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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

STB Television Analyst Maryana Chorna Dies

6 July, 1999 - 00:00

Suicide version dubious in view of pressure on station

By Anatoly LEMYSH, The Day

Maryana Chorna, STB and Society Center Fund analyst, was found hanged in
her rented Kyiv apartment on June 24 at 3 p.m. The light was on, obviously
since the previous evening. The landlady who found the body called the
militia, and the task force, after examining the scene and removing the
body, sealed the apartment. The investigators believe that Ms. Chorna committed
suicide. In fact, she left a note, but it was not disclosed to the press
as the investigation is in progress.

After Ukraine became independent Maryana Chorna worked for the Lviv
newspaper Post-Postup (Post-Advance) which was very popular in the
early 1990s. In the winter of 1996, she accepted a job with STB. Last fall
she was in charge of the channel's news desk and headed the analytical
department. She was among the authors of the Shadow Sector project with
its sharp Ukrainian business corruption exposОs. And the last several months
were spent working on the giant project on the coming elections, while
preparing material for the "Right of Choice" program

Says Mykola KNIAZHYTSKY, member of the National Television and Radio
Council:

"Maryana was a complicated person with a difficult fate and quite talented.
She was an excellent analyst. She was expansive, with a quick temper, and
she had problems dealing with people, yet her colleagues appreciated her
professionalism; her talent was all too obvious. Several days before her
death she told her colleagues and me personally that she was receiving
threatening phone calls. She was advised to find another job. Actually,
lucrative offers were made, and major political figures identified who
would like to have her on their teams. I think that the tragic outcome
was caused by all these factors, most importantly by her desire to put
her capabilities to the best use and being unable to do so in this country."

Marharyta TRUBACHOVA, "Vikna" television news program journalist:

"She often said recently that someone was bullying her. In February,
while she was away, someone broke into her apartment and turned everything
upside down, apparently looking for something. Her pet, a cocker spaniel,
was viciously beaten and left on the balcony, in biting frost, obviously
because the dog was a nuisance as the apartment was searched. No one knows
who did it. Last Wednesday we sat on a bench near the STB studios, and
she said that a major politician's team offered her a job, but that she
would have to quit STB if she wanted it. And she should, or else they said
they would have 'no alternative but break your neck.' I don't know what
happened afterward. Maryana was religious and suicide is a terrible sin.
We were all shocked to hear about her death."

Unfortunately, not all who knew Maryana Chorna outside STB agreed to
an interview with The Day. At press time only Lavrenty Malazoniya,
a television producer currently associated with Hryhory Surkis, told The
Day that, knowing Maryana as he did, he tended to believe that the
tragedy is explained by her character and personal problems. Yet he did
not sound very convincing: "I know that Maryana was working on an elections
project before she died, but I don't think that her tragic end has anything
to do with politics." In any case, it is safe to assume that what happened
to Maryana Chorna is to some or other degree the result of the pressure
being sustained by STB. Suffice it to recall Oleksandr Deineka's murder
(still unsolved), the assault on managing director Dmytro Dakhno, and the
attempts to cut off the channel's satellite transmission. In addition,
word has spread that there is a contract out for STB Chairman of the Board
Volodymyr Syvkovych.

Maryana Chorna was buried in Lviv, beside her mother who passed away
last year.

 

Suicide version dubious in view of pressure on station
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