• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Ex-Premier in Dire Straits

23 February, 1999 - 00:00

This week's news has clearly been dominated by the flight,
stripping of parliamentary immunity, and taking into US custody of former
Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, overshadowing even the certification of
Ukraine's puny efforts at reform by a clearly reluctant US Secretary of
State. The Lazarenko saga is not so much about what one individual did
or did not do (let us hope the courts will decide that) as about what it
is possible for the rich and famous to do in the post-Soviet morass where
law is no obstacle for those with power and money. The General Prosecutor's
indictment in Parliament was, quite frankly, pretty puny and the amounts
of money cited in it paltry in view of the sums the former head of government
is known to have at his disposal. Obviously, the issue here is not one
of crime and punishment but of politics, pure and simple. The previously
reported Swiss investigations into Mr. Lazarenko's finances showed that
he got his money more or less legally the way they all do, through a system
whereby the state can make whomever it wants filthy rich while the rest
of us get nothing. Now that same state has decided to neutralize a black
sheep but is not quite certain how, lest he tell what he knows about those
who are still getting richer the same way he got rich in the first place.
The former Premier certainly knew what he was doing by being taken into
custody in New York; who knows what "accidents" could have befallen such
a potentially loquacious oligarch had it not been otherwise.

Make no mistake about it: the Lazarenko case is not about one man. Nobody
really doubts that, while he might have been cleverer or more energetic
than others, the general scheme he used is still in place and working for
others the same way it worked for him. This case is really about what light
it might shed on the whole kleptocratic system whereby those in power can
give themselves monopoly privileges and literally suck dry a decent and
industrious people. If the light it sheds is bright enough, perhaps somebody
here will actually stand up and say in the words of a Hollywood movie some
twenty-odd ago, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Now
that would be something to write home about.

 

Issue: 
Rubric: