The Lazarenko Affair is Over for Kuchma

However, the main guardian of law and order seems to have overdone it a little. Indeed, after James Mayoke, Mr. Lazarenko's American lawyer, said his client had really asked for political asylum, we may say the current stage of the Lazarenko affair has come to an end. Even if the Americans do not grant Mr. Lazarenko asylum after a lengthy procedure, he may appeal this decision in a court of law, which will cover four judicial instances. As a result, he may quietly stay in the US for about a year, at a conservative estimate, waiting for the outcome of his case. If the US chooses eventually to deport Mr. Lazarenko, he may go wherever he wants and is unlikely to wish to throw himself into the hands of the Ukrainian judiciary. So we can assert, in all probability, that we will not see Mr. Lazarenko until the presidential elections.

The preliminary results of the Lazarenko story are unenviable. Firstly, society has plunged almost into hysteria. Public transport commuters discuss in earnest how to distribute Mr. Lazarenko's fortune and who will benefit most. These calculations are in fact rather simple. If Mr. Lazarenko is arrested, if the abuses he is accused of are proved and the money he is said to have illegally misappropriated (about $3 million) is confiscated and distributed among, say, pensioners (13 million), then each of the latter will get about 20 cents (about 1 hryvnia). Let us add to this the extremely low probability of each if, and it becomes clear that the price of massive lumpenization of sentiments whipped up by the official media leaves something to be desired, to put it mildly. It would also be good to remind our power-holders that it makes no difference for a lumpen whether he deals with Mr. Lazarenko or Mr. Kuchma, and the carefully-orchestrated "peoples' wrath" might not necessarily fall on the opposition.

Secondly, the simple questions still remain unanswered: Why are the corrupt prosecuted only after they leave office? Why was this same Lazarenko dismissed from the Premier's post "for reasons of health? And why did none of the officials who had promoted his career (almost all of them still in power) asked to resign? Any attempts to find answers to these questions are sure to lead us to those in power, which, of course, will not increase their authority or that of the state.

Thirdly, those in power seem to have misunderstood the realities of today's world and, in particular, who is boss in the USA. No matter how hard it might try, the US government is unlikely to be able to pressurize the courts, the decisive link in the mechanism of deporting Mr. Lazarenko to Ukraine. Different interpretations by American authorities, so much publicized by our officials, are only important for propaganda inside Ukraine, no more.

Fourthly, the danger Mr. Lazarenko presented to Mr. Kuchma has not vanished at all. It is clear Mr. Lazarenko had no chance to become president (this may only have been an illusion he and the administration held), so his removal from the political arena is by no means removal of a rival. Mr. Lazarenko's main danger is his threat to tell the unvarnished truth about the (mis)deeds of Ukraine's top leaders. It is now much easier to fulfill this threat than before, for the story will sound directly in the ears of a "strategic partner" on whose favorable attitude depends, to a large extent, Mr. Kuchma's success in the coming elections. No wonder, the Prosecutor General said in Kharkiv Mr. Lazarenko "should be isolated." He justified his stand by the fact that the Lazarenko case includes not only the episodes reported to Verkhovna Rada but also some "other materials which do not allow Lazarenko being at large," reports Interfax-Ukraine. Indeed, in addition to information on the President, Mr. Lazarenko is certain to possess other closely-guarded sensitive data, and only God knows how will handle them. This is another thorn in the side of the authorities who have sacrificed national interests for the sake of their own survival.

And the last, the most terrible in my opinion, conclusion. It was shown in the Lazarenko affair that no one - either among those in power or even in opposition - dared to reproach Mr. Lazarenko that he had gone without waiting for the trial at which he could have proved, in theory, his innocence. At any rate, this so convincing an argument was in fact not used during a propaganda campaign in the presidentially controlled media. Thus, those in power have admitted openly that law does not work in this country. This is a horrible diagnosis comparable to a court sentence.