NPR’s Bob Edwards: Last week in Ukraine, a body was uncovered which many believe is that of a journalist who’s been missing for two months.  The discovery has caused a storm of controversy in Ukraine, and as Julia Barton reports, it comes at a time when journalists in the former Soviet Republic feel their rights are under attack.

BARTON:

Heorhiy Gongadze founded the internet newspaper “Ukrainska Pravda” last April to provide critical coverage of politics in Ukraine.  But the night of September 16, Gongadze disappeared. And since then, the paper’s staff has gone from covering the news to being at its center.

Despite pet birds chirping in a cage, the mood at “Ukrainska Pravda” is especially grim these days.  That’s because last week, the publication decided to investigate a body that had been found in the town of Tarashcha,  about 90 miles from Kiev. The paper’s editor, Olena Prytula, has complained of a lack of cooperation from authorities overseeing the investigation into Gongadze’s disappearance.  But she says the coroner in Tarashchy turned out to be a sympathetic soul.

PRYTULA: He didn’t act as an official, he just acted as a human being. He said if you really think that’s Georgiy, you should take this body and bury it, and you’ll feel better.

The body, which was unearthed on November 3, was decapitated and badly disfigured.  But Prytula says several factors positively identified it as Gongadze’s, including the contents of the stomach, jewelry found on the body, and shrapnel lodged in one wrist.  Gongadze had been wounded in the same spot while covering a civil war in the neighboring republic of Georgia.

But in a bizarre twist, authorities snatched the body while Prytula was out seeking official permission to remove it.  She says the corpse was taken without the coroner’s knowledge.

PRYTULA: He just came to us and said, “There’s no body.” He was surprised and told the police so right front of us.

The coroner confirms Prytula’s account, and authorities now say the body is in a Kiev morgue undergoing a thorough autopsy.  But the macabre chain of events has put public officials on the defensive, including Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma.  The President recently expressed doubt that the body might be Gongadze’s.

“To say that this is Gongadze is a responsibility that only the forensic experts can take on,” he said.  “It’s a matter of further investigation, but I think we’ll soon bring this all to a close.”

But many outside observers say the president and his close circle are partly to blame for the dangerous working conditions of journalists here.  Last year…the New-York based “Committee to Protect Journalists” placed President Kuchma third on its list of Enemies of the press world-wide…citing incidents of violence and censorship leading up to the elections in which Kuchma won his second term.

MYCIO: I would say that without a doubt, journalism, real journalism—reporting on events, on issues of public concern, on individuals of public concern—in an objective, professional way, is a very dangerous profession right now.

Mary Mycio directs the IREX-ProMedia “Legal Defense and Education Program,” a U.S.-funded initiative to help Ukrainian journalists.  She says most newspapers and television stations here are now under the control of so-called oligarchs…men and    women who gained wealth during the privatization of Soviet-era industries and who now hold powerful positions in Ukraine’s Parliament and presidential administration. Mycio sees the Internet as one bright spot, and so does the U-S Embassy here, which gave a one-time grant of $24,000 to Gongadze’s website after his disappearance. Olena Prytula says the money has given the site enough independence to confront authorities about Gongadze’s disappearance and possible murder.  But it hasn’t protected them from a sense of shock.

PRYTULA: The biggest horror is the fact that something like this is possible in our country […].  As for me, I’m not afraid of anything anymore.

Prytula says she’s pursuing DNA testing to prove the body she saw is Gongadze’s.  But she and Gongadze’s family still fear that even when confronted with proof, authorities may not release the corpse, and the case of the missing journalist may never be laid to rest. 

For NPR News…I’m Julia Barton in Kiev, Ukraine.

[NPR 11/20/2000]

(Source: NPR)