Ukraine
Democracy In Turmoil
April 5, 2001 – 22’30”
STUDIO LINK
As political scandals go, they don’t get much bigger than the scandal now rocking Ukraine.
For years, the former Soviet republic looked like it was heading down a path to genuine democracy.
But evidence that its president, Leonid Kuchma, may have been involved in a recent murder, has plunged Ukraine into an unprecedented crisis.
Opposition groups have taken to the streets to demand his resignation.
They’ve been met by hundreds of riot police and the once peaceful protests are turning violent.
Eric Campbell reports on a battle that could change the course of this new nation’s history.
TAPE PIECE
NATSOT PROTESTERS FIGHTING WITH POLICE, T7 6.46 OR T8 19.10
It is a peaceful land with a placid people driven to breaking point.
They are impoverished by corruption, disillusioned by hypocrisy and stunned by the depths to which their country has fallen.
Now many are thinking the unthinkable … mounting a revolution to topple a dictator.
VOX POP IN CROWD (IN UKRAINIAN) SUPER: STEPAN KHMARA, OPPOSITION MP
T7 11.41 “The bandit regime of Kuchma has made it impossible to deal with them in any other way.” 11.45
NATSOT FIGHTING
MAP UKRAINE – HIGHLIGHT KYIV
NATSOT BELLRINGING T3 20.01
It is nearly ten years since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union.
This new nation of 50 million has revived its language, rebuilt its churches and struggled to find prosperity and freedom.
KUCHMA IN CHURCH T8 1.32
But under its president, Leonid Kuchma, the dream of a brighter future has faded fast.
Kuchma was the Communist head of Ukraine’s largest factory, building nuclear missiles to annihilate the West.
He has tried to re-brand himself as a pro-western reformer, a democrat and a Christian.
NATSOT KUCHMA PRESENTING ICON (IN UKRAINIAN) T8
02.09 “Your Holiness, allow me on this memorable day for our Ukraine, to present, or to be more exact, to return to you something that belongs to the church.“
It has not always been a convincing performance.
NATSOT AIDE TELLING HIM HOW TO PUT CANDLE IN (IN UKRAINIAN) T8
“We can light a candle. You can place it on the right or on the left.”
Many now see him as an unreformed tyrant, who has stolen the country’s wealth and reduced them to poverty.
AUDIO LEAD SERHEI HOLOVATY (IN ENGLISH) T4 4.38
“This person pretends to be the head of the democratic State. But in reality he (CUT TO) proved to be very authoritarian, to adhere to the old Soviet system of running the country.
SYNCH (SUPER: SERHEI HOLOVATY, UKRAINIAN LEGAL FOUNDATION)
5.05 His is used to abuse power, not to adhere to the Constitution and it proves that he is very corrupt.”
PHOTO OF GALAVATY WITH KUCHMA T4 23.07
Serhei Holovaty knows the man and the system well.
He served as Kuchma’s Justice Minister before resigning in 1996 and now campaigns for the opposition alliance, the National Salvation Forum.
He sees Ukraine’s leader as a thief and perhaps a murderer.
HOLOVATY GRAB (IN ENGLISH) 5.16
“And involved into murder, in the organisation of perhaps murder of a journalist. It is not yet proved.”
NATSOT WINTER PROTEST – MUSICIANS T7 (SX TAPE) 13.17
FLAG PASSING CAMERA AT 7 13.01
For the first time since independence, the streets of the capital, Kiev, have resounded to the cries of angry protest.
Old have marched with young … socialists with liberal democrats, moderates with extreme nationalists.
NATIONALISTS SALUTING (IN UKRAINIAN) AT 15.03
MAN “We know who to blame”
LINE OF MEN “Traitors.”
All united by the cry “Ukraine Without Kuchma”
NATSOT 7 3.46 “Ukraine without Kuchma! Ukraine without Kuchma”.
The catalyst was evidence that Kuchma may have ordered the murder of a critical journalist.
MOTHER GRABS TO CROWD (IN UKRAINIAN)
17.50 “I’m the mother of Georgi. I’m standing here before you.”
The journalist’s mother, Lesia has become the figurehead of the protests.
SUPER: LESIA GONGADZE
(IN UKRAINIAN) “What I have been enduring these five months I would not wish to my worst enemy. I hope you never know that awful sorrow, but if things continue as they are, what happened to my son will happen to your children. 1815
NATSOT GEORGI ON TV T7 25.09
Georgi Gongadze was a relatively obscure reporter for an internet news service.
But he came to Kuchma’s notice through scathing criticism and relentless probing of corruption.
NATSOT NEWS REPORT OF ELECTION PANEL)
Just before Kuchma’s controversial re-election in late 1999, he quizzed him in a panel interview about complicity in corruption.
NATSOT T9 (IN UKRAINIAN
GONGADZE 03.00 “Where were our law-enforcing organs when the officials stole and exported millions of dollars abroad and you still kept them.”
KUCHMA: “No-one stole anything.”
GEORGI SMOKING CIGARETTE T8 00.07
Last September, while driving home to his wife and two small daughters, he disappeared.
WIFE GRAB IN UKRAINIAN (SUPER: MIROSLAVA GONGADZE, WIFE) T1
“For a long time we were hoping to find him alive and I just could not believe that the worst had happened. 1606 And all the while I was waiting for just any positive results at all.”
KUCHMA WITH SUNGLASSES AT T7 30.14
To quell suspicions that Gongadze had been silenced, President Kuchma announced he would take personal control of the investigation.
PTC IN FOREST T3 2.36
“Last November, the decaying body of a man was found in this forest outside Kiev. He had been decapitated. Medical records and jewellery found on the body convinced his family that this was the remains of Georgi Gongadze. Now with no evidence as to who the killer was, the story might have ended here. But what happened next was so extraordinary it may yet change this country’s history.”
OPPOSITION PLAYING TAPE T7 25.20
What happened was this tape.
Opposition figures released the first of a series of secretly recorded conversations between Kuchma and his senior officials.
Between chatting about vote-rigging and organizing bribes, they discussed how to get rid of the troublesome Gongadze.
At one point, Kuchma suggests having him kidnapped by Chechen rebels.
CU TAPE RECORDER
NATSOT (IN UKRAINIAN) KUCHMA T7
KUCHMA: 2721 “But the main thing, he needs to be pushed back. Volodya says the Chechens should steal him and drive him to Chechnya to fuck himself and ask for a ransom.”
OFFICIAL: 2730 “Eh, we’ll just somewhere him. These sort of people, totally major, don’t spread anything.
KUCHMA: 2738 “Well, drive him out to Georgia, and that’s it.”
The opposition claimed a presidential security official had leaked the tapes because of disgust at their contents.
HOLOVATY IN OFFICE T4 22.23
While they didn’t reveal any direct order to kill Gongadze, the president’s former Justice Minister is convinced that’s what he meant.
HOLOVATY GRAB (IN ENGLISH) T4 6.27
“It is not necessary for person of stature in such a position to give direct order. You know, it’s enough to hint. But if you analyse all the conversations you may conclude it was not a hint, it was very clear instructions, repeated several times and checked whether it was fulfilled or not.”
Q. “To get rid of Gongadze?”
“Yep.”
Q. “But are you sure it’s Kuchma’s voice?”
A. “Yes, absolutely, 100 per cent.”
Within days of the tapes’ release, Kiev erupted in protest.
KUCHMA BANNER 7 14.47
President Kuchma denied he had killed Gongadze, claiming the tapes had been edited to incriminate him.
It made no difference.
PEOPLE BURNING KUCHMA FACE AT 7 16.21
The scandal sparked the biggest protests in the country’s history.
NATSOT (IN UKRAINIAN) T7
“Call the fire brigade.” 16.40 Oh, look at the handsome one, look at him burn, look at him burn.”
KUCHMA WITH PUTIN T8 3.17
President Kuchma has resisted all demands to resign … but has gone into virtual hiding … … only appearing at controlled, official functions where his security can keep protesters at bay.
KUCHMA INTRODUCING PUTIN TO PM T8 3.33
He has left his public defence to his relatively liberal Prime Minister, Viktor Yushchenko.
We caught up with him at a rare press conference.
T1 4.00
Q. (IN ENGLISH)
“Prime Minister, the National Salvation Front has alleged that President Kuchma may have been involved in the murder of the journalist Georgy Gongadze. For the sake of Ukraine’s reputation, shouldn’t President Kuchma stand aside until the police complete their resignation.”
REPLY (IN UKRAINIAN) SUPER: VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO, PRIME MINISTER
RE-INSERT GRAB WITH THE FOLLOWING (CORRECTED) TIME-CODES
5.19 “A couple of weeks ago the President of Ukraine said that he was ready to swear on the bible that he had no connection with Gongadze’s fate and his disappearance. 5.35 I’m a Christian and I know the worth of those words and deeply understand them. 5.50 I’m absolutely sure that the president couldn’t order a murder of a man.” 6.00
GRAPHIC - KUCHMA’S FACE (USE FREEZE FRAME FROM T8 1.32)
But the words on tape suggest a different story.
At one point, Kuchma tells his Interior Minister:
(SUPER TEXT)
“I’m telling you. Drive him out, throw him out. Give him to the Chechens, and then a ransom.”
On a later tape, Kuchma says:
(SUPER TEXT)
“That Gongadze son-of-a-bitch. Goodbye, good riddance.”
Serhei Holovaty rejects Kuchma’s claims that his words were edited.
HOLOVATY GRAB (IN ENGLISH) T4 7.34
“They were not doctored, they were not manipulated. Because we have got now in our commission hundreds of hours of talks, long discussions without any break, without any interruption, so they are real and genuine.”
NATSOT MUSICIAN SINGING SAD SONG T3 11.06
But the protests are not just about the tapes.
After a decade of independence, most Ukrainians have been left even poorer than they were under Communism.
GVS FROM TAPE 3 6.46 ONWARDS
The apparent wealth of Kyiv, with its restored historic buildings and expensive Western stores, belies a deep poverty.
In the eyes of most people, only mafia businessmen have grown rich under Kuchma.
OLD WOMEN OUTSIDE MCDONALDS T3 19.43
For the rest, life is a day-to-day struggle.
Outside Kiev, conditions are more like the Third World.
MIROSLAVA WALKING INTO ROOM T5 26.41
Miroslava Svistovich and her husband Misha live in a one-room apartment with their two small children and occasionally her mother-in-law.
MIROSLAVA GRAB TAPE 5 1506 (IN RUSSIAN)
(SUPER: MIROSLAVA SVISTOVICH, PROTESTOR)
“My husband is the head of the currency department in a bank. Now in any other country that would be quite a profitable job and it should provide for the family pretty
well. 1525 But we’ve been living in this flat for three years and with the money he gets we can’t even buy decent furniture, let alone the fact that this flat is too small for four people. 1539 And there is practically no hope that that things will get better in our country in the near future. 1549
FAMILY GOING OUTSIDE T5 28.35
The family lives in the town of Erpin, 35 kilometres from Kiev.
Like many in town, they’ve gone to Kiev for every protest.
GVS OF TOWN T 6 25.40 ONWARDS
Erpin now has 40 per cent unemployment.
Those who have jobs are paid a pittance.
Old people survive on near starvation-level pensions, young people are turning increasingly to drugs.
FAMILY AT MARKET END OF TAPE 5
Yet this should be a wealthy country.
It has huge natural resources and perhaps the best farming land in Europe.
The main reason it’s so poor is blatant, unashamed corruption.
MIROSLAVA GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) T5
0432 “Here, like everywhere, the bureaucrats are all-powerful, but while in a big city it is not noticeable, here, in a small town where everybody knows everybody, this arbitrary rule and corruption are obvious.”
PAN ALONG HOUSES T6 24.57
In Erpin, the local godfathers live in this plush street.
The largest house belongs to a pro-Kuchma member of Parliament called Piotr Melnikov.
FAMILY WALKING PAST MANSION T6 25.19
He recently sacked Miroslava from her State job because of her work for the opposition.
MIROSLAVA GRAB OUTSIDE HOUSE (IN RUSSIAN) TAPE 6
2232 Melnikov’s salary as a deputy is about 300 dollars. I think just the heating bill for this house would be half his salary. 2251 If you noticed, this house is in two parts, there is a second part just like this behind this one.”
CU HOUSE 6 24.15 , MERCEDES
PTC T6 23.54
“And you can see this in every town and city across Ukraine … local officials who rob the community while the elite in Kiev steal the profits of the country’s natural resources. All of them posing as democrats and reformers as they bleed the country dry.”
NIGHT PROTEST T7 19.38
NATSOT (IN UKRAINIAN) “KUCHMA OUT, KUCHMA OUT”
The protests have become a lightning rod for the pent-up anger of a decade of exploitation.
PEOPLE BEATING EFFIGY AT 7 20.18
Effigies of the president have become the target of their wrath.
Tens of thousands have turned out for the marches in Kiev and Ukraine’s second city, Lviv.
The crowds are not big by Western standards.
But this is a people conditioned by decades of Communism to fearfully accept whatever is done to them.
Now they feel they have nothing more to lose.
NATSOT PEOPLE HITTING EFFIGY (IN UKRAINIAN) T7
OLD WOMAN 2023 “Bitch! I’d tear him apart, the bastard!”
OLD MAN 2029 “Look at your people, what you’ve done to them, you fucking bastard. 0236 Take this, you dirty bastard. Take this, you stinking dog. 2039 Don’t hide you son-of-a-bitch, don’t hide, you bastard.”
TENT PROTEST AT T7 20.52
But Kuchma is fighting back.
For much of winter, protesters camped in freezing conditions on Kiev’s main street, Kreshatik, as a constant reminder of their opposition.
POLICE RUNNING IN AT 7 21.13
On March first, without warning, police arrived to smash the protest.
Ukraine’s constitution guarantees the right of assembly and peaceful protest.
But only in theory.
POLICE DRAGGING AWAY PROTESTERS AT 7 22.25
Any who peacefully resisted were carted away.
Their belongings were seized and trashed.
THOUGHT-TRACK GRAB SERGEI GALAVATY (IN ENGLISH)
“At any moment anyone may be arrested, put in the jail and killed in the prison without decision of the judge, without involvement of the judiciary, as it was in the years of Stalin. I don’t know how to explain more. But it is very dangerous to live in such an environment, for everyone who wants freedom.”
POLICE T7 16.12
While police were quick to drag away protesters, they have moved at glacial speed to investigate the Gongadze’s disappearance.
MIROSLAVA (IN UKRAINIAN) GRAB T1
18.33 “Actually the investigation is not going on, there is no real activity. They are just collecting arguments to defend the authorities when the charges are made against them.” 18.45
MIROSLAVA WALKING THROUGH OFFICE T1?????
Gongadze’s wife, Miroslava, continues to campaign for justice from the press centre of a small opposition party.
CU PHOTOS AT T1 ??????????
Her office is filled with photos of her missing husband and their three-year-old tiwn daughters.
She’s endured continued leaks from prosecutors that her husband might have been killed by gangsters because of unpaid debts.
RE-INSERT GRAB FROM CAMERA TAPES WITH FOLLOWING (CORRECTED) TIME-CODES
WIFE GRAB (IN UKRAINIAN) T1
20.13 We have not had any debts, 20.19 any problems with creditors, any serious financial troubles and neither financial liabilities nor commitments before any body. 2025 And the police know it. It is written in the case files. 20.29 And the moment I say it they start looking for something, digging for something just to diminish the case itself, to find just any evidence to prove it was not a political murder.”
CROWD MARCHING TAPE 7 2.04
But the official attacks on Gongadze’s character have done nothing to dampen the anger.
CHERMORIS STANDING BEHIND SPEAKER AT RALLY T7 16.59
The main organizer, a Kyiv dissident named Vladimir Chermoris, believes Kuchma could be toppled soon.
SUPER: VLADIMIR CHERMORIS, PROTEST ORGANISER
03.16 Now a new phase of protesting has begun, 03.26 student strikes in Lviv in particular, Kiev students and students from other Ukrainian universities will be on strike very soon. 03.33 And in two or three months Kuchma’s regime will be overthrown.” 03.42
The largest protest last month, showed how great the hatred has become and how little will there is on either side for dialogue.
KUCHMA AT TAPE 7 0.57
The occasion was one of Kuchma’s unavoidable appearances … a flower-laying ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Ukrainian folk-hero Taras Shevchenko.
(STATUE OF SHEVCHENKO AT T7 1.56)
CROWD AT T 7 0.30
Kuchma arrived two and a half hours early to avoid the protesters … surrounded by a human wall of police.
SCUFFLES AT T7 1.26
Protesters pushed … and were pushed back, as Kuchma quietly slipped away.
NATSOT SCUFFLES
CROWD CHANTING AT 7 2.04
The frustrated crowd then marched onto the presidential administration.
PAN FROM RIOT POLICE TO CROWD AT 7 4.25
They found their path blocked by hundreds of heavily-armed riot police.
CROWD CHANTING “FASCISTS” AT 6.06
MAN GESTURING AT 7 5.54
All previous marches had been peaceful … but today would be different.
T7 6.39
Right-wing nationalists at the front of the crowd tried to force their way through.
When that failed they dragged back the metal barriers barring their way.
THROWING ROCKS AT T7 4.25
Some hurled rocks at police.
Then they charged.
NATSOT BIFFO FROM 7 6.46
It was what the protest organisers had dreaded from the outset.
Again and again the front-line of marchers threw themselves at the police.
NATSOT BIFFO
Opposition leaders including Vladimir Chermoris tried to calm the protesters.
NATSOT BIFFO
Chermoris would claim later that police provocateurs had mingled with the crowd, intent on provoking violence to discredit the opposition.
CHERMORIS GRAB (IN UKRAINIAN)
“On the eve of the events, Kiev police ordered to reserve a lot of beds in hospitals because they expected a number of people to be injured that day.”
Regardless of who provoked the violence, it’s clear many in the crowd watched on approvingly as batons and shields were seized and stones were hurled.
HUGE ROCK IS HURLED AT T7 8.07
OLD MP T7
“Stones, stones, we need more stones!”
Among them, a senior opposition MP, Stepan Khmara.
“We’ve had enough of pampering Kuchma”
Are you going to fight to the end?
1129 “Yes, to the end. Whatever the costs.”
POLICE ATTACK TAPE 2 19.10
When the protesters stepped back, the police moved forward to attack them.
Chermoris stood stoically and passively at the front line.
He was clubbed to the ground.
THOUGHT-TRACK CHERMORIS AS WE SEE HIM BEATEN
GRAB (IN UKRAINIAN) TAPE 2
14.28. “I dropped my hands, I didn’t show aggression. I thought I could stop the police by that. 14.35
14.49 “After this there were further blows. 14.55
SYNCH
14.59 “In other words, peaceful protestors were attacked for no reason. 15.07
NIGHT SHOTS T7 12.16
That night, police swooped on trains and buses carrying protesters back to their towns and arrested hundreds.
Most were students who played no part in the violence.
Away from the cameras, many were beaten senseless.
Undaunted the opposition is continuing to mount protests … hoping they can wear Kuchma down before their own strength dwindles and the memory of a slain journalist fades.
QUESTION TO WIFE T1
(IN ENGLISH) “Your children are now three years old. When they’re older, what will you tell them about their father.?
WIFE (IN UKRAINIAN)
“They know he’s not here. 22.44 They don’t understand that he won’t be coming back. 22.49 They will come to an age where I’ll be forced to tell them something. 22.55 At the moment I’m looking for an answer that won’t scar them mentally. 23.08 I haven’t found it yet”. 23.10
END ON PROTEST BIFFO FROM TAPE 7
The death of Georgi Gongadze has given life to an opposition movement and stripped bare the facade of a democratic Ukraine.
It may also have sparked a crisis that will shed far more blood than his own.
THE END
Reporter: Eric Campbell
Camera: Maksim Bayev
Editor: Simon ….