Tape scandal becomes international affair as PACE urges independent investigation (02/04/01)

Tape scandal becomes international affair as PACE urges independent investigation

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - "Tapegate," the scandal surrounding video and audio recordings that allegedly have implicated President Leonid Kuchma and a coterie of high-level government officials in the disappearance of a Ukrainian reporter and the subsequent cover-up of the crime, became an international affair on January 25 when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemned the lack of freedom of expression in Ukraine, and agreed to organize an independent investigation into certain aspects of the case.

In Ukraine the scandal continued to take on additional dimensions when on January 26 more tape recordings surfaced in which a voice similar to the president's discusses criminal activity with various government officials. Meanwhile, tent cities established in several metropolitan centers in support of an effort to remove the president from office were banned or destroyed as law enforcement officials tried to maintain control over growing public disenchantment with the president.

After a session in Strasbourg, France, devoted to Tapegate and freedom of expression in Ukraine, PACE refrained from sanctioning the country for its less than pristine human rights record of late, but voted to take responsibility for an independent analysis of the audiotapes and to give their author political asylum.

The human rights body, which consists of representatives of Europe's Parliaments, also agreed to conduct an independent DNA analysis of the body found at the beginning of November 2000 in the town of Tarascha, Kyiv Oblast, which Ukrainian authorities have said may be that of Heorhii Gongadze, a radio journalist who vanished, literally without a trace, on September 16.

The body was found as Ukrainian law enforcement officials continued to maintain that they had no leads into the journalist's disappearance and amid their suggestions that he perhaps had gone into hiding in order to run from a romantic fling gone sour or a business deal gone bad. More controversy developed when the body was secretly moved from the local morgue to Kyiv and the local coroner was arrested for "improperly" identifying the body as that of the missing journalist and releasing it to the custody of his colleagues.

Mr. Gongadze was the creator and publisher of one of Ukraine's first Internet newspapers, which was highly critical of the Kuchma administration and spent much time exposing the activities of Ukraine's so-called "oligarchs."

Ukraine's Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko has refused to certify that the Tarascha remains are those of Mr. Gongadze, although he has admitted that the tests are 99.6 percent conclusive.

On September 25 PACE delegations heard rapporteurs - members of the monitoring committee that scrutinizes whether Ukraine is fulfilling its obligations as promised when it took membership in the organization - lambaste the status of freedom of expression in Ukraine. Interfax-Ukraine reported that Hanne Severinsen, one of two lead rapporteurs on the committee, noted that Mr. Gongadze had become a symbol of the lack of journalistic freedom in the country.

Representatives of several national delegations also voiced concern for the situation in Ukraine. Polish representative Andrzej Urbanczyk, a member of the Committee on Education and Culture, noted that the Gongadze case is only "the tip of the iceberg" on human rights problems in Ukraine today. A Swedish delegate said Mr. Gongadze "died because of his political views."

At the end of discussions, PACE members agreed to conduct an independent investigation into the authenticity of the audiotapes that allegedly contain discussions between President Kuchma, his chief of staff and minister of internal affairs, which, if authentic, could implicate the three in organizing the disappearance of the missing journalist.

However, PACE said that it first must receive an official request from the Ukrainian Parliament to do so, as well as the original tape recordings. PACE also recommended that the ministerial committee of the Council of Europe offer Mykola Melnychenko, the former presidential bodyguard who claims to have made the recordings, political asylum in one of its member-states should he ask for it. While refraining from either suspending or banning Ukraine from membership in PACE, the body asserted its right to return to the issue during its June session.

Ukraine's permanent representative to the Council of Europe, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Oleksander Chalyi, expressed consternation at the PACE resolutions and cited difficulties that could ensue if it turns out that the tapes are forgeries. He explained that another problem was that the resolution was worded in such a way that it did not ensure that the expert analysis will be done in a manner that later would allow for it to be used in an unbiased criminal investigation.

"Some positions [taken] will cause certain difficulties in the process of their implementation at the level of the Council of Europe executive bodies," said Mr. Chalyi, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

He also said Ukrainian authorities did not have in their possession the master tapes that PACE required for the analysis, and, therefore, had no way of providing them.

However, National Deputy Serhii Holovaty, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE and one of the lawmakers driving the Tapegate investigation, said that if the Verkhovna Rada formally requests the help of PACE in analyzing the tape recordings he would make sure the organization receives the originals.

If January 25 was a bad day for President Kuchma, the next day was only worse. That day National Deputy Viktor Shyshkyn - who along with National Deputy Oleksander Chyzh and Mr. Holovatyi made the video recording in which the ex-presidential body guard testifies how he tape-recorded the president - released another audiotape that implicates the president in still other illegal actions.

The newest montage of recordings allegedly made by Mr. Melnychenko while he worked as a personal bodyguard to Mr. Kuchma, consists of 1.5 hours of discussions with various state officials and politicians, allegedly including Security Services of Ukraine Chief Leonid Derkach, who talks about a wiretap on the phone of Yulia Tymoshenko, the recently ousted vice prime minister and long a political opponent of the president; State Tax Administration Chairman Mykola Azarov, who explains how to apply political pressure to individuals using his tax authority; and Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko, who discusses how to put pressure on Supreme Court Chief Judge Vitalii Boyko so that he does the executive's bidding in resolving certain court cases.

Also included is a conversation purportedly with Sumy Oblast Chairman Volodymyr Scherban, in which he offers Mr. Kuchma shares in the privatization of a specialized chemical plant in gratitude for his appointment.

But what could be the most interesting aspect of the latest recordings, other than evidence of a pattern of illegal activity by Mr. Kuchma - if indeed the voice on the tape is that of the president - is that the voices of national deputies in benign conversation with Mr. Kuchma also are included. Some lawmakers already have acknowledged that the recorded dialogues took place, including Oleksander Turchynov, who heads the Batkivschyna faction in the Parliament, and Taras Chornovil of the Rukh Party. Both lawmakers have stated that the discussions they heard on the tapes actually occurred.

Mr. Shyshkyn said he would ask other national deputies to verify portions of the tape recordings on which their voices apparently are heard.

As Tapegate continued to unravel, anti-Kuchma demonstrations under the slogan "Ukraine Without Kuchma" expanded to more regions of Ukraine, only to be suppressed by state militia in many areas.

While demonstrations in Cherkasy and Ternopil continued with dozens of pup tents clustered in the respective city centers, in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Rivne local officials either banned demonstrations or dispersed protesters.

In Rivne, on January 23 an elite detachment of state militia forces manhandled and beat dozens of protesters in a "Ukraine Without Kuchma" action. While law enforcement officials maintained that they used force in response to violent actions by the demonstrators, some of the students involved said the militia attacked without being provoked.

In Kharkiv, militia swept through the city center, where protesters had erected a tent city, uprooting tents and forcing demonstrators to leave.

City health officials in Dnipropetrovsk used a more peaceful approach to ward off problems, banning a public demonstration and the erection of a tent city in the city center by stating that this would promote viral infections, as well as lead to unsanitary conditions that would aggravate a rat problem in the city.

Meanwhile, in the capital, the organizers of the "Ukraine Without Kuchma" movement said they were ready to renew activities that were suspended during the Christmas holidays but found that the site of their pre-New Year demonstrations was no longer accessible. On January 27 the few tents that had been pitched in the last few days were moved and a seven-foot green construction barricade was erected around both sides of Kyiv's central square. Officials said the barriers were erected in preparation for reconstruction of the square, which will receive a new look in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of independence celebrations scheduled for August.

Kyiv leaders of the "Ukraine Without Kuchma" movement promised they would begin their action with renewed vigor on February 6, the same day the Verkhovna Rada is scheduled to begin its seventh session, during which it is expected to continue to put pressure on the president and law enforcement officials to bring Tapegate to a proper resolution.

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