Will Lazarenko Tell All?

It was the Prosecutor General's Office that suggested an in camera hearing. Mr. Lazarenko seems bent on fulfilling the promise he gave after returning from Swiss custody, to strike a staggering blow against those in power. Mr. Lazarenko claims the PGO has submitted entirely different charges against him to Verkhovna Rada and the Swiss law-enforcement bodies: for "acquisition of six buildings and river clean-up" to the Karmazin committee and for "illegal manufacture of and trafficking in firearms and drugs between Ukraine and Russia" to the Swiss.

Incidentally, Mr. Lazarenko's fellow party member Serhiy Pravdenko has already prepared "an answer to Chamberlain": the deputies were offered a draft resolution on setting up a fact-finding commission "to study the size of the real estate holdings belonging to state and government leaders, ministers, other high officials, and their family members." The commission would be charged with reporting its findings exactly one month before the presidential elections. The Communists, of course, support the idea. Volodymyr Moiseyenko suggested stock-taking of all buildings more than 200 square meters in area erected after 1992.

But the point is that non-card-carrying communists also live there.