Murdered journalist's wife pledges to continue crusade for press freedom (05/13/01)

Murdered journalist's wife pledges to continue crusade for press freedom

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - The widow of slain Ukrainian journalist Heorhii Gongadze, Myroslava Gongadze, brought his case to the U.S. capital and vowed to continue her crusade on behalf of press freedom and democracy in Ukraine.

"No matter where I might find myself - in Kyiv, Warsaw, Washington or Strasbourg," she said during a news conference here, "I will always be working to help Ukraine become a normal country."

The U.S. government granted Mrs. Gongadze asylum in April following her half-year struggle with the Ukrainian government to investigate who killed her husband and why. She arrived in Washington on April 22, along with her twin daughters.

The news conference, organized by the human rights group Freedom House, was held at the National Press Club on May 3 - World Press Freedom Day. One day earlier, at a hearing before the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Mrs. Gongadze heard President Leonid Kuchma's top national security advisor, Yevhen Marchuk, admit that the investigation had been mishandled, but deny any presidential responsibility for the journalist's death.

Mrs. Gongadze insisted that President Kuchma bears responsibility, having spoken the words that are on the secretly recorded conversation in his office revealed by a former presidential bodyguard, who also was granted U.S. asylum. The president also is responsible for the botched investigation, which would not have been conducted at all had it not been for her persistence, she said.

Mrs. Gongadze said she will continue to pressure the authorities to complete the investigation. "But, I am not optimistic," she added.

Introducing Mrs. Gongadze, Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky called her husband "a heroic journalist" who exposed "corruption and illegal and potentially criminal activities in the upper reaches of economic and political power in Ukraine."

Also appearing at the news conference was Emma Gray, the European program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which on that very same day placed President Kuchma among its "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001," in the company of Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Jiang Zemin, Cuba's Fidel Castro and a half dozen others.

Ms. Gray noted that Mr. Gongadze was among 24 journalists killed last year worldwide, and she accused the Ukrainian government of bungling the investigation and trying to muzzle the media about it.

"Kuchma's government has stepped up its habitual censorship of opposition newspapers, and attacks and threats against independent journalists are increasing, particularly in areas like the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine," Ms. Gray said. She called on the Ukrainian president to "discourage" these attacks and to appoint an independent prosecutor for the Gongadze case.

Mrs. Gongadze said that, aside from a personal call early on from former Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, who offered his assistance, all other high government officials stonewalled and showed no compassion toward the family.

"I think that President Kuchma, quite simply, is afraid to look me in the eye," she said. They almost met during the funeral of National Deputy Oleksander Yemets, she recalled, but when she looked his way, the president turned away and evaded her.

Having covered three wars, her husband had no fear of death or threats, she said. But she was afraid, she admitted. She felt that they were caught up in events they couldn't fully comprehend - they were being followed and photographed, and their phone conversations were being monitored. "And now I realize that we underestimated that threat," she added.

Mrs. Gongadze said that her husband was not so much an investigative journalist as one who would analyze facts and events dealing with corrupt relationships and alliances. As such, she admitted, he may have made many enemies.

She said her husband was a kind of barometer other journalists would watch to see how far they could push the limits of press freedom in Ukraine. "When he was removed, they destroyed that barometer."

Speaking about the Ukrainian media, Mrs. Gongadze said there are not enough independent outlets, and the sorry state of the economy keeps them from developing at this time. The West should continue to help in the development of the media and civil society in Ukraine, she said.

"Because information is manipulated in Ukraine," she explained, "the people are being misled, and, as a result, they vote as they do, and we are stuck with the results."

Mrs. Gongadze said that Internet journalism and cell phones are helping keep totalitarianism in check in Ukraine. "I think that the more advanced the information technology within a society, the more it precludes the emergence of totalitarian structures," she commented.

She said that the Western media also has a role in the equation, because while the Ukrainian government may ignore its own media and people, it usually pays attention to what is reported about it abroad.

Mrs. Gongadze stressed that the absence of economic and political reforms in Ukraine has weakened it.

"For 10 years now, while the West has been holding the door open and saying, 'Please, join with us,' Ukraine has been turning its back and responding, 'We haven't decided yet,'" she said.

"And that is frightening," she added. "As a result, we're moving not towards Europe, but towards Belarus and Russia."

| Home Page |