Ukraine: Return Us Now to Tomorrow

Michael Hedges November 29, 2004

High-powered media campaigns in the Ukraine – before and after the elections – shine a klieglight on – that’s right – high-powered media.
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Before the Ukrainian presidential election is settled deftly repetitive political commentators colorized support for western-leaning candidate Viktor Yushchenko and Russian-leaning Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych by referring to orange and blue oblasti. Both candidates waged their campaigns with all the political media tricks; Mr. Yanukovych benefited from his control over state-run television. His opposition, Mr. Yushchenko, used the Internet with a website remarkably similar to MoveOn.Org, the website that motivated Democrat supporters and contributors during the long US election campaign.

Early in the campaign observers were cautiously optomistic.

"There were some encouraging aspects which we did not see in the first round, such as a televised debate of the main candidates on state TV, “ said Doros Christodoulides, the Council of Europes’ observer several weeks before the voting. “But we are greatly disappointed by the inflammatory language.”

Ukraine’s election commission called Mr. Yanukovych the winner Wednesday afternoon (November 24). European Commission President Jose Barrosso warned of “consequences” if doubt remains over the election’s conduct.  Expressing “disappointment” NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer summoned the Ukrainian ambassador. By Friday (November 26) the Ukrainian Supreme Court decided to decide, even though it really has no authority.

Media campaigns to sway Ukrainian hearts and minds continued through the week. Indeed, the two opponents, well coached, traded barbs and supporters, well organized, gathered in the streets. Both sides benefitted from media consultants. Russian experts were provided by President Putin to Mr. Yanukovych. Those provided to Mr. Yushchenko were less well identified but no doubt in evidence.

The Guardian's Ian Traynor pointed specifically in a Friday article at US government involvement in "four campaigns in four years:" Serbia, Georgia, Belarus and Nicaragua. Throngs of peaceful young people chanting simple slogans are part of the template to provide the right television pictures.

Russian media jumped into the fray of this election campaign, seizing a popular and dividing issue. Newspaper Pravda reported that Mr. Yushchenko planned, if elected, to ban the Russian language. Russian is dominantly spoken in eastern Ukraine, which largely supported Mr. Yanukovych. Ukrainian and Polish are more widely spoken in western Ukraine, where Mr. Yushchenko enjoys support. As every campaign consultant knows, simple fears stoke campaign issues.

Wednesday, journalists at two state-controlled television stations UH1 and Channel 1+1 went on strike or refused to read government issued reports in protest over censorship. Journalists and non-state media operators have not had an easy time in recent years. An opportunity to be on the winning side is very enticing.

Journalist Giorgy Gongadze's 2000 murder remains unsolved

Harassing journalists in Ukraine has been regular and systematic.  Outgoing Ukrainian President Leonid Luchma was linked to the unsolved disappearance and murder of Internet journalist Giorgy Gongadze in 2000. When demonstrators gathered on the second anniversary of Gongadzes disappearance, Ukraines television stations suddenly went dark.   

Western broadcasters eager to influence Ukraine’s political landscape have not had an easy time. When the assets of the only non-state television operator, Channel 5, were seized, its journalists staged a hunger strike.  The National Radio and Television Broadcasting Council relented. The station’s owner, banker/businessman Petro Poroshenko, faced continuous charges of corruption. The station regularly broadcast Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) programs.

Radio stations tied to or inclined toward foreign networks were shut down this past March, and their owners threatened. One day after police raided and shut down Radio Yuta in Poltava (March 2), owner Yurify Chechyk was killed in an automobile accident. He was traveling to meet with officials of Radio Liberty’s Radio Svoboda. Two radio stations that re-broadcast programs from BBC, RFE/RL and other western governments were also closed. Radio Kontynent manager Serhiy Sholokh was forced to flee the country and take asylum in the United States after threats. The closures forced RFE/RL, which was nominated in 1991 for a Nobel Peace Prize, to lease transmission facilities for Ukrainian and Russian broadcasts in more receptive Hungary.

The brightness of the media spotlight on the countries of the former Soviet Union from western producers moved up a notch as RFE/RL undertook moves too modernize its Russian language programming. The RFE/RL changes appear to reflect the success of similar modernizing by US broadcasting to the Middle East and attracted the usual criticism of “old guard” journalists. The Associated Press quoted an internal memorandum suggesting, not unlike the position of Radio Sawa, that the Russian service position itself as a local Russian broadcaster.

“I dearly hope,” said RFE/RL’s Russian language director Maria Klein, “the day will come when our services are no longer needed. But I don't see that in the near future. The Russian people still need us."

Immediately after the Ukrainians went to the polls, the Voice of America augmented its Ukrianian service. Without doubt, others did the same.

The Ukraine election outcome is in doubt only in terms of which person will take office. The media campaigns born in the Cold War, nurtured on McLuhan and tested over and over will continue. With fresh elections slated in Romania and Moldova the media consultants have plenty of work.

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Journalist Murder Trial Opens Questions - January 11, 2006

The trial opened in Kiev’s Court of Appeals Monday (January 9) seating three police officers accused of the crime next to Giorgy Gongadze’s widow. The three - Mykola Protasov, Valery Kostenko and Alexander Popovych - were arrested last February. The court proceeding served to formally charge the trio, along with another suspect who remains at large. It was cut short when one of the defendants, Popovych, was removed by ambulance for a “hypertonic crisis,” according to the Russian daily Kommersant. The trial will continue January 23rd.

Gondagze, a journalist working for the internet publication Ukrayinskaya Pravda, disappeared in September 2000. His body was later found in a woods near Kiev, beheaded. He had received repeated threats to tone down his investigations of Ukrainian politicians corruption.

A former interior ministry official Yuri Kravchenko, implicated in the crime, was found dead the morning before his appointment to answer prosecutors’ questions. Other questions remain about his death, officially ruled a suicide.

Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko highlighted the Gongadze case in his successful “Orange Revolution” campaign to oust Leonid Kuchma. Yushchenko was Ukraine’s prime minister at the time of Gongadze’s disappearance.

A tape reportedly exists bearing the voices of other Kuchma and two officials of the former government discussing removing Gongadze and “throwing him to the Chechans.” While the recordings’ authenticity and genesis remains another open question, its public release clearly outraged Ukrainians, already distrustful of Kuchma’s government and tight hold on media.

Gongadze’s widow Myroslava, interviewed (January 11) by RAI Novosti, called the trial “an absurdity.” The Ukrainian government was ordered to pay Mrs Gongadze €100,000 by the European Court of Human Rights in November for negligence in protecting her husband and failure to investigate his death.

The Court of Appeals session was open to the public, but journalists were barred.