The Day: President Kuchma should stand trial

The Day 20-Jul-1999 President Kuchma should stand trial

Hryhory Omelchenko submitted directives signed by President Kuchma, ordering his subordinates to carry out illegitimate financial operations transferring amounts in foreign currency from Ukraine to foreign companies' bank accounts.

If Leonid Kuchma � George-Soros-installed president of Ukraine � manages to get himself re-elected in this October's presidential elections, then Ukraine will fall so firmly into the grip of the Kuchma mafia that there will be no escape, and I fear Ukraine will be plunged into third-world status not just for the foreseeable future, but forever.

A consideration to keep in mind when predicting the future of any nation is that once its leader has been guilty of theft and violence, then losing an election does not bring with it the cost merely of no longer being leader � it brings with it the fear of prosecution, with jail time as a possible outcome, and conceivably even the death penalty. A leader who has gotten himself into such a situation, therefore, might be expected to attempt to win re-election at any cost, not stopping at fraud, intimidation, suppression of freedom of the press, and even violence � all in order to protect himself from the criminal prosecution which an electoral defeat threatens.

And should such a leader be re-elected, he may be expected to continue his devolution toward despotism. He has no choice because the alternative path of liberalism always brings with it the threat of questions, investigations, accusations, prosecutions, justice, and even the release of pent-up vengeance.

Therefore, in Leonid Kuchma's second term, I expect that the handful of journalists who once found the courage to oppose him will discover the level of state terror directed against them increasing. I expect the petrification of the economy at its present low level. I expect a rush of Ukraine's remaining intelligentsia for the exits. I expect a state-conducted blood bath.

Once fired by the hope of each day climbing toward the liberty and the wealth and the security of a United States or a Germany, Ukraine will instead find itself each day continuing its slide toward the dictatorship and poverty and violence of an Albania or a Yugoslavia. This is the outcome which is in the interests of powers hostile to Ukraine. This is the outcome which the West installed Leonid Kuchma to implement. This is the only outcome that Leonid Kuchma knows how to deliver.

The participation of the West in the destruction of Ukraine lies not only in its installation of Leonid Kuchma to rule Ukraine, and not only in continuing to support him even as his ineptness and dictatorial tendencies became evident, and not only in plundering Ukraine of its intelligentsia � but as is indicated in the article below � in every day accepting for safekeeping money from Leonid Kuchma and the various members of his gang, knowing full well that it had been stolen out of the pockets of the Ukrainian people. We may expect that Switzerland has played its traditional role here in being first among plunderers. Who in all this has acted in Ukraine's interests? Is there anywhere among the nations a good Samaritan, or are they all vultures merely tearing at the flesh of a prostrate victim?

Until such time as Leonid Kuchma closes down the Kyiv newspaper, The Day, the original of the article below will continue to be found at:

http://www.day.kiev.ua/DIGEST/1999/27/issue.htm

And for the time being, Leonid Kuchma tolerates the home page of The Day to be accessed by clicking on its logo below.

Further reference to Yukhym Zviahilsky � Israeli citizen, onetime fugitive from Ukrainian justice, but today a happy member of the Ukrainian parliament, can you believe � mentioned in the article below, can be found at InfoUkes Posting 02Oct97.

Reference to the SBU below is to the Sluzhba Bespeky Ukrainy, or the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ukrainian successor to the Soviet KGB.

President Kuchma Should Stand Trial

But not the way it was done in Romania or South Korea, says Hryhory Omelchenko

Photo by Andriy GUDZENKO,
The Day
WHAT DO ALL THESE
CONSULTATIONS MEAN?

On July 15 Verkhovna Rada witnessed another round of exposes and incriminating testimonies, this time from people's avenger Hryhory Omelchenko, head of the parliamentary ad hoc committee of inquiry into the Blasco case. He sounded particularly convincing, being in possession of copies of condemning documents.

Summing up the commission's findings, he told his fellow lawmakers that Oleksandr, son of Ukraine's previous President Leonid Kravchuk, had opened exchange accounts with a number of foreign banks and submitted other evidence about sizable remittances to these accounts and other cases of what he said was embezzlement of Ukraine's foreign currency stock. Mr. Omelchenko stressed that this information should be considered as a due response to the "offended" Social Democratic faction accusing him of abuse of office and casting aspersions on "number one Social Democrat" Leonid Kravchuk.

Incidentally, the ex-President and another prime suspect in the Blasco case, People's Deputy Yukhym Zviahilsky, had left the audience before they could hear the accusations. And had the current President been in attendance, he would have followed suit for Hryhory Omelchenko submitted directives signed by President Kuchma, ordering his subordinates to carry out illegitimate financial operations transferring amounts in foreign currency from Ukraine to foreign companies' bank accounts. When queried by fellow legislators, Mr. Omelchenko admitted that he had until recently trusted Leonid Kuchma and personally reported to the President on the progress in his investigation, and that his findings would then be shelved more often than not. On one such occasion SBU Colonel Omelchenko found an excuse to stay in the President's office after an audience. Exactly seven minutes later he saw the ranking bureaucrats incriminated in his report being summoned to the Chief Executive.

Later, talking to journalists in the lobby, Mr. Omelchenko said that the sole purpose of his investigation was to make both Ukrainian Presidents face justice. If they did not, he believed that the Romanian scenario would be played out in Ukraine. Personally, however, he thought the South Korean scenario was the most likely, considering the indictment of that country's two ex-presidents.

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