Gongadzegate

Those who like me are pushing the half century mark remember the Watergate scandal all too well, and what has been happening with the scandal concerning the disappearance of journalist Heorhy Gongadze is eerily familiar with a foul-mouthed president allegedly being tape-recorded expressing his personal dissatisfaction with a hapless journalist, who then allegedly winds up headless, rival demonstrators for and against the chief executive (with those ostensibly for him openly talking about being paid ten hryvnias apiece to stand next to parliament). The president’s supporters were quite right to come up with their own tape faking the voice of the president’s chief accuser, Oleksandr Moroz. Technology has progressed since the days of Woodward and Bernstein to the point where you can fake anybody saying anything and proving a recording genuine is virtually impossible (which is not to say the that every effort should not be made to do so). Still, the center of attention should not be the tape in question but the presidential guard who produced it and might be able to give eyewitness testimony that may or may not stand up in court. It is a basic principle of any law-governed state, which Ukraine still is not but ostensibly hopes to become, that President Kuchma like any other person accused of a crime has to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but it is also true that there has to be a legal mechanism to ascertain this guilt or innocence, and no such mechanism is yet in place. The way the defendants in the Vitrenko bombing trial describe how they were put through the third degree is just as shameful from the standpoint of official lawlessness as anything that might have happened to Gongadze. It has to stop or else this country will never evolve into a civilized decent member of the world community. Regardless of where the truth might finally be found to lie, it has to be found in a transparent and thorough investigation to be judged according to firm legal mechanisms. Otherwise, the whole thing will never engender anything but fear and loathing in us all.