EDITORIAL: Kuchma's problems: seriouser and seriouser... (09/29/02)

EDITORIAL

Kuchma's problems: seriouser and seriouser...

The U.S. government this week went public with information that it has determined that President Leonid Kuchma two years ago approved a plan to sell the Kolchuha radar system to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions. Mr. Kuchma's first response, delivered by chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, was that the White House was acting in concert with anti-government protesters who want to oust the president. "The interests of certain political circles in Ukraine and abroad coincide," Mr. Medvedchuk said. Such a response was simply unacceptable.

The controversy centers on a recording from the Melnychenko tapes on which Mr. Kuchma is heard to approve the sale of the early warning system to Iraq after the head of the Ukrainian arms exports agency, Valerii Malev, proposes to ship four Kolchuha systems through a Jordanian middleman in falsely labeled crates and to send installation experts to Iraq on bogus passports. Mr. Kuchma gives the OK, adding that the middleman must keep hush. (Mr. Malev was killed in a car crash in April this year.)

State Department spokesmen Richard Boucher said on September 24 that the U.S. had concluded an analysis of the July 2000 recording and believes it to be authentic, adding that there are "some indications" that the system may be in Iraq. "This recording's authentication has led us to re-examine our policy toward Ukraine, in particular toward President Kuchma," Mr. Boucher said.

A spokesman for the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, Hennadii Nadolenko, said, "We have told both the U.N. and the U.S. that if they have any facts that prove Ukraine has sold illegal equipment to Iraq, please bring them forward or bring them to us." Finally, on September 25, the office of the president issued a statement that "Ukraine is ready to provide any information and is open for inspection of relevant authorized international organizations, including experts from the U.S."

Meanwhile, in a bit of a surprise twist, Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko stated in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, that President Kuchma might have authorized the Kolchuha sale but that such a transaction never did take place. Transaction or no transaction, that the president of Ukraine would give his personal approval to contravening international sanctions is criminal.

At press time, the latest from Washington was that the U.S. plans no talks with Ukraine on the alleged sale unless its officials are prepared to address the issue honestly. "We have strongly urged Ukrainian officials to be as transparent and as forthcoming as possible. Unfortunately, we do not believe that the government of Ukraine has been candid with us in the past on this issue," said the State Department.

Back in Kyiv, opposition leaders called for the Verkhovna Rada to address the current political crisis. Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz charged that "while the state budget has not received a single kopiyka from arms sales, ... nearly 3 billion hrv ($560 million) filled the pockets of the head of state and his adherents." On September 26 the caucuses of the Communists, the Socialists, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine said they will boycott voting in the Rada as long as deputies fail to address the crisis. (A motion to place that issue on the agenda was supported by only 96 deputies out of the 228 registered. Our Ukraine did not take part in the vote.) The four caucuses also noted that the previous Parliament several times had tried to launch an inquiry into alleged illegal arms deals, but was prevented from doing so by the president and "deputies who were dependent on Kuchma."

And thus, in Kuchmaland, things are getting seriouser and seriouser (apologies to Lewis Carroll and his "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland").

The only good news in all of these developments is that the U.S. is not throwing out the baby with the bath water. Leonid Kuchma, the U.S. knows, is not Ukraine. Thus, the U.S. has reiterated its commitment to helping Ukraine, though not via its central authorities whom, frankly, it no longer trusts.

It's high time for Ukraine's officials to get serious about resolving this mess. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine must take immediate action to investigate the charges of illegal arms sales that have caused controversy for well over a year, and the Kuchma administration must come clean. If Mr. Kuchma meant what he said on September 25 at a meeting with opposition leaders - i.e., that he supports a special, closed-door session of the Parliament to consider Washington's allegations - then he should tell his flunkies in Parliament to support the idea of such an investigation.

And, in all fairness, the United States, for its part, must specify exactly what "indications" it has about a Ukrainian Kolchuha in Iraq.

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