EDITORIAL: Kuchma and the press (02/15/98)

EDITORIAL

Kuchma and the press

Political combat has reached a fever pitch in and around government circles as the election campaign to the Verkhovna Rada becomes increasingly vitriolic. Most of the mudslinging thus far has come from two combatants for whom the climactic battle will probably not begin until later this year when the race for the presidency heats up.

President Leonid Kuchma and Pavlo Lazarenko, his former ally and prime minister, and now himself a presidential hopeful, are looking for strategic advantages in the parliamentary election season. Both are using tactics that make U.S. politics look like a lovefest. Through proxies they have exchanged charges of financial impropriety and corruption, most of which will probably never be proven.

The two sides have developed strong ties, financial and otherwise, to major media outlets. President Kuchma is commonly known to control several television stations, while Mr. Lazarenko has influence over several newspapers, including Pravda Ukrainy and the widely read Vseukrainskiye Viedomosti. So it is no surprise that much of the vitriol has moved through these media organs, including accusations that Mr. Lazarenko holds an illegal Swiss bank account, that President Kuchma has built himself a palatial country home at government expense and that his current prime minister was involved in a multi-million-dollar swindle involving the renovation of Kyiv's showcase concert hall.

But the political conflict between the two powerful men reached a new and unfortunate level when Minister of Information Zinovii Kulyk suddenly announced the shut-down of Pravda Ukrainy on January 28 because it had improperly re-registered itself last summer as an Antiguan-Ukrainian joint venture. Although Mr. Kulyk said he was merely temporarily halting publication of the newspaper until it had properly registered with government authorities and that the matter was non-political, a question must be asked. Why did the government take months to discover that Pravda Ukrainy was registered improperly? And why now? The timing was perfect. It came just as after the Lazarenko camp accused the Pustovoitenko government, and by association President Kuchma, of financial improprieties in the renovation of the Ukraina Palace of Culture.

This action, aside from ensuring that the Kuchma-Lazarenko wars will continue, again calls into question the president's commitment to freedom of the press and to his role as "guarantor of the Constitution," a role he proudly claims to take very seriously. The guarantor of the Constitution should understand, if he understands democracy at all, that a decision by the government to close an independent mass publication is not taken lightly or impulsively, no matter what the political battle.

In August 1997 The Weekly ran a two-part series written by Ukrainian journalist Serhiy Naboka, in which he documented just how the president was moving to control the Ukrainian media. He called the president's efforts a "soft, yet persistent form of ideological control over editorial direction." We hope that President Kuchma understands that the decision by his Ministry of Information to shut down a news media outlet publication that happens to side with his arch political enemy, comes very close (if it does not yet cross the line from intimidation) to downright censorship.

Political dogfights are vicious affairs, for whatever good or bad reason. The responsibility of the press is to document just those types of political interactions that are occurring today in the heated election season in Ukraine. As probably the most powerful person in Ukraine, President Kuchma has enough political weapons at his disposal not to have to smear the Constitution with political blood.

As Steven Pifer, the new U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, said at an Embassy-sponsored seminar on the media and elections, the Pravda Ukrainy affair "is a complex and complicated issue," but "protecting the rule of law and freedom of the press is vital to democracy."

Whether shutting down Pravda Ukrainy was a political move or simply a very badly timed bureaucratic decision, President Kuchma must allow Pravda Ukrainy to publish again while it brings itself into line with Ukraine's press laws. This is his responsibility as the guarantor of the Constitution.

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