Australian Current Affairs report on Ukraine Discussion

[SMAX]

Australian Current affairs just reported on Ukraine. A follow up web discussion can be found at:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/foreign/forum2001-11/







E P I S O D E 33 - S E R I E S 10




Broadcast : 02/05/01

LEAD STORY
UKRAINE - UKRAINE JOURNALIST
Reporter: Eric Campbell
POSTCARD
SOUTH AFRICA - LOVEBIRDS
Reporter: Sally Sara


FINAL STORY
JAPAN - ISLANDS OF THE AGED
Reporter: Mark Simkin





UKRAINE - UKRAINE JOURNALIST
Reporter: Eric Campbell

LEAD STORY
EPISODE 33
SERIES 10 - 02/05/01

Synopsis:


⌠At any moment anyone may be arrested, put in jail and killed without a decision of a judge, without involvement of the judiciary, as it was in the years of Stalin.■

Serhei Holovaty, Ukrainian Legal Foundation

Foreign Correspondent reports on the mother of all political scandals ┘ evidence that Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma ordered the murder of an outspoken journalist.

Georgy Gongadze mysteriously disappeared last September after writing a series of reports on Government corruption.

Kuchma denied any involvement ┘ but the opposition has released secretly-recorded tapes of Kuchma ordering his officials to get rid of Gongadze.

The scandal has sparked mass demonstrations demanding the president resign.

The ABC's former Moscow Correspondent, Eric Campbell speaks to the murdered journalist's family and to the men and women now organising the protests.

We also meet Kuchma's former Justice Minister who confirms the tapes are genuine.

The report examines how a decade of corruption and mismanagement has destroyed the people's faith in their ex-communist rulers.

Dramatic footage of pitched battles between protestors and police shows the readiness of both sides to resort to violence.








[Edited by SMAX on 3rd May 2001 at 02:59]