High Posts Devalued

"It has already become a chronic disease with our President. No matter how many documents we submit showing malfeasance by high officials, we remain, alas, like an advertising agency. Those deserving to be dismissed from their posts on the basis of such evidence of  for abuse of power by presidential decree - here I have in mind a number of ministers and people from the presidential entourage - were in fact promoted by the President to a higher post or transferred horizontally, or even honored with various presidential decorations. And all this accompanies his sound bites about reinforcing the struggle against crime and corruption.

"Well, maybe, our President has found that the field of action for such fruitful patronage work is too narrow for him in Ukraine. And Mr. Kuchma decided to use his experience on the CIS expanses. So we got his protОgО, Mr. Berezovsky.

However, as soon as our anti- Mafia team got to know that Mr. Kuchma was going to recommend Mr. Berezovsky as CIS Executive Secretary, we sent our warnings through the President's close entourage: you, Mr. President, have already come unstuck with Pavlo Lazarenko and a long series of other high officials, but it was our country's internal affair. In this case you may become the laughing-stock of the whole world.

"Mr. Berezovsky, having a well-lined wallet, engaged himself in such bustling international politico-economic activity in the CIS states that Mr. Kuchma elevated him to the status of friend, perhaps to take advantage of this in the presidential elections. And who paid court to Mr. Berezovsky in Kyiv when he failed to reach Moscow flying from Paris? A presidential advisor, deputy of the President as Chairman of the Domestic Policy Council, whose accounts were impounded by decision of a Belgian court and who is now being prosecuted abroad for financial abuses.

"The President has already compromised himself so much that his actions should be looked upon in the light of the Criminal Code. So there are ample grounds today to start an impeachment procedure not for purely political or ideological reasons, as the Communists want, but - I stress this - from the viewpoint of law.

"Today, the No. 1 task for all democratic forces, all honest people, patriots of our state, for each citizen of Ukraine, is to go to bed and wake up with one thought: what have I done to remove from power Leonid Kuchma and the corrupt Mafia-type pyramid he leads?"