For about six months have the media controlled by Derkach the Younger — Kievsky telegraf, Versii.com Internet publication, and the Era TV company – been carrying out an unprecedented vicious campaign to discredit Yevhen Marchuk, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC). Although The Day usually tries to avoid harsh words, this is precisely the time to call a spade a spade. That this is a deliberate campaign raises no doubts for the following reasons. “The information cause:” the Turin investigation of the case of arms trafficker Streshynsky. The method of disinformation: the testimony of defendant Streshynsky (in which he claimed Mr. Marchuk was involved in illegal arms supplies) first presented as “information from Turin prosecutors” and then as a fact allegedly proved by a Turin court that the NSDC secretary has common business interests with Streshynsky. That this whole action is a far cry from independent journalistic inquiry is confirmed by the fact that the media outlets mentioned have never published in the past six months Mr. Marchuk’s own views on the misdeeds ascribed to him. It is also completely obvious that the above media intentionally ignore the fact that Marchuk’s alleged guilt is based on the testimony of one person, Mr. Streshynsky, who was once brought to task and expelled from Ukraine by the Security Service (SBU) headed at the time by Mr. Marchuk, which means it is in Streshynsky’s interest to portray Mr. Marchuk as the organizer. Preliminary results of the Turin court investigation show that Streshynsky’s evidence is at odds with reality. This is the absolutely clear conclusion of a Foreign Ministry press release the full text of which follows:
“Some media have spread information that an Italian court has allegedly opened a criminal case against Yevhen Marchuk, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, whereby he is being accused of illegal arms trading.
“In this connection and as instructed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Italian Republic has officially turned for explanations to the Republic Prosecution Service at the Turin city court.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine press service announces that a letter signed by Prosecutor of the Republic, Marcello Maddaleni, states unequivocally that ‘Yevhen Marchuk is not an accused party and no court actions have been instituted against him.’
“As preliminary investigation Judges Tampone and Dodero claim, they ‘have received no evidence in favor of Mr. Marchuk being implicated in the illegal operations conducted by the accused.’
“In their words, ‘the auditing in some countries of Western Europe and North America of the bank operations and current accounts of those accused of complicity with Dmytro Streshynsky revealed no information which indicated directly or indirectly that any funds had ever been transferred to the name of Mr. Marchuk.’
“‘The name of Yevhen Marchuk,’ as they explained, ‘only occurs in the testimony of defendant Mr. Streshynsky himself, which, under Italian judicial practice, is to be cited in a court decision. But this evidence was never corroborated in the course of initial investigation and preliminary judicial inquiry.’
“According to Judges Tampone and Dodero, who represent the Italian Themis, ‘media interpretations of the first part of the court ruling as accusation against Yevhen Marchuk are unfounded and completely distort the true meaning of the court decision.’”
COMMENTS
Nobody hopes, of course, that, aware of the meanness of their actions, the Derkaches will publicly apologize, repent, or quit public politics. They are hard nuts to crack. Already knowing that the Turin court decision had thwarted all attempts to pass the buck to Mr. Marchuk, a publication controlled by Andriy Derkach falsifies the document (the court ruling) and labels guilty an individual against whom no criminal proceedings have been instituted. It is now absolutely clear they wanted to libel him. Incidentally, the younger Derkach, cowardly as any provocateur, prefers to hide behind the backs of journalists. The style of the letter to Leonid Kuchma, signed by editors of his media outlets demanding the NSDC secretary be dismissed closely resembles another epistolary opus, namely, a letter from some SBU (headed by Leonid Derkach at the time) officers at the very beginning of tapegate to the effect that they had never known a Major Melnychenko, that none of the security officers had ever gone abroad, etc. The common feature of these two stories is that the true culprit (in one case his shameful inefficiency made it possible to bug the top office of this country, in another he unleashes a defamation campaign against the NSDC secretary) is trying to escape responsibility.
Significantly, all this has been going on under the ominous silence of Ukrainian politicians and, above all, members and neighbors of Andriy Derkach’s election bloc. What about their character? Are they afraid of something? What kind of lesson do they intend to offer society by dragging the Derkach duo into the new parliament?
As a whole, despite a rather popular opinion among political observers that this is nothing but clan warfare, the situation is in fact a conflict of principles. The question is whether Ukrainian politicians are capable of purging themselves from dirt of their own or the political technologies of street muggers will continue to dominate the Ukrainian market.
PS
“I can officially state that the government has never dealt in arms outside the existing laws and international law requirements,” Interfax-Ukraine quotes Volodymyr Horbulin, chairman of the State Commission for the Military- Industrial Complex, leader of the Democratic Union and Democratic Party election bloc, as saying during a live TV debate with KPRS (the Communist Party of Workers and Peasants) representatives on 1+1 television.
Mr. Horbulin reminded his interlocutors that he has worked in the field of defense since 1994. Asked whether businessman Volodymyr Rabynovych was implicated in the arms scandal, Mr. Horbulin said, “I cannot possibly say what Mr. Rabynovych has been doing. All I know is that Yevhen Marchuk took no part in those schemes.” Incidentally, Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko also said on March 12 that “the evidence we have and the investigation we’ve conducted show that Marchuk was not implicated in the crime.” It should be noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office made public its position after a long spell of silence, when it became clear, following the Turin court ruling, that all accusations against Mr. Marchuk are only an information provocation. Yet, the younger Derkach’s media outlets show no sign of calming down. On the night of last Tuesday, the Era TV channel showed a rather primitively- edited film. The authors pretended to be unaware of the Foreign Ministry’s, Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s, and Italian prosecutors’ statements about Mr. Marchuk’s noninvolvement, Mykhailo ZUBAR , The Day, reports.
On March 14 Ukrainian President Leonid KUCHMA called the accusations against Ukraine and, in part, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk of illegal arms trading “absolutely absurd.” “Arms are controlled so strictly worldwide that claims by some politicians on Ukraine’s arms trading seem dubious,” said the president at a Kyiv meeting with representatives of regional mass media. Answering a question about Mr. Marchuk’s involvement in illegal arms trading, Mr. Kuchma stressed that “nobody but a court can accuse a person,” reports Interfax Ukraine. “It is clear that all this is just being used in course of the elections campaign,” he also noted. President Kuchma attributes all accusations against Ukraine of illegal arms trading to a “propaganda campaign.” Ukraine, working in close cooperation with the UN and other international organizations, “is faithfully fulfilling” the embargo on arms trading. In Mr. Kuchma’s view, such accusations are connected with “dishonest competition on the arms market.”
