia said. Its membership, he said, numbers around 150 students from Ukraine now studying in colleges and universities across the United States. Most are here under the U.S. Muskie student exchange program, he said.

| Home Page |