Lina Kostenko, a prominent modern Ukrainian writer, has paid much attention to Gongadze’s murder case in her recently presented novel Notes of a Ukrainian Madman. Keeping a chronicle of events that took place in 2000, she writes that we are entering the 21st century with an unburied body. But the body has not been buried even 10 years afterwards. We are also entering the second decade of the 21st century with an unburied body. It is humiliating for his relatives, for all who are concerned with this case and, in general, for the whole of society. It would seem that everybody knows everything already, but nobody dares put an end to this case. Instead, from time to time we learn about some new versions of the murder, some more details. So society is constantly kept in suspense; we can even say that it gets poisoned by ever new portions of negative information, without ultimate result, i.e. the triumph of justice and the supremacy of law. We discuss the details of this case with Oleksii PODOLSKY, a journalist and human rights activist who was lucky enough to survive a similar scenario three months before Gongadze was murdered.
Oleksii, the other day the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv refused to remedy a grievance put forth by Valentyna Telychenko, a representative of Myroslava Gongadze, the murdered journalist’s widow, and you as a victim in Pukach’s case for the cancellation of the General Prosecutor Office’s resolution to close the case versus Pukach in the part of ordering an assassination. Why?
“Only a few have paid attention to the fact that the GPO resolution says that ‘Pukach carried out criminal orders given by Kravchenko (the late ex-minister of internal affairs – Author) and other persons unascertained by the inquest.’ In the past I was an officer, and therefore I know that in the army even a rank-and-file soldier gets an order from a limited circle of persons. And the higher the position, the narrower the circle of persons who may issue orders. Pukach was the manager of the Main Criminal Investigation Division of the External Supervision Department of the MIA of Ukraine. Proceeding from the status of his position, he could carry out orders only given by the minister (or, in the absence of the latter, first deputy minister) and by the president of Ukraine. He was not even subordinate to other deputy ministers. And it means that the GPO of Ukraine and Pechersk Court have in fact acknowledged Kuchma to be behind Gongadze’s murder. Because the ‘persons unascertained by the inquest’ have indeed been ascertained, since according to their words it was an order. Hence, they are inconsistent with themselves. If the prosecutors insist that it was an order rather than a contract killing, then, I repeat, orders to Pukach at that moment might be issued only by two persons in the country, i.e. the Minister of Internal Affairs Kravchenko and President Kuchma. They have already named Kravchenko, and the ‘persons unascertained by the inquest’ have been practically acknowledged to be Kuchma.
But this is not everything. There are other examples when in his decision the judge writes in ‘item c’ of the indictment: ‘The victim’s (i.e. my) arguments: murder of a person who does his civic duties.’ I have never said so nor mentioned it, though. I did not know about this ‘item c’ at all. And the judge has reproached me that my arguments in respect of this item do not conform to the law. How can you treat a man like that? The judge in his resolution writes things that I have not said. It is simply roguery.”
The hirers’ names are hardly a secret now. Why do they keep trying to whitewash them?
“Because the authorities are an advocate for these names. For 11 years now they have been trying to exculpate them. Why has the GPO removed the word ‘hired?’ It is done to mitigate Pukach’s guilt. They are thus saving him from lifelong imprisonment, since a ‘hired murder’ entails an ‘aggravating circumstance,’ which is punished by life in prison. This is in the first place. Secondly, if there is no hiring, in my understanding they will not try this in court. Because when rank-and-file perpetrators were on trial, all our attempts to speak of hirers were confronted with the judge’s words: ‘it is not the matter at issue in this trial.’ We were speaking of the necessity to enter ‘Melnychenko’s tapes’ on the record and to summon him to testify at the trial, but all this was of little effect. The word ‘hiring’ has been removed in order to avoid mentioning hirers’ names in the future. To all our appeals to try on the merits the judges responded that this was not the matter at stake. Today we are told about some totally different motivation, as if Pukach was allegedly pursuing some personal ends. In a word, I have an impression that today’s inquest is an attempt to conduct the proceedings with Pukach alone — to sentence him and to shelf the case.”
Oleh Musiienko, a former counsel of Oleksii Pukach, declared that Pukach was trying to persuade the inquest that he did not want to kill Heorhii Gongadze, although he did not deny the fact of having been given a “criminal order” either...
“Today Pukach may as well say so. But it was not in the materials that we acquainted ourselves with two months ago. There he states all over the place that he got an order ‘to kill,’ and he killed consciously. Probably, during the last interrogations he has changed his testimony. I have not seen it, therefore I cannot say anything.”
Tetiana, former minister Yurii Kravchenko’s widow states that her husband did not order Gongadze’s murder. In her opinion, Oleksii Pukach is lying...
“Does Kravchenko’s widow have evidence that Pukach is lying? I have not heard about it yet. My opinion is set out in the very first complaint, written in a militia station a couple of hours after I had been beaten. I wrote that it had been done by militiamen on Kravchenko’s orders, on Kuchma’s demand. Gongadze was still alive then.
“By the way, when we were acquainting ourselves with the case, we had not been shown Kravchenko’s case. I think that it will not be available at the trial.”
Hence, they suggest that the journalist’s murder was ordered by Kravchenko, but at the same time they do not subjoin his case...
“Kravchenko was ‘removed’ as the main witness. And we have been dismissed from the case at all. They do not want to subjoin it to Gongadze’s case and ours, just like they do not want to do a lot of other things. Why? So that hirers would never be named.”
Moreover, new versions are constantly concocted...
“Yes, various versions were brought forward. There were statements that Gongadze was seen in Lviv, that I was running around naked somewhere, but it did not go beyond idle talk, because everything was built on lies. Take, for example, those statements made by Kuchma about the involvement of foreign special services in Gongadze’s murder. A question arises: have special services also been involved in beating me? The matters stand differently. The late general Fere in Shcherbytsky’s times had indeed the same position as Pukach had under Kravchenko. He was the person who headed the external intelligence [services]. They used to bring dissidents, including myself, out of town to beat them. These methods were applied as early as in the 1960s-1970s. Therefore Fere could advise Kuchma. Kravchenko started as Fere’s assistant, whereas Pukach was Kravchenko’s. It is a kind of succession. Just have a look at their careers. In their time it was them who invented these methods of fighting their opponents, and they are still being used. Therefore you need not talk all kind of nonsense about foreign special services; it only shows that they remain the party committee chiefs.
“Furthermore, all this is a heritage of the previous regimes; Stalin’s, for example. It is their habit.
“The matter is neither in Gongadze nor in myself. I was just lucky; he, unfortunately, wasn’t. The matter is that we have behind us not just dozens or hundreds, but thousands of people who have been oppressed or murdered with the help of a mechanism involving law enforcement bodies. I am sure that similar things were happening both in politics and in business. Simply what had befallen us suddenly came to the surface. And it was investigated only because the international community’s demands. Otherwise it would have been forgotten, just like the rest of the thousands of murders committed this way. Therefore in this case we are accusing the very principle of applying pressure tactics in the fight against ideological opponents, rather than accusing individuals.
“I am no public figure; I am living a private life. But I consider it my civic duty to comment on everything that concerns this case. Because all this concerns not only me personally (I would never communicate with journalists for no particular reason), but all our organization (the Ukrainska Perspektyva Charity Foundation — Author) as well. There were days when Serhii Odarych (an active member of Ukrainska Perspektyva in the late 1990s-early 2000s, presently the mayor of Cherkasy — Author) was shot in his legs. Our sponsor Serhii Kaunov, general director of the Halytski Kontrakty publication, was beaten so badly that for two months he had to stay in hospital with his jaw broken. What is even worse, one man was killed in Donetsk (Oleksandr Yakymenko, chairman of the Donetsk branch of the MY Human Rights Protection Organization, killed in 2000 in Donetsk — Author) who was summoned to the city’s prosecutor and warned that should he continue distributing newspaper materials where we argued with President Kuchma with regard to the Constitution, he would come to a bad end. He was burned in his car right before his family. And all this was done by the same people. We simply have not got enough proof.
“Of course, after seeing such methods, many people are afraid. For example, all my relatives said that I was foolish to have written the complaint — you have been beaten, and you are to be silent and sit still for that. Everybody is used to the system, and there is nothing you can do against it. And this is what the people who created the system are counting on.”
We have a fresh example: the disappearance of Vasyl Klymentiev, a journalist from Kharkiv.
“I believe that the disappearance of the Kharkiv journalist is related to the existence of the Gongadze case. A precedent has already been set. That’s why society reacted to Klymentiev’s disappearance so promptly. I recall one of Savik Shuster’s programs where I was present, but I was never given the floor. Instead, some representatives of the authorities urged: we need to forget everything — stop running around with these photos, but better help Gongadze’s children and mother. The authorities therefore call upon us to stop showing solidarity. If we forgive them this case (and the hirers will never be found), we will have many more such cases coming, just like Klymentiev’s. Our solidarity is our protection.”
If the authorities have no strength (no wish, no will) to name and punish those who ordered the murder, maybe the case should be frozen, and its details should not be regularly given, to avoid constantly traumatizing the society?
“Personally I am against all these details. But the essence of the matter is different: the authorities killed a man for his ideological convictions, for opposing them with word and not with weapons. Instead, they use force against the word. I do not think that this case should be frozen. On the contrary, if we are silent, soon each of us will face The Day: today the entrepreneurs, tomorrow students, and The Day after somebody else. I do not believe in the purity of the opposition, but if unfair methods are used against it, then we have to protect it in order to protect ourselves. Take that notorious Tax Code. It is written out in such a way that each entrepreneur would become a criminal, because he will not be able to live on the declared income after the new taxes. And if he becomes a criminal, he should be convicted. And so each of us is caught on the hook.
“The authorities have absolutely pragmatic reckonings with regard to Gongadze’s case and ours. While Lytvyn keeps on rubberstamping laws, they need him, and as soon as they hold new elections, and he fails to get to the Verkhovna Rada, then he can be offered as a ‘sweet sacrifice’ to the international community. Is he their brother, comrade or something? There is no special affection towards him. Therefore they can promptly write him off. As far as Kuchma is concerned, he is backed by a family with an enormous fortune. It is clear that this wealth may enter the political battlefield, and the authorities do not want that. Therefore they will keep a certain leash around the throne to prevent it from financing or creating any opposition parties or movements. The present authorities are not sentimental about Kuchma, neither as former president nor as a person.”
But will the authorities benefit from using force? Will it attract, for example, those foreign investments that they are speaking about so much? Maybe this case is still worth solving?
“The current authorities and capital are not interested in investments flowing to Ukraine. Because all this requires compliance with democratic norms of behavior, such as combating corruption, adhering to various freedoms etc. Besides, at the moment when the ‘carve-up’ is still going on in this country, when the land has not yet been doled out, they will not let anybody come here. The authorities can only speak about the freedom of speech, investments, modernization or anything you like, but they do exactly the contrary. They like being their own masters in Ukraine, why should they need anybody else?”
Do you believe that some day Gongadze’s case and yours will be solved?
“When I wrote a complaint after having been beaten, I had no smallest hope that a criminal case would be opened. And no proceedings were instigated until Gongadze disappeared. Then Melnychenko’s tapes appeared. Something started moving, but the law enforcement bodies were doing their best to avoid investigating our cases. When Yushchenko became president, he gave Kuchma his guarantees that nothing will be done to those would ordered the killing. Perpetrators were found at once within a couple of months, and when some life had to be put into the case, Pukach was brought out into the open. The special services and law enforcement bodies always knew where he was. Now they attempt to put an end to him.
“So that is how we are gradually moving. We do not know what we will have tomorrow or The Day after, in a year or two. Probably, the same events will happen as in Tunisia or Egypt, since you cannot oppress the people this much. As we know, empires do fall apart. And the Russian empire is doomed to disintegration as well; even in its existing edition. They can make some attempts to seize us, but in historical perspective Russia will lose. As a result, Europe is waiting for all of us. And that is where we will unite, like the French and Germans did. The matter is that over the years of our independence Ukrainian society has been developing little by little. And it will not sit back twiddling its thumbs.”
