Gongadze case: seven years of human tragedy and political “dancing on the bones”

It is difficult to write about the Gongadze case. It is difficult to admit the helplessness of journalists, law enforcement, political leaders, and the rest of society. It has been seven years since Georgiy Gongadze left us – seven years of promises in response to demands, and his children still have no chance to see that there is punishment for evil in this world...

On one hand, these seven years have not erased from our memory three shocks: the shock of the news about Gongadze’s disappearance, the shock of the headless body that allegedly belonged to him, and the shock of the Melnychenko tapes.

On the other hand, very regrettably, public interest in this issue has subsided: the mass media give it scarce coverage and very few of them raise the question: who ordered the murder?

The Gongadze case has more than a hundred volumes that shed some light on how Gongadze was killed and by whom but give no clue to that yet unanswered question. There have been countless political statements, and as many times the Gongadze case has become hostage to someone’s political interests. Now there is apparently less interest in this case but no less cynicism.

The court examination is proceeding at a snail’s pace. The psychiatric examination of three defendants has been underway for two months and there is no sign of progress in sight. Nobody can say when, at least tentatively, this process will finish.

The investigation into the masterminds looks totally hopeless. When Viktor Yanukovych became Prime Minister and Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin took the Gongadze case under his personal control, the investigators who had been working on it quite successfully were suddenly replaced. One investigator resigned in protest against being kept within rigid limits and two others were transferred to other positions. Was it really necessary to replace the team that had successfully completed the first part of the case? – The question is rhetorical. Kuzmin explains that “the case needed a fresh look and other versions needed examination”, but why replace all investigators? It is more logical to presume that someone is still trying to divert the investigation from a “hazardous” course.

The new investigators haven’t succeeded in their work on the case so far; it has taken them several months just to read the case. Actually, this has not surprised anybody. Meanwhile people, which are in some way or another connected with the case, are passing away. Every time when information about a death of one of the witnesses is received, it gives the impression that it is not at all an accident.

During the last year, the Prosecutor’s General Office has once again closed the case on death of a key witness – Yury Kravchenko, ex-minister of internal affairs. After the Mirror Weekly’s publication of a sensational interview with Mykola Polishchuk, the ex-minister of public health, in which the ex-minister asserted that the nature of Kravchenko’s wounds proved his murder, there was a resolution of Pechersk Court resuming the investigation into the ex-minister of internal affairs' death. But in February 2007, Prosecutor’s General Office stubbornly repeated its previous conclusion: Kravchenko had committed a suicide by shooting himself in the head two times in a row.

And the most notable fact of last year, connected to Gongadze case, is an honor reward given to Myhaylo Potebenko, ex-prosecutor general. The highest state reward –the Yaroslav the Wise order – was given to the man, who in 2000 simply ignored Gongadze’s request for a bodyguard when the journalist applied to Prosecutor’s General Office for assistance as he had been suspected to be under surveillance. Potebenko is the very man who asserted from the parliament rostrum that everything said on the Melnychenko tapes was a lie. When exactly Potebenko was in charge of the Prosecutor’s General Office, all possible means were used in order to hamper the real investigation of the Gongadze case.

It is also notable that this reward was given to Potebenko from the hands of the man who promised his nation and the international community to do everything in his power to punish the people guilty of Gongadze's death. On January 25, 2005 when newly-elected President Yushshenko was in Strasburg, he assured that there would be a transparent investigation of the Gongadze case and open sitting of the court. And as a result – an order to Potebenko.

The Institute of Mass Information together with other international organizations including the International Journalist's Federation wrote to the President of Ukraine in an open letter, in which we asked him to recall the above reward and conduct an investigation about hampering the investigation of Gongadze case. But we didn’t receive an answer.

However, Yuschenko is not the only politician that talked about the Gongadze case more than really doing anything to investigate it. Practically every election campaign in the country has been accompanied by the promises to find and punish the people guilty in Georgiy’s death. It is hard to count how many times Olexandr Moroz has made statements about the Gongadze case, but didn’t give an exact answer to the question: how could he find out about an imminent attempt on the journalist and when did he hear Melnychenko tapes for the first time.

On September 12 four international organizations, which have been watching the examination of the Gongadze case for seven years, will lay open to the public the third report about the investigation. There will be a lot of unpleasant questions to Ukrainian authorities and very few confirmations of progress in the country’s most resonant investigation…