ANALYSIS

December 6, 2000

This week the Ukrainian Parliament is meeting in private session to discuss the subject matter of a taped conversation between three figures. The conversations on the tape pertain to the missing journalist Georgy Gongadze, and allegedly they incriminate several leading figures in Ukraine, headed by President Leonid Kuchma himself. If the tape turns out to be genuine, it may signal the end of the Kuchma regime in Ukraine.

Kuchma’s government has often been seen as authoritarian rather than dictatorial or criminal. Last year the Committee for the Protection of Journalists produced a list of the top ten persecutors of the media. Ukraine was placed sixth, an assessment that seemed harsh given that there was no place on the list for Alyaksander Lukashenka’s Belarus, which has persecuted the media with unrestricted venom for the past four years.

Gongadze, a Georgian-born reporter, was the chief editor of an independent newspaper distributed over the Internet entitled Ukrainska Pravda, well known for its outspoken criticism of the government. On 16 September, Gongadze disappeared. Seven weeks later, a headless corpse was discovered in the southern part of Kyiv region and was believed by several observers to be that of Gongadze. Though mutilated, the corpse had several identifying rings and other emblems worn by the journalist. The Interior Minister, Yury Kravchenko, has tried to maintain that the corpse had been in the grave for over a year, but it is fair to say that few in Ukraine believe him

On 28 November, Oleksander Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine and the former Speaker of the Parliament, held a press conference, in which he announced that he was in possession of a tape that linked the president’s office to the disappearance of the journalist Gongadze. The tape contains eleven separate conversations between three people. Moroz maintains that the three are Kuchma, Kravchenko, and the president’s chief of staff, Yury Lytvyn.

Moroz claims that the tape encompasses a period of 2-3 months from mid-August, and that it came into his possession via an officer in the Special Commission Detachment of the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The officer is reportedly now outside the country, and willing to testify in court as to the authenticity of the tape. Moroz has also asked European law enforcement agencies to examine the tape. A number of copies of the tape have been distributed in Ukraine and it has found its way onto the Internet via Holland.

The discussion, a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, is muted and filled with obscenities. The comments pertain not only to Gongadze, but also to several other more prominent people who are not well liked by the Kuchma government. They include Deputy Premier Yuliya Timoshenko, the former Justice Minister and now deputy Serhy Holovaty, tdeputy Hryhory Omelchenko, the journalist Tetyana Korobova, and the newspaper Svoboda.

The voice that Moroz alleges to be that of Kuchma calls for the removal of Gongadze from Ukraine, and states that "he has gone too far already." He should, the voice declares, be deported to Georgia, be left "without his pants." The tape also contains some anti-Semitic slurs directed at the influential Jewish businessman Hryhory Surkis.

To the outside observer, several aspects of the case arouse curiosity. First, though Moroz has never been a friend of Kuchma, he has hardly indulged in scandal. Could he have concocted such a story knowing that if it proved to be false then his political career (not to mention his personal liberty) would be over? Second, the Kuchma government wants to turn the tape over to the State Prosecutor rather than an impartial adjudicator. If it has nothing to fear, then why resort to such tactics?

Thirdly, the tape does not prove that the president was involved in the death of the journalist, but it does indicate that he wanted him removed from Ukraine and it portrays a level of thuggishness at the highest levels that can only send shudders down the spines of the Ukrainian public.

There is a disturbing similarity between the Gongadze case and that of the missing cameraman from the Russian ORT station Dmitry Zavadze in Belarus. The news agency Belapan recently received an e-mail message claiming that Zavadsky was assassinated by the Belarusian KGB. That message allegedly came from a disaffected Belarusian KGB officer. The difference between Belarus and Ukraine is that in the latter country, Parliament has not yet been reduced to a rubber stamp body.

If the tape represents a true conversation then not only Kuchma’s position is at stake: Ukraine’s chances of EU membership would be eradicated. IMF aid would be suspended indefinitely. Conversely, if it is a fabrication, it is one of remarkable professionalism and insight.

David Marples is a professor of history at the University of Alberta.