Quote with a serious background

Dragging out the indefiniteness with the results in certain election districts is harming the power. It is already clear by now: the after-election rows which involved Berkut, courts, and tough men press cards, clashes in the districts, decision on re-elections which does not have any final definition as yet, falsifications, etc., have had their effect. Therefore society does not perceive quite well Prime Minister Azarov’s words at recent sitting of the Cabinet of Ministers that “this year’s elections have been the best organized elections in the entire history of Ukraine’s independence.”

Meanwhile, ex-president Kuchma started to comment on the situations. When asked about his assessment of the process of summing up the elections, Kuchma replied, “We have what we should have. The question of the tick one put down on Sunday should have been resolved by October 31 at the latest. In that case Ukraine, he says, would have received words of praise from all European observers.” The ex-president also emphasized that he had always had the desire to live and work abiding by the law: “When you win, no need to appeal to court should arise.”

The last phrase of “expert” Kuchma appears especially cynical, for the whole country remembers the way the elections were held in the time of his presidency. Many experts say that the presidential elections of 1999 were by far the dirtiest in the entire history of the country. In particular, the noted journalist Vitalii Portinkov writes in his column on liga.net, “United voting can be designed artificially, like it happened when the residents of the western oblasts and their fellow countrymen in the east voted together for Kuchma when he ran for the second term. However, his opponent, a phoney communist Petro Symonenko was practically created by the power. Had Kuchma faced a real oppositionist in the second round, the votes would have divided back in 1999.”

“The parliamentary elections of 1998 and presidential elections of 1999 were falsified,” says Viktor Nebozhenko, “The level of falsifications was very high – up to 15 percent. But the process was orchestrated mainly by Oleksandr Volkov. We did not have any division like today, between Kliuiev and Liovochkin. Volkov did not have any reasons to struggle – everything went in an elegant, quiet way, because the society swallowed the results. Why? A favorable, perfect machine of fraud had been created by then. Kuchma’s words today do not carry any advice for Yanukovych. That would be dangerous because it is hard to advise anything to the incumbent president these days, as he perceives everything as a threat. It is more likely that Kuchma aims to bring the following message: when I needed to get a necessary result, I did receive it and nobody was outraged. You, however, are not capable of either organizing the elections, or their falsifying. In this case he seems to reproach the current milieu of Yanukovych: learn from my example how to hold the elections. Incidentally, according to the level of fraud these elections have been very dirty, too. The sole difference is that in 1998 and 1999 society kept silent, but today it is discontent with the bold behavior of the power. The level of destabilization has dropped down to the level of the end of 2004. There is no Maidan, yet the problem remains: everyone is unsatisfied.”

Kuchma these days is trying to look all so goody-goody, visiting universities, commenting on the elections, and giving his recommendations. However, not so long ago a criminal case has been launched against him (he was accused of the crimes against journalist Gongadze and public figure Podolsky), which has been closed with the help of the court. Incidentally, Kuchma has commented on former presidential guard Mykola Melnychenko’s return to Ukraine. “It surprises me that we are making so much fuss of the person who should be assessed in a proper way,” Kuchma said.

The author is not going to assess Melnychenko – The Day has written much about him. However, it should be noted that he is an important witness in Gongadze’s tragic story and in the so-called “cassette scandal.” But it is true that our society and journalists are making too much fuss of Kuchma. His evaluation of the elections has become top news these days equally to the elections in Ukraine and in the US. His statements are being quoted by TV channels and on the Internet, however hardly anyone writes about another hearing in Pukach’s trial, during which judge Melnyk refused to bring the second president to court as a witness. A simple question arises: what picture of the world do the mass media create?

“After looking through the headings and materials of the leading mass media for the past few days, I understood that Ukraine is focused on itself,” media expert, executive director of the Institute of Mass Information Viktoria Siumar said. “It seems to exist beyond the world context, beyond the European standards of presenting information. Information that has a real relation to life, everything that will directly affect the life of people is considered important in Europe, e.g., the question of taxation system, problems of healthcare, etc., whereas politics is perceived as a way to resolve absolutely concrete problems. Ukrainian journalism, however, is producing mostly scandalous news and topics. The example with spreading Kuchma’s criticism of the government’s actions proves that the press in mainly focused on scandalous stories. Unfortunately, even when they write about the elections, journalists are more interested in the details of scandalous violations and facts of fraud rather than deep analysis of whether the guilty persons are held responsible and where did everything start?”

The expert emphasizes that all Kuchma’s commentaries should be followed by a serious background. “Of course, you can publish Kuchma’s commentaries on the elections,” Siumar went on, “Another thing is that such commentaries should go along with some serious journalistic background, showing all the merits and faults of the ex-president. Currently we are simply spreading Kuchma’s statements without making him express his view on other topics, in particular, the Gongadze case, which in a sense concerns every Ukrainian. If all the guilty persons are punished in this case, it will mean that the rest of Ukrainians stand a chance of fair justice. The problem of Ukrainian politicians is that they don’t name concrete rational things or offer the ways to resolve the problems. They create a show. So, an entertainment trend of so to say political journalism has developed in Ukraine. And political journalists are expected to make merely scandalous statements, which will create a show. As a rule, there are no serious topics for discussion.”

One more thing. In his assessment of this year’s elections Kuchma noted, “Everyone should know that if you break the rules of the game, you are dead.” This is the quintessence of the ex-president’s analysis. The only question remains: what rules did Kuchma mean? Those stipulated by law, or the ones he created and followed during his entire presidential term? It is no surprise that some tragic accidents often occurred to the violators of his rules. The author has already mentioned Kuchma’s criminal case. But there also has been the attempt on the life of public figure Oleksii Podolsky, as well as on the life of MP Oleksandr Yeliashkevych. Besides, the Gongadze case has been followed by many deaths: Kravchenko, Kirpa, Fere, Dahaiev.

The Day has already written that all of the motions of Oleksii Podolsky, victim in the Pukach case (the texts of the appeals and statements are given below), have been denied. In his words, he had an impression that everything that had any reference to the Kuchma family was a taboo. “Kuchma’s family promises to keep the image of the current power in the West, that is why all mortal sins are forgiven to them,” Podolsky says. Incidentally, the fact that the special mission of the European Parliament, involving ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former president of the European Parliament Pet Cox, has resumed its work. As a reminder, this mission is monitoring the Tymoshenko and Lutsenko trials, as well as the Ukrainian elections. It is common knowledge that Kwasniewski is heading the Monitoring Committee of the Yalta European Strategy, whose summit is being annually held in the Crimea by Kuchma’s son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk.

MOTION

One of the main duties of the court in establishing the truth during the trial is to study and determine the motive of the crime.

In our case the investigation revealed the motives of the crimes committed by Oleksii Pukach. These are the criminal orders of Yurii Kravchenko, Minister of Internal Affairs, who gave them following the order of the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.

Thus, the trial must bring to court those, who, according to the accused Pukach, were the original cause of his crime, – Leonid Kuchma (address and all necessary data are contained in the file).

Therefore, I remind the court of its duty and request to give me the right to question Leonid Kuchma in the matter of the presented case in court, for now as a witness, which appears in the investigation materials, in the indictment, and in the evidence of the accused as the hiring individual for the crimes that Pukach was charged with. This has to be done so that this person, if he continues to say lies in the court that he is implicated in the murder of Hryhorii Gongadze and in violent actions towards me, would do it as a witness under oath before the court, and, therefore, would further bare criminal responsibility for giving untruthful information to the court.

SECOND MOTION FOR DISMISSAL OF THE JUDGE ANDRII MELNYK AS SOMEONE WHO IS CONCERNED ABOUT PROTECTING THE INTERESTS OF THE KUCHMA FAMILY

Absurd of Ukrainian judicial system, which today has nothing to do with justice, again forces me to address the Judge Andrii Melnyk with the motion for his dismissal.

Today, it became absolutely clear that Judge Melnyk is not going to find the truth in this matter and, thus, return the fair verdict. This judge has openly refused to study in court the MOTIVES of the crime, which is a crucial aspect for impartial and fair trial.

Thus, unfortunately, the Judge Melnyk is actually not a judge, he just serves as a political defender of those, who ordered the murder of Gongadze and other violent crimes against political opponents of Kuchma family and also the witnesses of those crimes.

Personally for me, this was not big news.

After all, Melnyk already performed such function, when in 2002 he falsified the lawsuit and returned a deliberately unjust verdict in the case about the attempt for assassination of the Ukraine’s MP Oleksandr Yeliashkevych. He did so in favor of the interests of the Kuchma family.

Therefore, he has personal interest in that this trial would not involve Leonid Kuchma even as a witness, in order to hide the facts of his – Melnyk’s personal – role in the violence and malfeasance committed by the order of the Kuchma family.

I, the victim in this case, Oleksii Podolsky, do not trust Judge Melnyk and declare his dismissal as a judge in the case No. 1-368/11 on charges for Oleksii Pukach. I also demand again to consider this motion as a statement of an offence under the Article No. 375 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“On returning a deliberately unlawful verdict”) and to send my motion to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine for further appropriate actions. My first statement about the crime dated December 7, 2011 was left without any, even formal reply from neither the Kyiv Pechersk Court, nor from the Prosecutor General of Ukraine for almost a year now.

STATEMENT

Now, that the Judge Melnyk has openly demonstrated his willingness to protect even from the trial those, who gave the command to kill Gongadze, commit other violent crimes both against the political opponents and the witnesses of the criminal activity of the Kuchma family, I, the victim in this case, Oleksii Podolsky, refuse to participate in the political farce of Pechersk Court style closed from public. This is the farce where the Judge Melnyk puts on the camouflage of justice and tries to put an end to the investigation of the violent crimes of the Kuchma family and to convict Pukach as a whipping boy. In my opinion, such a trial where the motives of the crime are not studied and the evidence about the murder of the main witness is ignored, brutally corrupts the justice the way it was done by Melnyk in 2002 to the order of the Kuchma family in the trial regarding the assassination of Yeliashkevych.

However, using the rights that the Ukrainian Constitution guarantees every citizen, and the international obligations on protecting human rights undertaken by the Ukrainian state, I, the victim in this case, Oleksii Podolsky, having no other choice of how to draw attention of the civil society to illegitimate action, that is called the trial in the case against Pukach, strongly object to participating in the further hearings in the case, where I am found the victim, if the Judge Melnyk will be presiding over them.

November 6, 2012

Citizen of Ukraine Oleksii Podolsky