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Yushchenko awards medal to disgraced prosecutor
With so many “big” news
stories in Ukraine—energy issues, the fight for political control, questions
over foreign policy—it’s easy to miss the smaller items. But sometimes,
these smaller items send very large signals.
For example, on 16 February, President Viktor Yushchenko awarded former
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko the Order of (Kyivan) Prince
Yaroslav the Wise. Yaroslav introduced the first book of laws in what was
then Kyivan Rus’ during the 11th century and is credited with expanding both
the principality’s territory and culture. The medal was created in 1996
for “distinguished service to the state and people of Ukraine,” and it
recognizes, among other things, “wisdom” and “honor.” (1)
According to President Yushchenko’s decree, Potebenko was awarded the medal
“for his great personal contribution to the creation of a law abiding state,
the strengthening of legality and law and order, and his long-term work on the
occasion of his 70th birthday.” (2)
The decree probably would have been missed by most Ukraine-watchers in the West
were it not for long-time Ukraine analyst Taras Kuzio, who found the three-line
decree and publicized it on his blog. (3) This is fortunate, since
the small decree speaks volumes about President Viktor Yushchenko.
Kuzio termed the awarding of this medal to Potebenko “shameful,” and it is
possible that others may find this an understatement.
Potebenko became well-known internationally in 2001 when he led two major
high-profile investigations as Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General – the examination
of the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze and the prosecution of Yulia
Tymoshenko.
The Prosecutor-General’s “investigation” of the Gongadze case was roundly
criticized by just about every international organization looking into the
matter, leading eventually to calls from the Council of Europe, Reporters
Without Borders and then US Ambassador Carlos Pasqual for him to resign. Potebenko
was accused of stymieing the investigation in order to protect state officials,
including President Leonid Kuchma, who appeared to be implicated in Gongadze’s
death.
In 2005, after months of evidence collection, the European Court of Human
Rights satisfied a number of complaints from Georgiy’s widow, Myroslava
Gongadze, including her charge of a “failure to investigate the case.” The
court found that the prosecutor’s office had ignored repeated requests for
assistance from Georgiy Gongadze in the weeks before his death, when he
reported being followed by state law enforcement officials. “The response
of the GPO was not only formalistic,” the court wrote, “but also blatantly
negligent.”
Moreover, following the recovery of Gongadze’s headless body, the court said,
“The State authorities were more preoccupied with proving the lack of
involvement of high-level State officials in the case than discovering the
truth about the circumstances of the disappearance and death of the applicant’s
husband.” (4)
Mikhailo Potebenko was the Prosecutor General during these events. Not
only did he apparently conduct little investigation, but he denied that the
body recovered was Gongadze’s in spite of numerous DNA tests to the contrary
and then refused to accept as evidence secretly recorded tapes of President
Kuchma implicating him at least in Gongadze’s disappearance, and probably his
murder.
The European Court of Human Rights wrote, “The fact that the alleged offenders,
two of them active police officers, were identified and charged with the kidnap
and murder of the journalist just a few days after the change in the country’s
leadership, raised serious doubts as to the genuine wish of the authorities
under the previous government to investigate the case thoroughly.” (5)
As Potebenko and Kuchma were being criticized internationally, and facing
increasing protests domestically, the Prosecutor-General announced that he was
investigating then Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for a variety of
offenses, including embezzlement during her time as head of the gas
intermediary Unified Energy Systems. Although Tymoshenko sat in
government, her refusal to drop a number of anti-corruption measures that
affected the president’s supporters had led to considerable tension between the
two.
Eventually, she was fired, arrested, and held in prison for 40 days before
being released by a court for lack of probable cause. Yushchenko, who was
prime minister at the time, called the arrest “political persecution.” (6)
Persecution, then, by the same Potebenko recently awarded a medal by
Yushchenko.
Despite years of attempts, Potebenko (and his successors) were never able to
prove in court any of their charges against Tymoshenko, who then perhaps had
the best revenge by being named the first prime minister after the Orange
Revolution.
At the very least, Potebenko’s work on Tymoshenko’s case was shoddy and
unprofessional. At the worst, it was designed to do nothing more than to
persecute an opponent of the president. Or perhaps it was designed simply
to take the attention away from the Gongadze case, which was creating such
problems for him, Kuchma and the country.
This is the man, then, to whom President Yushchenko last week awarded a medal
for “service to the country,” “wisdom,” and “honor.”
In 2004, during his presidential campaign and the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko
vowed to prosecute those who had ordered the murder of Gongadze. It was,
he said, “a matter of honor.” (7) The organizers have not been arrested
or prosecuted, however, and at this point—seven years after the murder and over
two years after Yushchenko took office—it is unlikely that they ever will be.
In fact, many observers and politicians have suggested that Yushchenko struck a
deal with Kuchma during the revolution – Yushchenko would ensure Kuchma’s
freedom and Kuchma would not stand in the way of the rerun presidential
election that brought Yushchenko to power. While no one can ever truly
know why the organizers of the Gongadze murder have not been arrested, the
possibility of a compromise agreement fits well with Yushchenko’s nature of
deliberation and conciliation.
Repeatedly throughout his political career, Yushchenko has chosen compromise
over confrontation. In the last year, Yushchenko blessed the return of
his defeated presidential opponent Viktor Yanukovych to the premiership, and
then gave in to Yanukovych’s pressure to replace Foreign Minister Boris
Tarasyuk instead of fighting for his longtime ally.
And now, the President has done his best to rehabilitate the career of Mykhailo
Potebenko, a man Yushchenko himself once condemned, and a man who remains
disgraced internationally.
One wonders what Yaroslav the Wise would have thought.
Source Notes:
(1) The website of The
Ministry of Defense of Ukraine via http://www.mil.gov.ua.
(2) Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 116/2007, 16 Feb 07 via
http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/5745.html (in Ukrainian, not available in
English).
(3) “A Shameful Decision,” Taras Kuzio Official Blog, 19 Feb 07, 04:04 PM EST
via http://blog.taraskuzio.net/. Originally published in Ukrainian at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/forum/.
(4) “European Court of Human Rights judgment,” Institute of Mass
Information, 9 Nov 05 via http://eng.imi.org.ua/index.php?id=read&n=190&cy=2005&m=thm.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Eastern Economist Daily, 17 Apr 01 and ITAR-TASS, 20 Apr 01 via
Lexis-Nexis.
(7) UNIAN news agency, 1130 GMT, 23 Feb 05 via Lexis-Nexis.
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