INSIDE: • “CHORNOBYL: THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY” Special section — pages 4-10. Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association Vol. LXIX No. 16 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2001 $1/$2 in Ukraine HE YuschenkoKRAINIAN government hangsEEKLY on, for now U.S.T grants asylum U W by Roman Woronowycz Rada, which last week submitted 237 law- Kyiv Press Bureau makers’ signatures in support of the propos- to Melnychenko, al. A simple majority of 226 signatures was KYIV – The government of Victor needed to table the proposal. The parlia- Yuschenko was left hanging by a thread on mentary session accepted the motion on Myroslava Gongadze April 19 after Ukraine’s Parliament voted in April 17 prior to a report by Prime Minister by Roman Woronowycz support of a resolution criticizing the work Yuschenko on the progress made in 2000 Kyiv Press Bureau of his Cabinet in 2000 as unsatisfactory. on implementation of the government’s The lawmakers decided to schedule a vote KYIV – The wife of Heorhii Gongadze, economic revival plan, called “Reforms for on a motion of no confidence within a the missing journalist feared dead who is at Well-Being.” week, which if passed would lead automati- the center of a huge political crisis in Kyiv, The Social Democrats (United), Labor and a former presidential bodyguard who cally to the dissolution of the government. Ukraine and the Democratic Union are con- produced tape recordings that seemingly The stormy session was marked by a sidered the bastions of the business oli- implicate the president in the disappearance near tragedy as National Deputy Lilia garchs and are led respectively, by Viktor have received political asylum in the United Hryhorovych of the Rukh faction doused Medvedchuk, Viktor Pinchuk and States, revealed the U.S. State Department herself with an unspecified liquid believed Oleksander Volkov. on April 16. to be gasoline minutes before the vote. She Mr. Yuschenko strove determinedly in The decision to extend political asylum, was whisked away before she set herself the 16 months since President Leonid particularly to Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, afire. Kuchma appointed him to head the govern- formerly of the Security Service, of The same factions who successfully car- ment, to bring the economy out of the shad- Ukraine, who made hundreds of hours of ried the resolution condemning the work of ows. He ended most barter operations and digital tape recordings while assigned to the Cabinet of Ministers by a vote of 283- brought sectors that have existed at the edge 65, namely the Communists, the Social guard the president and his offices, shocked of market conditions, such as the energy Yaro Bihun Democratic Party (United) Labor Ukraine, sector, under stricter government regula- Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine’s Ministry of Victor Yuschenko Foreign Affairs issued a statement in also drove the petition for a vote of no con- tion. While achieving a good amount of response to the announcement expressing fidence. The Democratic Union faction success, he also developed political ene- now facing – some political experts said the its “deep astonishment” at the development. (formerly Revival of the Regions) also sup- mies among the oligarchs whose cozy and prime minister successfully had steered “[The U.S. decision] is viewed by ported the petition-signing campaign, as did shady business dealings he disrupted. away from a political crisis and predicted Ukraine as failing to correspond to the spirit members of the Green faction, although In the days before Mr. Yuschenko gave he would survive a vote of no confidence. of the Ukrainian American partnership and members of these two factions split on the his report on the state of government Now the outlook is not so clear. as creating obstacles in the way of a crimi- vote condemning the government. reforms – which he had agreed to do a year Earlier President Kuchma had given nal investigation,” read a statement issued The motion itself came from the ago in return for a one-year moratorium on by the ministry. Communist Party faction in the Verkhovna just the sort of vote of no confidence he is (Continued on page 17) On August 16, ministry officials request- ed the appearance of U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual to explain the U.S. action. Fifteen years after Chornobyl: new issues Officially the U.S. government has attempted to make clear that the decision by by Roman Woronowycz the fourth reactor, the clean-up of the energy-producing lost with the shut- its Immigration and Naturalization Service Kyiv Press Bureau irradiated surrounding area, including a down of Chornobyl, the president said was an independent act of that particular cooling pond and the most acute cur- he was disappointed with the way U.S. agency and not meant to be a political KYIV – Today the Chornobyl rent problem, the relocation and worker retraining and relocation was statement on the Gongadze case in Ukraine. nuclear power station is out of com- retraining of the thousands of proceeding. State Department spokesman Richard mission, fifteen years after a test proce- Chornobyl workers. Unemployment in Slavutych – the Boucher said in Washington on April 16 dure in the fourth reactor went awry. It is the last issue that is causing city hastily built to house the that Mr. Melnychenko’s application was The resulting explosion sent a huge much consternation among Ukrainian Chornobyl workers after the 1986 dis- received and processed as any other, and radioactive cloud over northern Europe politicians. Four months after a worker aster left Prypiat, their home until then, that the decision was “based on standard and contaminated a good portion of the at Chornobyl flipped the toggle switch uninhabitable – today stands at 21 per- international practice and international pro- territories of Ukraine and Belarus. The that halted the last functioning reactor cent, a figure that will continue to rise. cedures and criteria.” last Chornobyl reactor was idled on there is an uneasy feeling here that the The tidy factory town about an hour’s Two days later, Ambassador Pascual December 15, 2000, but that does not world, having attained its objective to ride northeast of the doomed nuclear explained in Kyiv that the granting of polit- mean that the last of the problems have close the hazardous complex, is quick- plant is threatened with obsolescence if ical asylum did not mean a change in U.S. been resolved. ly forgetting that while the plant may it doesn’t find a further reason to exist policy towards Ukraine. In closing the nuclear power plant be out of service Ukraine continues to and, most importantly, a commercial “The U.S. is still committed to working the government in Kyiv rid itself of need help with the aftereffects. base. closely with Ukraine as a partner in Central both internal and external political Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma Ukraine and the West have put Europe. We are still committed to a vision pressure. It fulfilled promises it had traveled in March to the site of the together a nine-point plan for saving of an independent, democratic and market- made to the West to mothball the world’s worst nuclear accident to Slavutych, which did not even exist oriented Ukraine,” said Mr. Pascual. nuclear complex by the beginning of review the situation himself. prior to 1987, but a year later had a He said the procedure for extension of the second millennium. It also silenced Afterwards he reminded journalists population of more than 15,000 inhabi- political asylum is “described in law and is those within the country who main- that much still needs to be done. tants. tained that the power plant could very specific as to how it applies.” “I am not all that satisfied with the The main thrust of the redevelop- remain a safe and effective electricity National Deputy Oleksander Zinchenko pace of the closing,” said President ment plan is the retraining and reloca- generator for this energy-hungry coun- of the Social Democratic Party (United), Kuchma, who has pledged to take the tion of Chornobyl workers. The upside try for another decade. which has supported President Leonid plight of the workers under his patron- of this effort is that the work force is Today the clean-up operation has Kuchma in the political crisis that has con- age and not allow for a single man to considered among the most highly begun. It involves not only de-commis- sumed Kyiv, said the U.S. could support its go unemployed. skilled in Ukraine. The downside is sioning the plant – the removal of thou- words with actions and show good faith by In addition to citing the West’s fail- that most have a very specialized skill sands of nuclear fuel rods and their ure thus far to approve financing to “bringing Mr. Melnychenko to justice for within a very specialized industry. The reprocessing, a process that will take support the completion of two new stealing state secrets,” and obtaining the hope is that a good portion of the another seven years – but also the nuclear reactors – one at Khmelnytskyi original digital recordings and returning rebuilding of the crumbling cover over and the other at Rivne – to offset the (Continued on page 10) (Continued on page 17) 2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2001 No. 16 INTERVIEW NEWSBRIEFSNEWSBRIEFS President Kuchma speaks Gongadze’s wife says Kuchma responsible (approximately $300,000 at the time) credit it received from a state bank in 1996. Radio KYIV – Myroslava Gongadze said on Kontinent Director Serhii Sholokh said his with RFE/RL correspondent April 17 that, until investigators find the station will appeal the decision, which he Below is the conclusion of a live tele- Has the tape case brought anything people responsible for the disappearance said is politically motivated.