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WHAT DO HEORHY GONGADZE AND THE GONGADZE CASE HAVE IN COMMON?

16 January, 00:00

Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko spoke in parliament last Wednesday, reporting on the Gongadze case. Among other things, he stated that the genetic examination of the body found at Tarashcha established its 99.6% probable identity with Heorhy Gongadze.

If it is true that man’s soul can exist separately from his body, the case at issue is a graphic example. One receives the most tragic news calmer if one is prepared for it. For almost four months we have been prepared to hear that Gongadze is dead, considering all the indirect evidence pointing to his violent death, so when it was confirmed almost officially there was no outburst.

The Prosecutor General said the genetic tests show the Tarashcha body’s DNA as being identical to that of Gongadze by 99.6 percent. Is this evidence sufficient proof of the missing journalist’s death? If so, his presentation in parliament ought to have been focused on the investigation. In reality, he scarcely mentioned it. Instead, Mr. Potebenko offered a lengthy discourse refuting the Moroz-Melnychenko version of the Ukrainian top leadership’s complicity in the journalist’s abduction. Would we know anything about Gongadze and who is to blame for his disappearance and death without Moroz and his audio cassettes and without Melnychenko with his rehearsed and recorded accusations?

It is highly unlikely that Gongadze’s mother sitting in the press box, listening to the Prosecutor General, wanted to know the technical details that make bugging the president’s office impossible or how the inquiry committee members traveled abroad. All she wanted to know was what had happened to her son. After Mykhailo Potebenko briefly reported the forensic findings and went on with his discourse, the woman left the audience bent under the burden of the tragic news, her eyes swelling with tears.

Hardly anyone noticed her exit in the packed audience and jammed press box, because the violent death of the journalist did not interest them as much as who would vote for which resolution; whether any ministers would be fired and how the political leadership would respond to Major Melnychenko’s fresh revelations. Gongadze is dead, but his case is only beginning to gather scope and momentum. The human tragedy is pushed into the background, and I fear we will never know what really happened; the body’s identification and making the findings public knowledge took months, meaning that actually investigating the case will take God knows how long.

What the architects of the Gongadze case are actually after is not so much the dead journalist as the existing political system, which is not to their liking. The journalist’s life became just another base coin in the ongoing power play, struggle for control over money flows, and influence on the military along with the security ministries and agencies. And they have practically reached their goal. Those in charge of the organizations meant to uphold law and order have found themselves among the personae of the scandal, so that now their almost every step can be viewed from the perspective of all those accusations remaining neither proven nor disproved. The same is true of the head of the state who lost control over the situation and has to respond to his former security officer’s allegations, some of which make no sense at all. Who might benefit from the president having his hands tied and parliament dealing not with bills but with increasingly less intriguing accusations by Moroz & Co., along with stilted statements from the opposite side? Or perhaps mass students’ and office employees’ rallies, suddenly eager to support the constitutional order after the holidays, will help enhance the people’s confidence in the regime.

Groups of exponents and opponents of the regime started to gather in front of Verkhovna Rada Wednesday morning. They were supposed to act as wrathful masses demanding to hear the truth from the Prosecutor General through the public address system. At noon, a gust of cold wind from the Dnipro was chasing leaflets across the empty square in front of parliament. All had left after doing their job. They will come again, of course, when summoned, except that Gongadze will be replaced by other names on the posters and runners, belonging to the actual figures vying for power in the atmosphere of uncertainty they themselves created.

The Gongadze case is underway without the journalist. The appellation will be used long afterward, although it is actually the case of Moroz, Melnychenko, Holovaty, Kravchenko, Lytvyn, Derkach, Potebenko, et al., who will continue attacking opponents using their own methods, further weakening this state, weak as it already is. Against the shocking background of the Gongadze case, other scandals centered on privatization, energy market operators, tax authorities’ arbitrariness, and the crime rate (which is still high, despite official statistics) will not be as resonant. Crimes will continue to be perpetrated, big and small, with or without homicide. Gongadze’s murderers will never be found, just as nobody has been found in the previous such cases involving names big and small. But the name of the journalist, God rest his soul, will long be used in other cases that are for some reason collectively referred to as the Gongadze case.

Mykhailo Potebenko, nevertheless, emphasized there is insufficient evidence to “arrive at the unequivocal conclusion that the body found in Tarashcha District, Kyiv oblast, belongs to the missing journalist Heorhy Gongadze. “It is impossible to ascertain the death of an unknown person,” he declared.

Mr. Potebenko further read from the forensic report of the Ministry of Health: The body belongs to a male aged 30-39, 177-184 cm. in height. Fragmentation effects in the right forearm and right hand were sustained in life and characteristic of damage caused by an explosion and resulting fragments. In addition, there is an old fracture of the main phalanx of the little finger toward the left palm, caused by a fragment from a detonated explosive charge, subsequently surgically removed. The body was decapitated, using a sharp cutting tool such as an ax.

The Prosecutor General went on to say that forensic medical examination suggests that the body has been exposed to decomposition lasting two to three months, while Heorhy Gongadze disappeared a month and half earlier on September 16, and the body was discovered at Tarashcha November 3, 2000.

The part of Mr. Potebenko’s report dealing with DNA studies was rich in special terminology: “The chromosome DNA profile in the biological samples from the corpse found at Tarashcha tallies with the DNA profile that can be present in Gongadze’s biological son (Lesia, Gongadze’s mother: IF).” In other words, there is 99.6% probability that Lesia Gongadze is indeed the mother of the unidentified man, declared Mr. Potebenko.

INCIDENTALLY

Mykhailo Potebenko clearly stated at a January 10 news conference at the Prosecutor General’s Office that the tapes supplied by Major Melnychenko are a sham and the information they contained is a pack of lies. While the investigating offices have to distract themselves dealing with matters like this, he said, the real crooks are in the shadows. In parliament, he stated that he has information from reliable sources that Gongadze is alive, and that this information is being checked. When asked by a member of the Reporters sans Frontieres mission about the license plate of the car which Gongadze claimed had followed him, the Prosecutor General replied that the license plate the journalist referred to in his statement was found to have been canceled at the time. Mr. Potebenko also voiced his surprise at the international journalist organization taking such interest in the missing journalist’s case. After the news conference, Robert Menard, Secretary General of Reporters sans Frontieres, who was unable to answer the question posed him during the conference, declared they had on more than one occasion addressed various structures in Ukraine in conjunction with acts of violence against local journalists. He also pointed out that such a situation is intolerable in a European country. At a January 11 news conference, the envoys of the international journalists’ organization were slated to share their observations and express their views on the manner in which the Gongadze case is being handled. Before long, a report on the freedom of expression in Ukraine will be prepared, with copies forwarded to ranking Ukrainian officials and European authorities. At the moment, Mr. Menard stressed, a list is being drawn up of thirty heads of states that the Reporters believe threaten the freedom of expression.

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