Kravchenko and Kuchma

From Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw

Marcin Wojciechowski 06-03-2005, last update 06-03-2005 23:09

The Gongadze case: difficult to file charges against Kuchma

[passage omitted]

At the weekend Yuri Lutsenko, Minister of the Interior, disclosed the content of the letter that Kravchenko wrote before his death. "My dear ones. I'm innocent. Forgive me. I've become a victim of the political intrigues of president Kuchma and his entourage. I'm leaving you with clear conciensce. Good-bye," writes Kravchenko. Even if the letter is genuine, it faults Kuchma, but only morally.

The same story is with those *tapes of Kuchma's former bodyguard, mayor Mykola Melnichenko, in which the former president asks Kravchenko "to take care of Gongadze". - "In the eyes of our law, evidence has to be acquired legally. Unfortunately, the Melnichenko tapes were wiretapping, and that's not legal. Sorry, but that's not enough of a basis on which to charge Kuchma," - Volodimir Stretovych, lawyer and the chief of parliament's committee for the fight with corruption and organized crime, told Gazeta.

[passage omitted]

After Kravchenko's death the first wave of critique went through the Ukrainian media toward the cabinet of new president Yushchenko. "The death of minister came very handy and for some persons - please excuse me for this pun, it could prove simply to be vital to stay alive - writes in his commentary Vakhtang Kipiani from the Internet's Ukrainskaya Pravda, which was founded by Georgy Gongadze. And the weekly Dzerkalo Tyznia sums up: "The new stage of investigation in the Gongadze case begun from a farce - that's how those last week's boasts could be called, that the case has been already solved - but it ended in tragedy."

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*Republished with permission by Transitions Online (TOL). This article originally appeared on the TOL web site on January 5, 2001.

The words "blya" and "blyad" are not translated, since they are here used not in their original meaning (vulgar term for "whore") but primarily for adding an emotional tincture to the speech.

Excerpt 1

Kuchma: ...Ukrainska Pravda, well, this is completely already, blyad, insolence. Bastard, blya. The Georgian, Georgian, blin.

Unidentified Individual: Gongadze?

Kuchma: Gongadze. Well, who could be financing him?...

Unidentified Individual: Well, he actively works with this, with Moroz, with Grani [web site].

Kuchma: To court, maybe. Here, people's deputies. Let the lawyers take him to court. This goes to the prosecutor, right? It's just, blya, ... there is some kind of limit, son-of-a-bitch, blya. ... Deport him, blyat, to Georgia and throw him the fuck out there.

Unidentified Individual: Drive him out to Georgia and throw him there.

Kuchma: The Chechens need to kidnap him and throw him away.


Excerpt 2

Kravchenko: Gongadze. We already came across [this individual in the past] ...

Kuchma: Wha-?

Kravchenko: We came across him somewhere. We're looking.

Kuchma: The things he constantly writes in some kind of Ukrainska Pravda he throws it onto the Internet, understand. Well who? Someone finances him.

Kravchenko: (undecipherable phrase) I have people ... (undecipherable) ...

Kuchma: But the main thing, I'm telling you, as an example, that's what Volodya says, the Chechens need to kidnap him and drive him the fuck out to Chechnya and ask for a ransom.

Kravchenko: Eh, we'll just ... him somewhere ... I'm telling you ... These are the type of people (laughing) just unbelievable ...

Kuchma: Well, drive him out to Georgia, and that's it.


Excerpt 3

Kuchma: ... there is, besides [the information] that [Gongadze] works with Moroz, that he writes for Moroz in his Grani, ... starting from the summer, and that ... finances him.

Kravchenko: Well ... I wouldn't be surprised is they have connections with the socialists here. .. Well, we'll take care of things with them. ...

Excerpt 4

Kuchma: I'm telling you, drive him out, throw him out. Give him to the Chechens. ...

Kravchenko: We'll think it through. We'll do it, so that's [that].

Kuchma: [I] mean, drive him out, undress him. Blya, leave him without
his pants, let him sit here. I'd do it simply, blya.

Kravchenko: ... I have right now a fighting team, such eagles, who do
everything that you want. That's the situation at present.

Kuchma: ... They're throwing [a lot of] dirt into Russia through the
Internet. You know, into the Internet through Russia. Clear?

Kravchenko: ... for me now there is a question ... I have my team
there ... there are contacts ... I put armed surveillance there. I
want to learn his contacts. ...

Kuchma: And does Gongadze have a team? They named some surnames there
[who are] scribbling this dirt. There are three of them.

Kravchenko: We have them. We have them all. But I want to start with
him, because I want to see how the General [Prosecutor Mykhaylo
Potebenko] will react. ...

Excerpt 5

Kravchenko: Well, Leonid Danylovych [Kuchma], what's new?

Kuchma: Gongadze, or what?

Kravchenko: Exactly ... (undecipherable). Today, there, we ...
observed [something].

Kuchma: Are they looking for [parliamentarian Sergei] Holovaty?

Kravchenko: Ya, they're looking. They've already found two ties. We're following him.. I want to khlopnut him [slang for kill] I want to pop him straight and simple. I'll throw him a prostitute, the very best there is. ... Everything that has been assigned, everything is working. So, I think with time, Gongadze in a few days. We have to wait and see how things turn out with one director ... I looked there
at selected materials of his. There's this on Yeliseyev ... this is Svoboda [newspaper], Lyashko.

Kuchma: I have Lyashko ... we will (two hand claps) him.

Excerpts from Episode 6

Kuchma: How should I say this ... Kravchenko promised to take care of it.

Lytvyn: ... The Georgian embassy made an official announcement and made an anonymous call [from] the embassy that the Moscow rayon needs to be searched and Volkov is dealing with this matter, [as well as] Kravchenko and Kisil. One can't ... undermine it [politics] ...

Kuchma: The ambassador has to be summoned.

Lytvyn: Me too .. And make some kind of notation or warning, or have a conversation.

Kuchma: A phone call needs to be made ... and get him the hell out, this sort of ambassador, blin. Koval (unidentified), you need to be removed. Have you been taking care of things with the Georgian embassy?

Koval: We will now start to take care of things.

Kuchma: And summon him. Blya, let him answer, otherwise I'll call [Georgian President Eduard] Shevardnadze to remove him the hell out of here.

Koval: Okay.

Kuchma: And say that I will call Shevardnadze, to remove him the hell
out of here.

Koval: Okay, Okay, I'm summoning him right now.

Excerpt 7

(Kuchma making a telephone call to Leonid Derkach, head of the State
Security Service)

Kuchma: Listen, they just showed me [these] newspapers, blyat, all these, blyat, being published. Well, Hrysha Omelchenko is continuing to publish a paper in Kremenchug. Well, what are you bullshitting [about]? No, no, right now, for the 15th of September, he put out a paper. And I'm telling you, September 15 [he] published a newspaper. Svoboda, blya, is being published and you're still [going on] about
that ... Well there, well there, there are such [insulting] caricatures there. So then you invite Yulia. Fuck your mother, you invite Yulia and ask: "Dear one, what are you bitch, blya, doing? Do you want us to [destroy] you completely, or what?" And say: "Why are you financing Omelchenko, why are you doing this and that?" Don't you know [how to do] your job, or what?! ... So, if they aren't one fucking bit afraid of you. Fuck your mother, what's with you? Why should you be feared? It is our service that they are afraid of. ... I am the one who appointed you. So that's why. Let's go.

Excerpt 8

(Another conversation with Derkach)

Kuchma: Listening. And where are you looking? In Poltava oblast, in Kremenchug, this bastard Omelchenko is publishing such a newspaper there, blya, simply incredible. With caricatures, blya, [of] the president, and dirty publications. So therefore, he can't ... the security service together with the prosecutor [can] start a criminal
case together. These lawyers looked at [this] there and say that there are grounds to start such a case. Where's the Service [SBU]? Well, yah. Then why aren't they reporting now? They bring me this newspaper ... Newspapers, blya, they deliver to me here, while the service doesn't report one fucking thing at all. And that's what's most interesting. So, I'll look [into] who takes part in [these things], in
this same [newspaper]. All of these anti-presidential correspondents ... Yah, and that includes Korobova, Hrani. Fuck your mother, imagine, this bitch, blya, this whore of newspapers that he brought her into.... That Gongadze, blya, good-bye, good riddance.

Lytvyn: They all need to be ...


(via Marius)