Who Switched On Melnychenko?
Leonid Kuchma is convinced that the continuing anti-presidential agitation is a well-orchestrated campaign aimed at an early resignation of the duly elected President, Interfax reports. “You can also clearly see here not only the Ukrainian roots. For if it were a purely Ukrainian campaign, it would have died out long ago,” Mr. Kuchma said in an interview published in Trud and Rossiyskaya gazeta last Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the foreign provenance of the cassette scandal has been unexpectedly confirmed by the opposition itself. Ukrayinska pravda (www.pravda.com.ua) reported that same day that the decision to grant asylum to Major Melnychenko had been masterminded by the Washington- based Center for International Development Policy. Washington sources claim this organization obtained the necessary guarantees from the US State Department with respect to Melnychenko as long ago as April 5. The major himself allegedly came to know about this only a week later.
According to this online publication, the center has “vast experience,” and its “representatives helped the Soviet Union withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by entering into confidential talks with the Mujaheddin fighters. In addition, the center took active part in the removal (always successful) from the political stage of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the corrupt regimes of South Korea, Salvador, and Peru.” Now that Melnychenko has taken his tapes to the US, Leonid Kuchma and his entourage have a much more limited freedom of maneuver, UP believes. Should the US make public the Melnychenko tapes, UP writes, nobody will be able to stop the major.
The US Embassy neither confirmed nor denied this information. An assistant to the press attach О with the American Embassy in Ukraine, Vadym Kovaliuk, told The Day’s Serhiy SOLODKY he was unaware of such alleged facts or the existence of the mentioned Center for International Development Policy. Mr. Kovaliuk stressed that he would have to check whether this information is authentic.
The Embassy of Ukraine in the US also told The Day they knew nothing about the existence of this center. Nor does the embassy have any information about Mykola Melnychenko having been granted political asylum or refugee status.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko announced last Tuesday that Ukraine would formally request the US government in the immediate future to extradite Melnychenko. Mr. Potebenko also added Melnychenko should be put under arrest for his criminal, not political, activities, Uatop quotes Reuters.
