Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been

able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is

ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and

murdered.

And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination.

But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you

could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time

plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's

assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue

broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in

their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom,

Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had

you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their

oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,

Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.

Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko?

We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that

8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding,

we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident.

June 30, 1999

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Morley Safer:

The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of

Freedom was that Ukraine is a place where Jews and Russians are oppressed by militant

Ukrainian nationalists, and where they are the targets of Ukrainian violence. The

closest that you came to substantiating this claim was to broadcast Rabbi Bleich's

allegation that an elderly Jewish couple had been attacked and robbed somewhere in

Western Ukraine. However, this allegation was devoid of substantiating detail, and my

request for specifics (both in my letter to you of 24May98, and in my letter to Rabbi

Bleich of 23May98) was answered with silence. I repeat that request to you now - please

inform me of the details of this attack, which minimally would include the time, the

place, the names of the victims, and the address where a police report is available. If

you do not have such information, please retract the allegation.

You must be aware that I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well as

of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine has questioned whether such an attack on

the two elderly Jews ever took place. Levitas's doubt was first expressed in an open

letter to you, and I reminded Rabbi Bleich of it in my letter to him of 23May98, of

which you were mailed a copy. In view of I. M. Levitas's doubt, and in view of your and

Rabbi Bleich's silence in response to my request for particulars, the impression grows

daily stronger that you and Rabbi Bleich made the incident up.

The chief purpose of the present letter is to demonstrate to you yet again that your

conclusion which I summarize in my first sentence at the beginning of the present letter

is exactly backward. Ukraine is not a place where Ukrainians attack and murder, it is a

place where Ukrainians are attacked and murdered, as has been the case for the last

three hundred years, at least. Below is documented one further instance in support of

this conclusion. It is the story of Vadim Boyko, member of parliament, and popular

television investigative journalist. I would have expected that the story of Vadim

Boyko would have appealed to you, and for that reason that you might have included it in

any broadcast that you prepared about Ukraine, as his life - at least up to the final

moments - was not unlike your own:

February 23, 1992

Journalist's notebook in Ukraine

by Marta Kolomayets

Kiev Press Bureau

A colleague's tragic death

"He was a man engaged to a young Ukraine," said Volodymyr Yavorivsky, as

he bid farewell to Vadim Boyko, who died tragically on February 14, at

the age of 29.

Hundreds of mourners crowded into the third floor atrium of the

Ukrainian State Television and Radio headquarters, tearfully passing

each other on the steps Vadim so often bounded, rushing to the studios

where he recorded his popular television programs.

Now, on February 17, the mourners paid their last respects to Vadik (as

he was affectionately known), searching for a reason why such a

promising, talented life was cut short. As slow dirge-like music played

over the loudspeakers, they filed past the closed coffin, sewn up in

black cotton and laden with bunches of carnations of all colors.

At the foot of the coffin stood a black and white photo of the young

journalist and politician. An enlarged copy of the same photo,

decorated with a black mourning band, hung above the coffin. To the

left, the newly adopted Ukrainian national flag, also decorated with

black bunting, kept guard over its native son. Wreaths from the

Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin.

Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the

wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites.

Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings.

As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his

weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the

family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev.

Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television

and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic

deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring

words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr.

Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry

mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above

all. He loved Ukraine, say it."

We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was

then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk,

Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place.

x x x

It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight,

on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro

Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different.

"I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death

tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a

cruel joke?"

Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at

Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had

blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the

reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor,

burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left of his apartment, a

dormitory-type dwelling in a building that housed quite a number of

State television and Radio workers.

News of Vadim's death spread quickly among fellow journalists - many of

whom had attended Kiev State with Vadim, many of whom worked with him on

numerous projects.

He was an elected democratic deputy from Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast. He

had come from the neighboring town in Kirovohrad oblast, just across the

Dnipro River, arriving in the capital city of Kiev in the early 1980s to

obtain a college education.

And from then on, he gained popularity as the founder and host of

"Hart," one of the first serious investigative shows on Ukrainian

television, reporting on everything from Chornobyl to Shcherbytsky.

After he was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1990,

he was appointed vice chairman of the standing parliamentary Committee

on Glasnost and the Mass Media, a job he took very seriously, often

going to Moscow to discuss problems of disinformation in Ukraine, as

presented by central television.

But Vadim never forgot his first vocation - journalism - and he would

often join his colleagues, including a few of us foreign correspondents,

on the press balcony of Parliament during the sessions to give us some

inside news or highlights of his commission's work.

He was our friend, and with his death, our circle has been broken. Many

of us - Ukrainian journalists and foreign correspondents, as well as a

few of his close friends outside this journalistic fraternity - spent

last week trying to come to terms with the tragedy that has struck us.

We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is

reported that 8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to

their television sets exploding, we all believe that Vadim would have

survived this kind of accident.

We have gone through the story over and over. Most of us saw him in

Parliament on Wednesday afternoon; he was excited and invigorated by new

opportunities: he was applying for a National Foundation internship for

the spring in Washington, D.C., he was going to travel on business with

Ukraine's deputy prime minister. His dancing blue eyes were smitten

with the possibilities of new TV shows and programs in an independent

Ukraine.

None of us saw Vadim in Parliament on Thursday or Friday, February

13-14; he missed a few meetings he had scheduled on Friday.

Currently, there are many rumors flying around Kiev surrounding Vadim's

death, based on political, business and personal motivations.

Parliamentary committees have promised to work on an investigation,

although no special committee has been formed to investigate what many

democratic deputies, among them Les Taniuk and Stepan Khmara, have

labelled as murder. Some speculate that Vadim's TV work in Chornobyl

may have triggered an early death...

On Friday, February 14, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) in

Moscow ran an interview with Vadim on journalists' responsibilities and

cooperation between Moscow and Kiev.

"At this time, we (referring to Russian and Ukrainian journalists) can

be friends, if we are honest to the end. We are currently living in a

commonwealth, the root of the word is found in the word "druh,"

friend... We will never become true friends, until we journalists

understand that we are the ones who can, who have the responsibility to

stop our peoples from total degradation, from the catastrophe that can

occur between our peoples," he said. "If we cannot prevent this we stop

being journalists. We will become persons who today do their work and

tomorrow, one by one, are destroyed."

Vadim's deep sense of responsibility, his courage and commitment to the

truth will always be admired by his friends and colleagues. And we are

all committed to learning the truth.

Given the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, I can only

hope that his last interview prophecy did not become self-fulfilling.

Mr. Safer, you travelled to Ukraine looking for stories of persecution and violence

against Jews and Russians, you failed to find the evidence, but you broadcast the story