Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz’s November 28 statement at the morning session of Verkhovna Rada could not pass unnoticed. It is hard to think of another case in the history of the Ukrainian parliament when anyone would speak from the podium, accusing the head of the state of contracting a crime. In Mr. Moroz’s words, “Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine, is the person who ordered journalist Heorhy Gongadze’s disappearance.” He went on to say that Volodymyr Lytvyn, head of the Presidential Administration, “was informed” and that the scenario was worked out and enacted by Internal Affairs Minister Yuri Kravchenko.
Oleksandr Moroz promised that his sensational statement would be corroborated by supporting documentary evidence at a news conference that would take place half an hour later. Needless to say, the room allocated for the news conference was packed, and not so much with media people as with lawmakers, most wearing red badges eloquently attesting to their party affiliation. Among those eagerly awaiting Mr. Moroz’s “documentary evidence” were Deputies Omelchenko, Yermak, and Karmazin who, despite their attraction to sensations, looked like children losing their game to a grownup master who has suddenly appeared onstage.
The said documentary evidence of Leonid Kuchma’s involvement in Gongadze’s disappearance was an audio tape played on an ordinary tape player next to Mr. Moroz. Before the play button was pressed, the Socialist leader explained that the tape had been given him by “a clandestine agency officer responsible for preventing the evesdropping of certain premises.”
Judging from Mr. Moroz’s words, the anonymous officer had now been guaranteed personal safety, with similar security arrangements made for his family, presumably courtesy of Mr. Moroz. The tape was described as a record of the President’s conversations with Messrs. Lytvyn and Kravchenko.
After that the audience spent several minutes trying to make something out of a practically inaudible verbal exchange. By straining one’s ears one could make out the word “Gongadze” repeated several times, also “Liashko,” and “the Chechens.” Most present, having no experience in deciphering such soundtracks, were disappointed and just stared and listened to fragments of the “secret conversations.”
Considering Mr. Moroz’s assurance that the tape had been in his personal possession for quite some time, one could only wonder why the organizers of the sensational news conference had not bothered to decipher it or make and duplicate a transcript. This would be done sometime before that evening, the audience was told. The impression was that the Socialist detectives believed that the taped conversations — all that murmuring — would produce a bigger impression if not deciphered. In fact, Oleksandr Moroz confirmed that the tape did not have the President’s unequivocal instruction to have Gongadze abducted, contrary to what he had declared from the parliamentary podium the morning before.
This author asked Mr. Moroz how he pictured his personal and political status after using such material. The number one Socialist replied that all methods are fair when a fellow person’s life is at stake. Really?
Everyone present at Mr. Moroz’s audio session will confirm that the subject of the missing journalist Gongadze faded in the background as the main emphasis was placed on Leonid Kuchma. After all, how could one take seriously the assumption that the discovery of a body, presumably that of Gongadze, in the vicinity of Tarashcha (Oleksandr Moroz’s electoral district) was only a chance occurrence? And after the Socialist leader shared another piece of sensational news, that Gongadze’s head had been found at his (Moroz’s) dacha, listening was no longer interesting. Of all versions, Mr. Moroz’s involvement in or with the journalist’s disappearance has never been seriously considered. Regular readers of the Internet publication edited by the missing journalist know only too well that among its regular features were those contributed by journalists on Mr. Moroz’s team.
Oleksandr Moroz claimed that the authenticity of Mr. Kuchma’s taped conversations had been confirmed by foreign experts. This seems like something only people totally unfamiliar with modern audio techniques could believe. Modern recording technologies make it possible to produce, in a matter of minutes, a perfectly “authentic” tape with, say, President Clinton letting off a string of expletives in faultless Ukrainian. That is why no court of law anywhere in the world will accept an audio tape as evidence.
