The prosecutor’s office is writing history

Leonid Kuchma once again visi­ted the Prosecutor General’s Office for interrogation. Once again he spoke about his good mood before it. This time he explained it by the celebration of Cosmonautics Day in Moscow, where people “would embrace him the whole evening.” The ex-president said he felt moral support: “I receive lots of letters and calls from all countries, including Russian lawyers.” Certainly, all this is for show. It serves to distract people from the main issue, and to form a positive image of Kuchma.

But these are trifles. One can speak at length about the number of visits of the former head of the state to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the reasons for his good mood. But for the first time in history has criminal action been taken against a former head of state of a post-Soviet country, with the possibility of him facing trial. Moreover, this will be not just a trial of his person, but also the system he built during 10 years, half of Ukraine’s years of independence. In this sense, it is only to be expected that the case will also be an assessment of that period.

Investigating the murder of Heor­hii Gongadze and the beating of Oleksii Podolsky the investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office Vladyslav Hryshchenko acts as a chro­ni­cler. Few believe that initiating this case could be realized without the political will of the president. Many people attend interrogations today and everything they say can become precious material for history books or the script for an action movie based on real events. Today people have a possibi­lity to learn the truth and form their own idea about those times — the times when the system we still live in was created. Will the government have enough good intentions to become not only chroniclers but also steer the path of history in the right direction?

“UNLESS THEY FEAR…”

Leonid KRAVCHUK, first president of Ukraine:

“There is a hope that the Prosecutor General’s Office took the road of observing the Constitution and the law, which should be the same for all. Of course, the Prosecutor General’s Office cannot write Ukraine’s history, but it can write the history of the defense system which, in my opinion, now tries to act not based on the principle of obedience to the higher authority, but on the principle of abiding by the law, which should be applied equally to everyone. For example, I neither accuse nor protect Kuchma. I believe that any person, regardless of whether he is a president or a premier, must gather evidence of their innocence. And the prosecution must gather irrefutable evidence of their involvement or guilt of one or another person when it deals with such top officials. This is normal justice and a normal reaction of society. The court then becomes a platform where any person can protect himself.

“I had such a case in my life. The German journalist Rot wrote that I funneled 30 million dollars to Israel, and wrote other nonsense. I appealed to the land court of Germany. There was a trial. Rot was pronounced guilty. They delivered the judgment to destroy all the materials he published. And if this doesn’t happen — then to impose a fine of 100,000 Deutsche marks on him. Rot was interrogated and said that the Russian FSB provided him with these materials and the Ukrainian go­vern­ment confirmed them. In other words, I knew who was behind it. But I didn’t complain to anyone, I just pressed charges. And the court came to such a conclusion. By the way, I write about it in my book United Ukraine – United People.

“If we speak about modern history, each person in Ukraine should write about themselves — you, me, the Prosecutor General Pshonka, President Yanukovych, the premier, etc. And the fact that the prosecution undertook such a case, in my opinion, can become the beginning of a demolition of the oligarch-clan, corrupt system. The beginning. If they don’t fear, if they have enough willpower and stand their ground. And then history will record that when President Yanukovych came to power the first steps were made in the direction of this development of events.”

“IT DEPENDS ON HOW THEY MANAGE TO DO IT”

Sviatoslav PISKUN, a people’s deputy, ex-prosecutor general of Ukraine:

“When I was prosecutor general, we didn’t have sufficient reasons to launch a criminal action. Many things have changed since then. Now, according to Kuzmin, the Prosecutor General’s Office has those reasons. Is modern history being written in the Prosecutor General’s Office now? I think the only and direct task of the Prosecutor General’s Office is to observe the fulfillment of the laws in the state. And therefore, being the highest institution, the Prosecutor General’s Office must do everything possible to ensure abidance to the law after criminal cases are launched, when they are ceased and during investigations. How will they cope with it? History will give its own assessment.”

“IN THE PAST HISTORY WAS WRITTEN WITH SABERS”

Larysa IVSHYNA, The Day’s editor-in-chief:

“Different nations, including Ukrainians, had periods when history was written with sabers.

“There were other periods as well – when history was written with pens at tables. In Ukraine, for example, these were the times of the Princes of Ostroh, Sahaidachny, Mazepa, Orlyk. The list is long.

“Sometimes history is written by the dignity of rebellions and defense of one’s lands. Kholodny Yar. Kruty.

“In the early 1990s Ukraine’s history was written by laws. Despite the post-Soviet reality, they managed to adopt important legislative acts.

“And then different undercurrents changed the course of Ukraine’s history. In the next period it was written in such a way that it is now examined in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Renat Kuzmin and investigator Vladyslav Hryshchenko, when they retire, can write a textbook: what it means when people that cannot manage authority come to power. And how responsible people must be when they have the right of choice.”

“ABOUT PARALLEL PROCESSES”

Ihor LOSIEV, publicist:

“In Ukraine’s recent history two pa­rallel processes took place. One of them is the history of the Ukrainian people, who tried to develop the state, and the second is the history of separate circles that tried to settle, above all, their private issues. Finally, we got an abyss between the government and the people. One part of society, a very small one, is very prosperous, and the absolute majority of the population is actually growing poor. We must solve the problem of the adequacy of leadership, which for 20 years has led Ukraine on the twisted ways of history by the objective aspiration of the Ukrainian people. I am very skeptical about the Kuchma case. I don’t know why the current government is interested in investigating it in an honest way. Since it deals not only with the specific fact of the murder of Gongadze. It deals with the fact that in the country a system that made such things possible was created. Why do these people, and we know very well who rules the country today, investigate the crimes of a system that created them with self-denial? If a principally different person, opposite in their essence to this system, came to power, then, maybe, true history would be written. But today there are no such people in the government. Yushchenko honestly said that he was Kuchma’s son. I don’t know who Yanu­kovych thinks he is in relation to Leonid Kuchma.”

“CIVIC SOCIETY WILL WRITE THE HISTORY”

Oleksii PODOLSKY, journalist:

“First, I wouldn’t overestimate the merits of the Prosecutor General’s Office. It is only an initiator, a wheel that sets the political will in motion. The Prosecutor General’s Office is a tool, and Hryshchenko is a small rivet. It is impossible to investigate such cases without political will. Therefore I wouldn’t make heroes of investigators and the Prosecutor General’s Office. In my opinion, the government investigates this case selectively. Because the key issues here are not the Melnychenko tapes but the murder of Kravchenko and the falsification of his case. At this, the cases (my, Krav­chen­ko’s, Gongadze’s) were falsified by investigators who work in the Prosecutor General’s Office today. They are all there, they even bear orders. This is the real history, which involves Kuchma, Yushchenko, Tur­chy­nov, Piskun, Potebenko, etc.

“In fact, with all due respect to Gongadze, who became a victim on the altar for the sake of Ukraine’s future, the core is not in his or my case. Not one or two persons are behind our cases, but the possibility of a citizen to tell the truth, to live in accordance with conscience, to be internally free. Our cases are personified, but they represent the interests of millions of simple Ukrainian citizens. If this case is not investigated, such people as Lozinsky will continue killing our people in forests. We will not be able to walk freely in our streets. If we don’t show the government its place and make it serve us, this will end badly for the Ukrainian society. Therefore I suppose that the case of Gongadze is a point of honor for each Ukrainian citizen. We must make the Pro­secutor General’s Office, the president and the premier bring this case to an end in order to avoid similar things in the future.

“One should pay tribute to the current government, it undertook such a step, there are some results, but let’s count our chickens when they are hatched. The previous government simply betrayed us. It was under president Yushchenko and Turchynov, the head of the SBU, that Kravchenko, the main witness in our case, was killed. It was then that this case was falsified. They betrayed all those promises which they voiced on the Maidan. Moreover, they still remain in politics and prevent democratic forces from emerging. They can be compared with a cork in a bottle that prevents a genie or liquid from getting out. We should tell the truth about these people as well. They must bear responsibility, including for the Gongadze case.

“We all know how our law-enforcement system is organized. It is far from independent. Therefore our task is to make everything possible for our courts and law-enforcement system to work as a separate mechanism and not as a tool of politicians.

“Today we, the civic society, write history. This happens in all countries. We elect our politicians ourselves. The international community helps us today with their attention, in particular, constantly following the Gongadze case. Globalization does not only concern the economy but also information, and freedom of speech cannot be stopped. Even Russia and China cannot do it. These are the levers which move the Gongadze case. In any case, despite difficulties, civic society is developing in Ukraine. And no one will be able to stop this development. Civic society can be slowed down, suspended, temporarily overpowe­red, but truth and justice is with us.”

“ONE NEEDS AN IDEA TO WRITE A HISTORY”

Taras ZHOVTENKO, candidate of science (politics), Rivne:

“The elite is guilty of the unwritten modern history. Above all, the political-intellectual one. In order to write history as such, one needs an idea. When the struggle for independence was ongoing, statehood was this idea. However, then we should have been directed to the development of society. However, there was no such idea. It was replaced by interests of business-political groups. And since, in this context, one doesn’t speak about legitimacy, the function of ‘writing history’ shifted onto law-enforcement structures. Therefore, actually, in our country the police and prosecution does this. “Perfectly, our history should be the history of a nation which for a long period of time underwent a foreign influence, and having gained the statehood used this experience for its development. In a word, this is the history of national identity of a typical Western European state.”

“THE RESTORATION OF SOVIET SPIRIT IS THE WORST THING THAT HAPPENED”

Mykola HORDICHENKO, assistant professor at the chair of social and humanities disciplines at the Glinka Dnipropetrovsk Conservatory:

“Leonid Kuchma is the architect of the system existing at present in Ukraine. No doubt that the foundation of this system was laid in the period of his presidency. Everything was determined by the model of privatization of state property chosen at that time. It led to the appearance of oligarchic capital in Ukraine, which now runs the economy and political life. According to recent information, in Ukraine, a country with a poor population, some 20 billionaires in US dollars have appeared. At the same time, in neighboring Poland, as far as I know, there is only one billionaire in dollars. The point is that privatization in the countries of Central Europe and the former Soviet Baltic states was held not in favor of a group of people, but with the purpose of forming a middle class. As a result, the privatized property was more or less equally distributed among entrepreneurs and real competition appeared — the stimulus for progress. Even the debts of the Savings Bank were fully returned to investors in Baltic states by means of revenues from privatization. In our country citizens were simply robbed, by impudently giving their savings in the form of ‘free’ loans which then were allegedly nullified by hyperinflation. It’s interesting that Ukraine under Kuchma’s rule went the way of voucher privatization following the Russian model, though already at that time it was clear from the example of the neighboring state where this way would lead. Belarus, which didn’t follow Moscow, already in 1997 returned to its GDP level from the Soviet times, and we still cannot reach the level of 1991. In 20 years we found ourselves in a debtors’ prison, though initially Ukraine had one of the best starting conditions. As a result of the formation of oligarch capital a political system inevitably inclined toward authoritarian methods of rule was created. In some sense the Gongadze case became the indicator of a system that was created yet with Kuchma. In my view, the worst thing that happened during his presidency is the restoration of the Soviet spirit under the rule of oligarch capital. The Soviet system deprived our people of the ability to self-organize. Despite the upheaval of the perestroika period or the Orange Revolution, Ukrainian society ended up being crushed by poverty and injustice. There is no middle class, the basis for democracy, and its sprouts are immediately pressed by tax legislation and administrative willfulness. In my opinion, trade unions can be the only way out of this situation, as it was in European countries and the US. However, I mean real trade unions, created from below, and not the ones existing today and serving the oligarchs. By the way, the profanation of the trade union movement is one more ‘merit’ of the system established during Kuchma’s presidency, whose son-in-law is also a billionaire. I think it will be not easy for Ukraine to get rid of so-called ‘kuchmism,’ it can take even dozens of years. Only the first lines of this history have been written.”

“NOW WE KNOW THAT PRESIDENTS CAN BE INTERROGATED AS WELL”

Dementii BIELY, head of the Kherson regional organization of the Committee of Ukrainian Voters (in politics since 1996):

“What new things did the investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office tell us? Didn’t we read the articles by Heorhii Gongadze, leaflets of the action Ukraine without Kuchma, or the transcripts of Melnychenko’s tapes? Did we forget how the police dragged all potential participants of protests to preventive talks? How we overcame fear step by step and then struggled with despair and disappointment and lost?

“Investigators of the Prosecutor Ge­ne­ral’s Office are not writing history, the real author is the people — journalists, public activists, politicians and ordinary citizens. Those who attended the actions Ukraine without Kuchma, those who wrote about ‘temnyks’ (recommended list of to­pics for journalists), would stood on the Mai­dan under different colors, struggled at polling stations during numerous elections. In this recent history the role of the Prosecutor General’s Office in comprehending the past is auxiliary. But the actions of its investigators are invaluable for the future, I suppose. We witness prosecutors removing sacred clothes from our untouchable government. Now we know that presidents can be interrogated as well. And this doesn’t require revolutions or unrest. However, we need to bridle the corruption, this absolute vice of our system, to prevent these interrogations from being either a game or a political persecution.

“Our modern history is an endless transition from ‘Egyptian slavery’ to freedom. Numerous peoples went through this transition. It’s now our turn. On its way there are and will be temptations, worshiping a golden calf, illusions, mistakes, and trials. But I’m sure our descendants will be proud of these ‘episodes.’ They will be proud of those who didn’t fear to participate in the first meetings, hunger strikes, who picketed, wrote articles and made life freer.”

“THIS IS A POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE”

Yevhen MARCHUK, public figure:

“Launching a criminal case against former president Leonid Kuchma and bringing an accusation against him of committing a grave offense is not simply a sensation. It’s a political earthquake. Certainly, this will mark a point in modern Ukrainian history. I think eventually it will become an extended example for textbooks in criminology, journalism, political science and maybe state governance. I hope this will become a chapter of a textbook for all future presidents of Ukraine, and maybe not only Ukraine.

“But we still don’t know if it will have positive results, i.e. purification. Not everything is so clear. For the new go­vernment, this, of course, is a strong move, which should be supported by all means. However, so far this is only a good move, there are still lots of questions, not so much to the plot of the investigation of the fact ‘whether he ordered or did not order to kill’ — since the man was killed after the well-known conversation — as within the range of investigating the reasons, motives and artificial circumstances which led to the murder of Heorhii Gongadze. It was not only a cynical murder of a journalist by go­vernment representatives. This brutal cri­mi­nal act became a kind of symbol of the shameful phenomenon in the state of that time which, unfortunately, was gaining strength as seen in the unpunished severe beating of Oleksii Podolsky. Then came the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, and then the deaths of ministers Kravchenko and Kyrpa; this was followed by the mysterious deaths of two high officials colonels general and one major general of the police who, in a way, were related to the Gongadze case; then came murders of important witnes­ses in other resonant criminal cases in investigation wards, such as the case of the gang of ‘turncoats,’ the swindle with the cruise missiles X-55, and some others.

“Renat Kuzmin said it first: ‘There is a pile of corpses around the Gongadze case.’ After the criminal case was initiated, some journalists and experts tried to find out why the Party of Regions needed it. It’s very simple: the current government doesn’t have anything to do with this case. Why should they carry this burden?

“From all appearances, the current government doesn’t have any obligations to anyone owing to its victory in the elections. A direct benefit of democracy! And then there is one question: Will they ma­nage to finish what they started? Will the investigation manage to get to the heart of the matter and find the real reasons for this dangerous process, all the mechanisms and participants of its formation? It’s clear there will be extremely strong resistance. There are huge resources for it. But this is the moment which can become a turning point in history. And not only for the Party of Regions. In this case, as they say, ‘either… or.’”