Students say explosive devices discovered during militia raid were planted by authorities (10/24/04)

Students say explosive devices discovered during militia raid were planted by authorities

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian state militia officials said on October 15 they had discovered an explosive device at the offices of a relatively new and unknown student group, located not far from where a large student demonstration in support of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko took place the next day. Two student activists were arrested and charged with being terrorists.

The members of the group who were in the office and members of the Our Ukraine faction in Ukraine's Parliament who were present as the bomb search was conducted stridently maintained that no bomb was found other than what the law enforcement officials themselves planted. They said it was yet another attempt to discredit organizations and individuals tied to the Yushchenko campaign.

"This event was ordered, and there is no substance to the charges, which we will prove in court. It was obvious the militia was carrying out orders," stated Taras Stetskiv on October 16. He was one of several lawmakers who arrived on the scene after the students in the office called to tell him that state militia officials were present.

Law enforcement officials said they had evidence that the group, which calls itself Pora, which means It's Time, may have had links to a Serbian student organization, that had led violent demonstrations which resulted in the downfall of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The Procurator General's Office stated on October 18 that it had not excluded the possibility that members of the student organization were also responsible for the explosion that rocked a local market in Kyiv in August in which one person died and several were injured.

Four Pora members, speaking during a press conference in Kyiv on October 21, acknowledged that they had consulted on how to promote student activism with former members of the Serbian student group Otpor, which today is a member of the Serbian non-governmental organization the Center for Non-Violent Resistance. They also freely admitted to having been in contact with the Georgian student group Khmara.

Ukrainian Border Guard officials and the Security Service of Ukraine have maintained that they denied Aleksander Marich, a worker for the human rights group Freedom House, re-entry into Ukraine after a visit to his home in Belgrade, even though he held a valid Ukrainian visa, because they had linked him to both the Georgian and Serbian student groups.

The four Pora members, however, said their aim was not violent uprising but to organize student activists in an anti-Yanukovych campaign.

"Beyond our heartfelt belief that we are right, we carry no other weapons," explained one of the members of Pora. The female student, who did not wish to identify herself, noted that the majority of Pora members are female.

She also said that some 150 of its members had been detained in the last four months since the organization began to actively develop its campaign and disseminate anti-Yanukovych propaganda. Some had been charged, albeit falsely, said the unidentified Pora member, with carrying counterfeit money or having bomb-making equipment in their possession. Pora was organized in Lviv in March of this year.

Another Pora member at the press conference said that law enforcement officials had confiscated another explosive device in the organization's Chernihiv office on October 19, which she maintained had also been a plant.

The incident in Kyiv began the evening of October 15 when a state militia squad car arrived at the Pora offices in the Podil district of Kyiv, not far from the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, where some 10,000 students would gather in support of Mr. Yuschenko's presidential candidacy the next day.

According to Yevhen Zolotariov, a Pora activist who was present, at first the law enforcement officers said they were responding to a report of a fight in the basement of the offices, reported Moloda Ukraine. When the students would not open the office doors, the officers then changed their story and said they had to check a dangerous situation with an electrical short circuit in the building, The student activists still refused to allow the militia officers to enter, but then higher ranking officials arrived and somehow a spare key appeared and entry was gained.

Now citing a bomb threat, the state militia called in a team of experts with search dogs and went through the premises but found nothing. Mr. Zolotariov explained that next a state militia general now present on site ordered Berkut special forces to clear the office of all those present, including the group of national deputies from Our Ukraine and other lawmakers who were part of the entourage.

When a group of unidentified plain-clothed individuals conducted a second closed-door bomb search, the explosive device was discovered, allegedly in a trash can in the main room, which Mr. Zolotariov maintained had already been searched twice before.

The national deputies from Our Ukraine present at the scene noted that it was strange that the five-story building was evacuated in a haphazard and laconic way, with the building residents not forced to leave their premises but told that they could leave if they wished to do so. They also observed that dozens of law enforcement officials freely entered and exited a building that could surely have contained other bombs if one had already been discovered. National Deputy Stetsko added that he was denied a request to have fingerprint tests done on the explosive device in his presence.

Two Pora activists were arrested at the scene of the incident and charged the following day with conspiracy to perform terrorist acts and membership in an illegal military formation, reported Interfax Ukraine.

Subsequently, the state militia also arrested Yaroslav Hodunok, owner of Western Service, the company that leased the office to Pora. Mr. Hodunok, ironically himself a former militia officer, is also a member of the Ukrainian National Party, which is part of the Our Ukraine coalition. Mr. Hodunok was jailed in the detention facility of the Security Service of Ukraine while the intelligence agency's anti-terrorist division investigated his involvement with Pora.

Two days after the incident, and the day after the large pro-Yushchenko student rally held before the university, state militia officers entered the compound and buildings of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy unannounced and proceeded to search the premises, ostensibly in pursuit of illegal aliens working on a remodeling project taking place within the university's buildings.

University officials said that the law enforcement officials could not produce documents authorizing their search. They dropped the effort only after lawmakers from Ukraine's Parliament arrived, but not before they had confiscated several passports, which were later returned without incident.

The university issued a statement the same day noting that: In evaluating the circumstances and motivation of this surprise intervention of the militia at the University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy it is clear that the demands of the militia to inspect the entire premises of the university were unfounded. There were no direct written orders given for the entry, and there were no legal directives presented, which leads the administration of the university to conclude that this act was one of provocation and harassment, aimed to discredit the university."

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