As I mentioned when the Bank Ukrayina scandal surfaced, this is a story to watch, because this bank was one of the favorites of those in the business of converting political influence into money. This week we learn that the authorities supposedly know who took out the bad loans but is not releasing the names. As we used to say back home, it gets curiouser and curiouser. I expect it to get more so. Keep in mind one thing. During the Watergate scandal I recall how the insider source dubbed Deep Throat told the intrepid reporters on the case, “Follow the money.” This is good advice for journalists in general, particularly so in the case of a bank, the specialty of which was dicey dealings with this country’s rich and famous. I doubt any complete list of deadbeats will be made public anytime soon, if ever: too many political heavy hitters are likely to be on it. One might, however, expect some selective revelations to discredit those on the outs with those in a position to leak the inside information. This is what passes for transparency in government here: only as transparent as those controlling the information find it in their interests to make it. Otherwise, if you want to find out what is happening, you have to read the tea leaves in the press like the old Kemlinologists did with Pravda and Izvestiya.
Another circumstance to keep in mind is that it is almost impossible to prove who actually owns what here, and this will make it doubly difficult to find out who actually used the bank in question to suck the money out of the NBU and innocent depositors. Combine with this the fact that the political class has no idea of a concept very basic to the way representative self-government works in the contemporary West, conflict of interest. For example, one prominent lawmaker told me some weeks ago, “I said that it wasn’t really necessary to remove Yushchenko, but I can understand that he didn’t take into account the business interests of certain members of the parliament.” Again, this is not a question of individuals but of a political culture, which takes it for granted that what we in America call a public trust can legitimately be used to further private ends. More recently, another prominent politician told me, “I have never seen them take the people into account.” As the Ukrayina scandal unfolds, it will come down to the fact that the opening line of the Ukrainian national anthem, Shche ne vmerla Ukrayina, Ukraine is not dead yet, has assumed a special urgency. Unless the political class cleans up its act, it remains to be seen how long the observation embodied in that line will hold.
