What a monster! Just look at what he did! He got what he had coming, exposed and pilloried. Here he is, folks, a real KGB lord! Imagine, continuing, when the country’s top spy, his cloak-and- dagger deals even in the glorious time of Ukraine’s independence, roping in more and more agents, instead of exposing the plot which mushroom hunters had been hatching for years. Its main accomplices, retired army officers not quite in their right minds due to advanced age have begun a march on Kyiv through the thick woods of the Chernihiv oblast with mushroom baskets to topple the regime. Had this plot been nipped in the bud, it would have saved much bated breath much later and at the least convenient moment when the scandalous disappearance of journalist Heorhy Gongadze occurred. Instead of blowing the whistle on the would-be plotters, the culprit was active roping in foreign nationals, demanding kickbacks on the government money paid.
THE STATE NEEDS SPECIAL SERVICES, NOT PIGEON HOLES
Enough irony. I am referring to an article in Kievsky telegraf weekly No. 1 (94) about illegal weapons trafficking, something the paper has covered previously. The bottom line of the whole saga is this: the police in Turin, Italy is investigating charges against a group of international gangsters headed by one Dmytro Streshynsky who, in defiance of the UN ban, supplied arms, including those made in Ukraine, to wartorn areas. When arrested, Streshynsky told police that General Yevhen Marchuk, the then director of the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), had a role in the sales. Since Ukrainian arms figured in the case, what else could he have said? That the contraband of weapons had been organized by Colonel Nikolai? Word had it that the colonel was not above pushing arms to the African countries that were then colonies of Great Britain and France. But, first, this historic figure was head of the Imperial Germany’s secret service and, second, he has been dead for quite some time now.
Consequently, it was easier to point the finger at Mr. Marchuk and accuse him of masterminding the sales. In so doing, the Italian prosecutors had their own reasons. Under Italian (and, incidentally, Ukrainian) criminal law, the mastermind of a crime, not its executors, bears the greatest responsibility. Thus from the perpetrator of the crime Streshynsky could become a mere cat’s paw resulting in lightening his sentence. Should the defendant succeed in proving that Marchuk using blackmail and threats forced him to commit the crime, he would look more like a victim and walk out of the court a free man or get a suspended sentence, or be bailed out by some tender-hearted local organization, say, a nunnery.
Let me stress this again: should the defendant succeed, as, judging by the materials published by Kievsky telegraf, I cannot assume whether the accused person’s testimony, including Yevhen Marchuk’s alleged complicity in illegal arms sales, is true. With regard to the latter, these are, first, mere allegations leveled by people with a quid pro quo on the accuser’s mind, and, second, not confirmed officially, as far as I can see. That these allegations mouthed by the accused have become part of the Italian indictment does not make them conclusive. Let me say it again: these are mere allegations unsubstantiated by nothing other than a defendant’s allegations.
The Kievsky telegraf people out to blow out of the water Secretary of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine Yevhen Marchuk could not have failed to understand this. That this is a targeted smear can easily be seen judging by the style and interpretation of facts as well as the fashion in which the newspaper presents case materials — suffice it to read its issues No. 31 and 47 for 2001 and issue No. 1 for 2002. Obviously, in an effort to add some finishing touches, the paper gave so much ink to the latest allegations. Moreover, in a roundabout way, the paper hinted that when director of the SBU, Yevhen Marchuk recruited US citizen and active Ukrainian nationalist Roman Kupchynsky. This presumably throws some light on the interview with Marchuk that Kupchynsky prepared when he was head of the Radio Liberty Ukrainian service. To make my point, let me quote:
“In his interview Mr. Kupchynsky strongly criticized our newspaper [ Kievsky telegraf ] and its Editor-in-Chief Serhiy Mustafin. Apparently, the experience gained working for secret services in Vietnam, Prague, Kyiv, and for Yevhen Kyrylovych [Marchuk] personally does not make it possible for him to realize that there can be a free press, one’s own judgment, and simple human decency.”
After the “human decency” stuff, the story includes no less bombastic arguments about the freedom of expression. Later, the story comes down to brazen blackmail. Consider the following:
“To clarify the picture, the Telegraf editors would like to put several questions to Mr. Kupchynsky:
1. Did you receive $500 from Yevhen Kyrylovych Marchuk on July 1, 1992 as a loan or payment?
2. If it was a payment, what was the payment made for?
3. If it was a loan, did you repay your debt?”
Since questions are asked for which no one expects answers, let me put some to anonymous authors from the Telegraf (the story was not signed):
1. If the special service director-money-alien-receipt scenario is true, are those in the Telegraf who prepared the story aware what future they are offering to this man? To the man who, if the story holds water, had agreed to work for our country, for not only me and my colleagues from this weekly and those behind them (provided they are Ukrainian citizens), but also for you, readers?
2. Throughout all my years in journalism, I have never come across journalistic investigations that would produce receipts confirming payments of money by special service heads to foreign nationals. Such receipts can be supplied only by those who have access to them due to their official position. If I am wrong, let my colleagues from Telegraf tell me this and, in doing so, fill a gap in my professional training.
3. If what you are driving at has really taken place and Roman Kupchynsky worked for my country, his services were paid for out of my pocket, since I am also a taxpayer. How could you and those who supplied the receipt to you throw this money to the winds?
4. As long as special services in other close and distant, friendly and hostile countries are not yet pigeon holes [where the doves of peace live], Ukraine will need special services, the SBU included, that would protect the national interests in the fashion dictated by the other side. Are you aware that by mentioning the receipt in the context of this case you have complicated the work of Ukrainian secret agents who are standing by the national interests of Ukraine using special service techniques, especially in cases when such agents operate abroad at the risk to their lives?
EDITORS’ NOTE
If there really is such information, what are the guarantees that Derkach does not have other documents which he could use to serve his personal interests? And doesn’t all this mean that the Derkach-period SBU, dubbed wittingly by Zerkalo nedeli as the SBU & Son Corporation [Leonid Derkach’s son, Andriy, is an aspiring media tycoon – Ed.], more resembled an agency trading intelligence secrets for gilded youth’s gain.
We can make the following conclusion from the noise raised by the Derkach, Jr. controlled media about the arms sales saga. All the so- called accusations have been based on evidence provided by the only star witness, Mr. Streshynsky. Back in the summer of 1999, when Marchuk was running for president, the Era Television and Radio Company ran a television trailer of a program on the arms sales scandal, accompanying it with a prominently shown photo of Yevhen Marchuk in a transparent hint at his being a key arms trader. Surprisingly, the program, despite repeated trailers, did not go on the air. Why this happened has become clear only now. Recently, caught in its bickering campaign with Marchuk, Era has again run the 1999 trailer marked “From our archive,” prompting a question on whether Derkach & Son’s cooperation with Streshynsky could date back to 1999. Especially since a highly secret group of SBU operators and television journalists was set up at the [pro-Kuchma] UT-1 television channel on which Era rested. The group was assigned several studios to which even UT-1 managers were banned access. This group prepared the aforesaid materials, as well as some compromising programs on other presidential candidates. It took a team of experts to cook up libels, with the information base provided by the Derkach & Son, Inc. It seems, however, that the compromising materials were so inferior in quality that someone at the top political level ordered them put on hold. Incidentally, the Era special group should become a target for an ad hoc journalistic investigation, especially in light of the revelations that Era did not pay over 19 million hryvnias for leasing UT-1 state-owned facilities. Who closed his eyes to this debt and why? Could it be that the supposedly compromising material on Marchuk cost precisely this sum? Accordingly, was it not the Derkach & Son Co. that worked out a scenario for Streshynsky to discredit Marchuk as far back as 1999? Could it be that these millions of hryvnias were used to pay for the services of Streshynsky and other foreign players in this campaign?
Further, how many times and where did Mr. Derkach and his representatives meet with Mr. Streshynsky during the trial in Turin? What instructions or materials changed hands during such meetings? Do court officials in Turin know about such meetings? A host of questions could be put to top officials of the SBU, Prosecutor General’s Office, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There is one more question to complete today’s questionnaire: who will buy the story that cautious SBU Director Marchuk, with his massive experience of work in intelligence and counterintelligence, would, at the beginning of his political career, engage the services of the international adventurer to strike illegal deals?
INCIDENTALLY
According to a ForUm (www.for-ua.com) report, last Monday the SBU dismissed the information on the alleged involvement of the Secretary of the National Defense and Security Council and former SBU Director Yevhen Marchuk in the illegal export of arms. As for the declarations given by Dmytro Streshynsky on his cooperation with highly- placed Ukrainian officials and made public by the Italian prosecutors, the SBU believes that the whole scenario has been organized by professionals. Streshynsky, the SBU says, might have his own selfish interests in trying to incriminate Marchuk.
“It’s common knowledge that, under Italian law, the more blame one shifts to others, the shorter one’s sentence will be,” said NDSC First Deputy Secretary Leonid Rozhen.
As the NDSC deputy secretary noted, the investigation by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and UN Security Council groups of experts has proven that the allegations are groundless and inconclusive since they are based on unconfirmed reports received from dubious sources. The SBU stated that jointly with NATO countries’ special services it carried out an operation in 1994 to seize a consignment of arms illegally shipped by the Jadran Express to the former Yugoslavia. Italian prosecutors then filed a criminal case against Dmytro Streshynsky, president of a Panamanian firm involved in the shipments. When case materials were received in Ukraine, the SBU, on the instructions from the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, started an investigation of certain details of this illegal transaction. According to Director of the SBU Department of Counterintelligence Serhiy Makarenko, due to the existing system of export control, the agency succeeded in foiling attempts to smuggle arms and military equipment from Ukraine using faked shipping documents by some intermediary companies based mainly in offshore zones.
PGO representatives also have plans to take part in court proceedings in Turin (Italy) to consider the accusations of Ukrainian arms trafficking put forward against Dmytro Streshynsky. Currently, the PGO is deciding whether to send its representative to observe court proceedings in Italy, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine and Head of the Department of Military Prosecutor’s Offices Oleksandr Atamaniuk told Interfax. He also reiterated that Turin prosecutors have sent case materials to their Ukrainian colleagues and a criminal case have been duly opened. “We maintain contacts with our Italian colleagues to ascertain the truth,” Mr. Atamaniuk stressed, adding that one of the defendants, Dmytro Streshynsky, is to be questioned by the court in Turin on February 13.
After this article was published in Den’, we received a letter from Mr. Kupchinsky:
Dear Editor,
I read the article in your paper about the alleged involvement of Yevhen Marchuk in arms sales to Croatia and the allegations being made by the newspaper Kyivsky Telegraf that Mr. Marchuk supposedly gave me $ 500 in 1992. Telegraf asks if this is true and if so, did I sign for the money? For what purpose was it given to me and did I return it?
If this story was not so ridiculous, I would reply to their silly questions. But Mr. Derkach and son insult my sense of greed. Why only $500? Do they really believe that I would sell myself to Marchuk and the SBU for $500? And why should I get paid to help Ukraine in the first place? If I wanted to help Ukraine, and I believe that in spite of the Derkach’s nonsense, I have done a few things for the land of my parents, I would certainly not take money for this. But both father and son like to measure their opponents in the same way they measure themselves. I suppose they have the right to do so, besides, it is the only way they know how to behave.
