Cassette Scandal
From Freepedia
The Cassette Scandal (Ukrainian: Касетний скандал), a.k.a. "Tapegate", erupting in 2000, has so far been one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history. It has dramatically affected the country's domestic and foreign policy, changing Ukraine's orientation from the West to Russia and radically turning the career of President Leonid Kuchma.
The scandal was started on 28 November 2000 in Kyiv, when Ukrainian politician Oleksander Moroz publicly accused President Kuchma of involvement in the abduction of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and numerous other crimes. Moroz named Kuchma's former bodyguard, Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, as the source of information. He also played selected recordings of the President's secret conversations for journalists, supposedly confirming Kuchma's order to kidnap Gongadze. That and hundreds of other conversations were later published worldwide by Mel'nychenko.
Journalists nicknamed the case after the compact audio cassette that was used by Moroz. Mel'nychenko himself was supposedly using digital equipment, not cassettes, for recording in the President's office.
Immediate consequences
The described events provoked a long-term political crisis, resulting in mass protests in Kyiv. Opposition started a campaign of non-violent resistance called UBK ("Ukraine without Kuchma!"), demanding President's resignation. Numerous other political changes resulted from the scandal. Despite economic growth in the country, the rates of public support for President Kuchma fell lower than 9%.
In 2002, the governments of United States and other countries became deeper involved after one of the recordings revealed the alleged transfer of sophisticated Ukrainian radar system (called "Kol'chuha") to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As a result, Leonid Kuchma has been boycotted by Western governments for a while. Particularly, he experienced an offensive diplomatic demarche when visiting the NATO summit that took place on 21-22 November 2002 in Prague. Breaking the decades-lasting tradition, the list of participating countries was announced in French, not English. So the Turkey was named after Ukraine instead of United Kingdom and United States. It was staged to avoid Kuchma's neighboring with Tony Blair and George W. Bush.
Moreover, widely publicized conversations depicted Kuchma as a rude, undereducated and spiteful person, using filthy lexics and speaking a freak mixture of Russian and Ukrainian languages. Advocates argue that excessive foul language is the proof of a deliberate montage of the recordings using extrinsic audio samples.
Influenced by all above-mentioned, the President soon became disillusioned with the European integration and started to loosen Ukraine's relations with the United States and EU, critical to his regime. Instead, he boosted integration with Russia, considering the fact that its new leader, Vladimir Putin, was continuously supporting Kuchma and refusing to recognize the allegations.
Commenting on the scandal and Mel'nychenko's actions in particular, Leonid Kuchma persistently claims they were a result of foreign interference, but never accuses any specific country. However, some of his statements on the issue may be interpreted as cautious hints on the role of either United States or Russia.
Modern developments
In September 2003, Ukrainian troops joined U.S.-lead stabilization forces in Iraq, which is widely perceived as Kuchma's effort to improve relations with the West. Since then, high-level relations were partially restored.
Today, all the main figures of the scandal remain active and influential in modern Ukrainian politics. The case is directly connected with the political career of not only Kuchma (whose presidential term will soon expire), but also Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's Prime Minister at the time and now a leading candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Oleksander Moroz took the third place in the election and concluded an alliance with Yushchenko, resulting in the reformation of Ukraine's constitution (in favor of the parliament). Hundreds of politicians and activists taking part in 2001 protests are at the lead of the 2004 "Orange Revolution", happening on the very same street and in a similar manner. Yushchenko, who supported Kuchma back in 2001 and refused to be at the head of UBK campaign, was leading the revolution and became President on January 23 2005.
Mykola Mel'nychenko (now in U.S. political asylum) continues to release new portions of his recordings. Some analysts find his behavior partisan and suspicious. In 2004, Volodymyr Tsvil', a Ukrainian businessman who assisted Mel'nychenko in his escape, publicly accused him of not revealing certain details of the case and trying to sell the audio archive to Kuchma's aides.
The criminal investigation regarding the circumstances of Mel'nychenko's records and Georgiy Gongadze's death remains inconclusive despite a mass of information revealed by numerous journalistic investigations.
Viktor Yushchenkohas claimed on February 23 2005 that two witnesses on the case of Georgiy Gongadze were murdered.
“I have information, which renders me optimistic, that we can put an end to this story… Many things were wiped out, two out of the four main witnesses were murdered”, said Victor Yushchenko, giving no details.
According to him, the main problem in the Gongadze case is to preserve the materials which may indicate the guilty.
The President has disclosed that after his meeting with Lessia Gongadze, a “special group of police and SBU departments was set up and subjected to the General Prosecutor’s Office”. According to him, this group is being used for an effective probing into this case.
“As of today, two cases, which are indirectly connected with the death of Giya Gongadze, have been passed by the PGO to court”, said the President.
On March 1, 2005, Yushchenko announced that the journalist's suspected killers had been arrested. [1] Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun announced the following day that the case had been solved, telling Ukrainian television that Gongadze had been strangled by employees of the Interior Ministry. Two of the alleged killers were said to be senior policemen working for the Interior Ministry's criminal investigations directorate (CID). Former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, one of those recorded with Leonid Kuchma in the "cassette scandal", was also said to be under investigation. The two police colonels accused of the killing have been detained and a third senior policeman, identified as CID commander Oleksiy Pukach, was being sought on an international arrest warrant.
The Ukrainian newspaper Siehodnia ("Today") reported that Gongadze had been abducted by the policemen and accidentally shot in the head while seated in a vehicle, necessitating his decapitation (to avoid the bullet being recovered and matched to a police weapon). His body had been doused in petrol which had failed to burn properly, and had then been dumped. [2]
On March 4, Yuri Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha in the elite residential area of Koncha-Zaspa, outside Kyiv. He had died from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds, though some speculated that he might have been assassinated to prevent him from testifying as a witness. Hryhory Omelchenko, who chaired the parliamentary committee that investigated the Gongadze case, told the New York Times that Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to abduct Gongadze on President Kuchma's orders. Kuchma himself has denied this allegation but has since been interviewed by investigators.
In April/May 2005, Piskun released more details of the ongoing investigation. He told the press that after Gongadze was murdered, a second group disinterred him and re-buried him where he was eventually found, in the constituency of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. According to Piskun, the aim was to undermine the government (led by Viktor Yushchenko when he was still Prime Minister). The second group was part of or allied with the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPUo), a pro-oligarch grouping which had been hit hard by Yushchenko's crackdown on corruption and therefore wanted to see his government toppled. According to the journal Ukrayina moloda (April 14, 2005), the SDPUo moved Gongadze in order to discredit President Leonid Kuchma and force early elections, which could have led to party leader Medvedchuk succeeding Kuchma.
Nobody was ever arrested ore prosecuted for the murder of Georgiy Gongadze.
