Moroz, visiting U.S., paints alarming picture of Ukraine
by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly
WASHINGTON - The leader of the Ukrainian Socialist Party, Oleksander Moroz, came here last week to explain why the movement he helped organize in the final months of last year wants to oust Ukraine's current president, Leonid Kuchma.
Mr. Moroz launched the ouster move in late November 2000 when he played conversations secretly taped in the president's office on which Mr. Kuchma's voice is heard discussing the removal of Heorhii Gongadze, an Internet journalist known for his criticism of the administration. The journalist's headless body was later found not far from Kyiv.
Mr. Moroz, who was chairman of the Verkhovna Rada from 1994 to 1998, painted an alarming picture of the current state of affairs in Ukraine - including the abuse of power and human rights, officially sanctioned corruption and rampant electronic surveillance.
He also outlined his vision of what needs to be done in order to preserve democracy in that country. "Ukraine today stands at a crossroad," he said on the first day of his visit here. "It can become either a democratic country or a criminal dictatorship."
Addressing a packed briefing room at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on February 27, Mr. Moroz said that underlying the current political crisis in Ukraine was the usurpation of power by the president and his closest allies, as was revealed in some of the 300 hours of recordings purportedly made by the president's personal security guard, Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, who is now in hiding somewhere in Europe.
This abuse is prevalent throughout Ukrainian society, he said - in the monopoly of clans that block economic reforms, authoritarianism and the elimination of the separation of powers in government, one-party rule, repression of dissent, total control of the media and abuse of human rights.
Mr. Moroz was invited to the United States by the Eurasia Group, a private consulting organization founded in 1998 to promote "understanding, development and investment" in that region.
While in Washington, Mr. Moroz said, he would be meeting with representatives of the U.S. government and Congress. His schedule also included wider meetings with journalists, businessmen and interested specialists in that region, such as the briefing at RFE/RL and two paid events, in Washington and New York.
To counter the abuses of the Kuchma administration, Mr. Moroz said, the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement was formed; it now has more than 35 political parties and organizations, encompassing the entire spectrum - left to right - of political affiliation in the country. More recently, the Forum for National Salvation was created, bringing into the opposition movement an even wider range of people from all walks of life, he said.
"The overriding goal of the opposition is not so much to remove President Kuchma, as such. One could say that he is but a temporary player in this," Mr. Moroz said. "We are talking about changing the system of government, by strengthening the power of the Parliament and Cabinet of Ministers - to put it another way, to make the prime minister a chancellor and not just a whipping boy."
In a "normal society," following all of the revelations in recent months, the president would have resigned by now, said Mr. Moroz. And he added that he is confident the coalition will bring about his removal from office and initiate necessary reforms by the end of May or in early June.
Mr. Moroz arrived in Washington on the day the State Department released its annual world human rights report. In the section dealing with Ukraine, the U.S. government criticized Ukraine's "poor" record on press freedom, in handling of the investigation of Mr. Gongadze's disappearance and in other areas.
The visit also came on the heels of increased reporting in the U.S. press about the "Kuchmagate" scandal and two hard-hitting editorials criticizing the Kuchma administration by The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times in the previous week.
Some of the questioners at the RFE/RL briefing pointed to a number of inconsistencies in Maj. Melnychenko's taping story:
Mr. Moroz said that he does not favor the release of all of the tapes. After President Kuchma is removed and changes are made in the governmental structures, he said, a special commission would study these tapes, investigations would be conducted and the evidence would be sealed in the government archives.
"This is not a detective novel," he said. Although Maj. Melnychenko has said that he taped the president on his own, Mr. Moroz said he does not discount the probability that the Ukrainian security services were involved in the taping. While the president at first denied but later admitted that the recordings were made in his office, Mr. Moroz said he shifted the blame for it between Western and Russian intelligence services, depending whom he was trying to appease at the time, and even accused some unnamed mischief-makers within Ukraine.
"I can't say to what extent the Ukrainian security services were involved in the taping, but I think that they were involved," Mr. Moroz said. He noted that the abuse of electronic surveillance within the government is widespread. "In our country, the police bugs the security service; the security service bugs the police; and together they bug the Cabinet of Ministers and leading politicians. All my phones are constantly monitored," he said. "In such an environment it simply would have been impossible to keep conversations in the president's office secret."
Mr. Moroz said that in 1997 almost the entire reserve fund of the Cabinet of Ministers was used to buy the latest eavesdropping equipment in France.
Finally, asked how he views Ukraine's relationship with Russia, he said that "naturally, it is our closest and largest partner and neighbor. Without a doubt, we need to expand our relations with it, while protecting our interests and sovereign rights."
Moroz comments on liquidation of tent city
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 4, 2001, No. 9, Vol. LXIX
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