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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

If There is Nothing to Fear, There is Nothing to Be Afraid of

27 July, 1999 - 00:00

Petro Symonenko made a statement carried by Interfax Ukraine,
saying there is a provocation being engineered against him and that someone
is planning to open an exchange account abroad in the name of his son.

No details were given, and this leads one to assume that there is such
an account and the CPU leader's statement was a preventive measure. The
Day's reporter consulted Hryhory Omelchenko, head of the legislative
commission with a professional interest in officials with illegally opened
hard currency accounts.

H. O.: Assuming that neither Mr. Symonenko nor anyone in his
family has not opened foreign bank accounts, he has nothing to be afraid
of. Those who eat garlic won't smell of Chanel No. 5. Our commission of
inquiry has no information about any such bank accounts. Opening them takes
National Bank permission. We verified the data from 1993 to 1999. The name
Symonenko is not there.

As for "provocation," opening an account with a foreign bank is not
that easy. There are a number of procedures and the whole thing becomes
even more complex if one wants this account in a different name. In a word,
Mr. Symonenko can sleep soundly.

EDITOR'S NOTE

The sad fact remains that no one, not even the President and his entourage,
can sleep soundly in Ukraine these days. The election campaign is gaining
momentum and its Ukrainian version is a free-for-all. Even assuming that
the foreign bank account story is meant to further fray Petro Symonenko's
nerves and shake his devoted electorate's confidence, the question remains,
Who will gain from this? The Bankova Street people who are doing their
best to build the Communist leader's image as Leonid Kuchma's number one
adversary? Maybe, just so he knows where he stands exactly and fights for
himself, but never against the President. Here, too, one must be careful
not to overdo things, otherwise the Presidential Administration could find
itself confronted by even more dangerous candidates from the Left.

If this be the case, these new candidates may well be interested in
sharply weakening the CPU leader, yet doing so at the starting line would
be foolish, because weakening candidate Symonenko would mean weakening
the entire Red battering ram intended to mobilize the masses against the
regime, and by no means demoralize them with disheartening evidence indication
they are all like that upstairs.

Speaker Tkachenko has many opportunities in this game (as evidenced
by the revived Volkov case). Moreover, he is interested in Petro Symonenko's
stepping down more than anyone else, with the party masses and electorate
switching over to the Red Speaker. Yet the situation is dangerous. Started
prematurely, an intrigue can allow the interested parties time to study
the situation, and then allies turn into enemies, in which case the Speaker
would lose Communist support not only during the campaign, but also in
his present capacity.

Nor are the Right candidates likely to be interested in discrediting
Petro Symonenko, because no realignment of forces and ratings in the Left
camp would change anything for them any more or less significantly.

Thus either Petro Symonenko has jumped the gun or there is another scheme
underway on Bankova Street, the logic of which is totally incomprehensible
simply because it has no logic.

(See page Closeup for The Day's portait of Petro Symonenko)

 

 

 

To whose advantage is discrediting the Communist leader?
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