U.S. Wary of Kuchmagate: allegations that Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma authorized the sale of a high-tech radar system to Iraq is threatening the republic's integration into the West

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 26, 2002 | by Douglas Burton

According to Piskun, "It is interesting that two days after Gongadze disappeared on Sept. 16, 2000, there was a record of a draft of the president's remarks concerning Gongadze being printed out from a computer belonging to Mykola Rudkovsky, a [Socialist Party] member of parliament."

To his credit, prosecutor Piskun has moved far more expeditiously to investigate the so-called "Kuchmagate" scandals than did his predecessor, who stepped down in April. After Piskun reopened the Gongadze murder probe, he arrested and charged the regional prosecutor and several police officials with neglecting or mishandling the investigation, he tells INSIGHT. Piskun also says he has reopened the investigation into the death of Valery Malev, head of the arms-export agency with whom Kuchma apparently was speaking on the tapes carrying the remarks about authorizing the Kolchuga transfer. Malev died in an automobile accident on March 7, four days after a parliamentary commission notified Kuchma that it had evidence the president had violated an international arms embargo.

Kuchma's opponents narrowly failed in a late-October bid to begin impeachment proceedings against the president, after a criminal probe focused on investigating Kuchma's links to the Gongadze killing, the Kolchuga authorization and nine other crimes was ordered by a Kiev appellate court in mid-October. Piskun had moved to block the probe, arguing that it was unconstitutional since the president has immunity from criminal prosecution while he is in office, as do all members of the Ukrainian parliament. The issue is under review by Ukraine's Supreme Court, according to Judge Yuriy Vasylenko, who ordered the probe.

Piskun tells INSIGHT, "The opposition simply wanted to register a case against the president," adding: "The president has not been charged with any crimes and cannot be charged under the Ukrainian Constitution, which grants him immunity from prosecution while he is in office."

Regardless of how Kuchmagate is resolved, the two-year parade of scandal accusations can serve only the geopolitical interests of Russia, which seeks to block Ukraine's move toward NATO and the West, says member of parliament Yuriy Pavlenko, a leader of the Our Ukraine bloc of parties, part of the president's opposition.

"Russia wants the Ukraine to have a weak president, especially during a period of rapid privatization when Russian companies are set to purchase an array of Ukrainian state assets," he tells INSIGHT. "Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, [a former premier of Russia] Victor Chernomyrdin, has this as his primary task: to create market opportunities for Russian corporations."

NATO's snub of Kuchma at the Prague Summit is "very childish, mistaken behavior of Western diplomats," says Olexandr Kovtunenko, a fellow parliamentarian with the Our Ukraine bloc. "The western stance may have a reverse effect--strengthening the position of Russia, which has the greatest stake in keeping the Ukraine out of the European Union's orbit," he explains. According to Kovtunenko, "President Bush should meet with President Kuchma at the Prague Summit to seek his collaboration in the war on terror. A lack of communication represents a problem. Without it, he [Kuchma] will talk to Russia or other desirable countries."