Leonid Kuchma was supposed to be my guest in Poznan, for a conference which a local outside government organization puts together for Ukraine. Previously it was Leonid Kravchuk who took part in such event. Unfortunately, it seems that president Kuchma will not come to Poland at all. The Court in Kyiv has forbidden him to leave the city and started an investigation and legal conduct concerning his alleged input into Heorhii Gongadze’s death. I remember the beginning of this century very well. Ukraine started to change. Dramatic presentations of the recorded tapes by security officer Melnychenko, which had taken place in the Ukrainian parliament, have consolidated the opposition in Ukraine. Yulia Tymoshenko as well as Viktor Yushchenko, even though politically they were “Kuchma’s babies,” have begun a fight with the entire then current establishment and everything that had to do with Kuchma, including him. They’d been very effective.
After the spectacular win of the Orange Revolution, a lot had been done to find out who is responsible for the journalist’s death, even more so, the guilty parties were found, prosecuted and sent to in prison. No legal action was taken regarding president Kuchma. Today, Kuchma is sitting in court as one of the accused ones.
I’m very curious what new facts, or which new circumstances, have served as the foundation of such drastic decision. The Ukrainian Administration of Justice is getting involved in politics, and I’m sure it’s not the first or the last time it happens. This time it decided to participate in politics that had taken place seven years ago in Ukraine’s main open city field. It was then, when millions of people from Ukraine, and many people who were simply visiting for support, made a decision regarding certain way of conducting government. Then, it was something the nation desired and was respected by the current leader of the nation.
Now it’s history. Not much of an old one, but still history. The world was full of admiration for the determination and effectiveness of the opposition, but also for the way the authorities behaved. The Orange Revolution was peaceful and bloodless even though there were winners and losers.
The transfer of authority occurred with agreement and help of Leonid Kuchma. In that past moment of Ukrainian history he was without a doubt a positive figure. There should be a solid, credible book written about Kuchma’s input into building Ukraine’s sovereignty in those first couple of years after the country regained its independence.
I’m not the one to judge for the courts or for anyone, especially since I don’t mean to question their decisions and findings. However the case is widely commented in Europe and there are questions being asked regarding the political context of such actions.
It is crucial for the court, if making such drastic accusations, to quickly and credibly make a decision and make a good, fair judgment. Maintaining a public person in state of accusation, especially when it’s not an anonymous inhabitant of the country nearby Dnipro, is not serving well for the authority and Ukraine itself.
