President Viktor Yushchenko says the creation of a national commission to reform the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is a top priority. He stressed this during a meeting with the heads of Ukraine’s special services on Dec. 12, the president’s press service reports. He also made it clear he wants the quick drafting and submission of a new concept on the intelligence service and a general inspectorate to monitor Ukraine’s military units, which would be accountable directly to the head of state.
A separate issue on the meeting’s agenda was Ukraine’s military and technological cooperation. The president emphasized the need to step up work in this sphere because issues relating to national security are topical as never before. The head of state instructed NSDC Secretary Vitalii Haiduk and First Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Arsenii Yatseniuk to prepare the appropriate draft edicts.
During the meeting President Yushchenko directed attention to the need to clearly define the objectives and monitor the tasks being fulfilled by the secret service agencies in 2007-08. “My objective is to improve our achievements,” the president emphasized. Until recently the SBU was headed by Ihor Drizhchany. In late November the president asked parliament to relieve Drizhchany of his post and appointed him deputy head of the NSDC. Parliament has not gotten around to deliberating Drizhchany’s dismissal.
In an interview with the journal Focus, Yevhen Marchuk discussed the status of the SBU:
“What I consider wrong above all is the interruption caused by the dismissal of the former SBU chief, Ihor Drizhchany. Several days have gone by and no one has been appointed in his place. His dismissal appears to be explained only by the need to relieve Drizhchany of his post, because if there were another candidate to cope with different tasks, the president would have immediately submitted a name to parliament.
“Today, the SBU is perhaps the only instrument the president has to assist him with his domestic political activities. Since the president decided to dismiss Drizhchany and is taking his time appointing a replacement, he must have found out something about the performance of the SBU head that was not to his liking. I don’t know what, but I can make an assumption. The Presidential Secretariat is manned by a new team — a rather active one. I don’t know what its members say to the president, but we know that they want to regain positions already lost or that can be lost by the presidential authority.
“Hypothetically, I would say that Drizhchany did not measure up to the Presidential Secretariat’s new team, which had decided to implement the state’s position in a firmer way. If this is the case, that’s bad.
“In the current decentralized political system the SBU cannot act long and conspiratorially enough to serve anyone’s interests inside the country, much as they would like to. If we suppose hypothetically that someone wants to use the service to pressure or get even with someone, we have a case of ‘left-wing infantile disorder.’
“First, no matter what things the SBU tries to undertake, which can legally pursued, it will not be able to bypass the Office of the Prosecutor General. Today there is practically nothing the SBU can submit to court single-handedly.
“Second, this office is authorized to monitor the legality of official activities, including at the level of power structures. The prosecutor’s office has the right to check every case, even in the phase of pretrial investigation. But that’s not all. Why should the SBU be re-involved in the political struggle? I could be wrong about my assumptions, but I believe that they are close to the truth.”
