The Ukrainian Weekly 2001, No.3
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www.ukrweekly.com INSIDE:• The shots heard ‘round the world 10 years ago — page 2. •A tale of two cities: Donetsk and Lviv — page 6. • Kurbas Theater plans new American tour — page 12. Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association Vol. LXIX HE KRAINIANNo. 3 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2001 EEKLY$1/$2 in Ukraine Verkhovna Rada hearings focus FuneralT of Heorhii UGongadze is delayed W by Yarema Bachynsky matter and experts who have said that on Ukrainian information space Special to The Ukrainian Weekly they were subjected to pressure by law enforcement bodies to moderate their KYIV – The mother of journalist findings. by Yarema A. Bachynsky “Virtually all cases of pressure upon Heorhii Gongadze, who went missing on Svitlana Karmeliuk, a DNA expert Special to The Ukrainian Weekly mass media and journalists are in fact ille- September 16 and whose beheaded body gal,” continued Mr. Zinchenko, listing a working in the official investigation, has KYIV – Ukraine’s information space was identified through DNA testing has said that police personnel had broken into number of journalists whose killings over decided to put off plans for immediate was the subject of hearings in the the years of Ukraine’s independence have her home and tried confiscating her inter- Verkhovna Rada on January 16. National burial of her son’s body until further tests national travel passport. The Internal remained unsolved. These include the late are conducted and the missing head is deputies, government officials, experts and editor of Vechernaya Odesa Borys Affairs Ministry had refuted these others gave their assessment of the state of found. charges, saying that Mrs. Karmeliuk’s Derevianko, fatally shot in 1997; journalist On January 16, addressing Parliament affairs, demonstrating that the policy debate and National Deputy Vadym Boyko, who passport contained errors and that agents over what Ukrainians read, listen to and during hearings on the state of the sent to her apartment were only trying to went missing and whose body has not been Ukrainian information space, Lesia watch is shifting into high gear. found; Kievskiye Viedomosti reporter Petro help correct these errors. “It is no secret to anyone that the state of Gongadze brought tears to the eyes of The case of Mr. Gongadze, former Shevchenko, found hanged in 1998 in a many in the audience as she pleaded for freedom of speech is unsatisfactory,” Kyiv apartment; and Heorhii Gongadze, publisher of Ukrainska Pravda, an Internet Interfax-Ukraine quoted Oleksander answers that have not been forthcoming periodical known for publishing inves- who went missing on September 16, 2000, Zinchenko, the head of Parliament’s from Ukraine’s procurator general and tigative reports on high-level official cor- and whose beheaded corpse was apparently Committee on Information and Freedom of law enforcement officials handling the ruption and shady dealings, and not for its identified last week through DNA analysis. Expression. Mr. Zinchenko harshly criti- Gongadze case. love of President Leonid Kuchma, shows Parliamentary Assembly of the Council cismed state authorities for attempts to “I and my family have been pressured no signs of abating. of Europe member Andrzey Urbanczyk, impose political censorship on the national, to bury [Mr. Gongadze’s] body in Lviv. It was on November 28, 2000, that who took part in the Verkhovna Rada hear- oblast and local levels. Among periodicals They have told me that a plane is ready National Deputy Oleksander Moroz made ings, said that PACE is particularly con- that have been subjected to harassment by and there’s a spot at the Lykachiv public an audiotape that appeared to cerned about government pressure on the fiscal, law enforcement and other bodies Cemetery,” said Mrs. Gongadze in tele- implicate Mr. Kuchma and top law media, particularly in light of the Gongadze are the newspapers Silski Visti, Polityka, vision reports from the Parliament. “But enforcement officials in Mr. Gongadze’s matter. “Freedom of speech should not be Svoboda and Pravda Ukrainy, all Kyiv- I am the mother and I need to know disappearance. That tape and subsequent given away or held ransom by fire inspec- whose body I am laying to rest,” she revelations have sparked an uproar within based nationally distributed publications. tors or tax officials,” said Mr. Urbanczyk. continued. Ukraine and have caught the attention of The latter’s editor, Oleksander Horobets, The hearings took on a somber tone Mrs. Gongadze’s statement came after the West and international human rights was arrested, jailed on trumped-up charges when Mr. Gongadze’s mother, Lesia Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko, and journalists’ organizations such as of rape and released only after a court battle Gongadze, addressed those gathered with a who last week in Parliament announced that concluded with a determination that the that there was a 99.6 percent probability (Continued on page 3) charges against him were baseless. (Continued on page 10) that the Tarascha corpse discovered on November 2, 2000, did indeed belong to the missing Mr. Gongadze, changed his mind and signaled he was willing to release the body to Mrs. Gongadze and Orthodox and Catholic faithful commemorate Chornobyl closing by Helen Smindak country $130 million.” Hieromonk Swiatoslaw, Very Rev. Myroslava Gongadze, the late journalist’s Assisting clergy included the Rev. Serhiy Neprel, Protodeacons wife. Earlier Mr. Potebenko had refused NEW YORK – Hundreds of wor- Mitrai Dubovici of the Stamford Volodymyr Zelinsky and Ireneusz to release the corpse on the grounds that shippers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Eparchy, the pastors of Ukrainian Dziadyk, and seminarians of the the DNA test results had not confirmed its and Ukrainian Catholic faiths crowded Orthodox parishes in New York City – Ukrainian Orthodox Consistory in identity with sufficient certainty. St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox the Rev. John Lyszyk, St. Vladimir’s South Bound Brook, N.J. Apart from the question of whether the Cathedral in Manhattan on Sunday, Cathedral; the Rev. Todor Mazur, Holy The Dumka Chorus of New York, burial of a headless body accords with January 14, for a special prayer service Trinity Cathedral; and Rev. Andrei directed by Vasyl Hrechynsky, sang the Christian religious practice, an issue commemorating the closing of the Kulyk, All Saints’ Church – as well as responses. raised by Lesia Gongadze in the past Chornobyl nuclear power plant. week, there is a legal question that may lie Archbishop Antony, head of the behind the decision of the Gongadze fam- Ukrainian Orthodox Consistory of the ily to put off burial for the time being. Ukrainian Orthodox Church of U.S.A., According to Ukrainian law, if there is and Bishop Basil Losten of the no official confirmation by investigators Stamford Eparchy of the Ukrainian that a body belongs to a particular individ- Catholic Church, concelebrated the ual, the procurator’s office is not required solemn moleben. Both prelates recalled to continue with a murder investigation, the horrifying effects of the Chornobyl regardless of whether or not they release a explosion on Ukraine and prayed that body for burial. Mr. Potebenko has not the nation would never again be visited made such an official determination and by devastation. claims that a number of persons have seen The main speaker, Ihor Sybiha, vice- Mr. Gongadze alive since September 16, consul of Ukraine’s Consulate General 2000, the day of his disappearance. in New York, said the act of closure Local law also gives a victim’s relatives “marked the termination of an object the right to demand additional forensic that has entered into history as the testing by investigators on the bodies of greatest techno-genic catastrophe with deceased kin, and Lesia Gongadze said she the most terrifying consequences ... a would demand that a full battery of tests be catastrophe that equals such destructive conducted on Mr. Gongadze’s body. cataclysms as Pompeii and Hiroshima, Yaroslav Kulynych Meanwhile, the Lavrynovych affecting almost 3.5 million people and Committee, the ad hoc parliamentary 10 percent of our land, necessitating Archbishop Antony (center) and Bishop Basil Losten concelebrate a moleben group charged with investigating the the evacuation of 160,000 people from at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in New York marking the Gongadze case, was slated to interview their homes, and already costing the closing of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Health Ministry officials involved in the 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2001 No. 3 ANALYSIS NEWSBRIEFSNEWSBRIEFS Ten years ago in Lithuania: Rada discusses freedom of expression Potebenko refuses to accept tapes KYIV – Parliament Chairman Ivan KYIV – Mykhailo Potebenko on January shots heard ’round the world Pliusch on January 16 called on lawmakers 12 said the tapes recorded by Kuchma’s for- by Paul Goble the Lithuanian government was rapidly to find a “different approach” to the media mer bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko, in RFE/RL Newsline assembling a crowd. Moreover, the pres- sphere in Ukraine in order to eliminate cen- the presidential office and made public by ence of Western journalists and diplo- sorship. National Deputy Oleksander Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz The date January 13 marks the 10th mats in the Parliament building guaran- Zinchenko said the authorities apply “politi- cannot be accepted as evidence in the disap- anniversary of an event that changed the teed that any such action would be cal censorship” in both nationwide and pearance case of journalist Heorhii world. On that day in 1991 Soviet troops reported to the entire world. regional media and “manipulate public Gongadze, Interfax reported. Mr. fired into a crowd surrounding the And, on the other hand, the opinion” through the state-controlled Potebenko added that even if international Vilnius television tower. But they did Lithuanians showed a resolve that Soviet media.