I’ve
been thinking lately that the capitalists in this country are anything but
reluctant. They’re as aggressive and monopolistic as Microsoft. It’s the guys that
are supposed to defend the public good that are reluctant. The lawmakers, the
prosecutors, the police. I may even have to change the name of this column.
Here’s something passed along to me by a Canadian friend in Kyiv:
“Last
weekend, I had planned to spend a day in L’viv, but I never got on the train. I
wasn’t going there for the happiest of reasons. It was the eighth anniversary
of the death of a very good friend.
“Each
year, a group of us visit Orest’s grave so as not to forget what he meant to
each of us. And each year, fewer and fewer of us show up. This time, I was one
of the drop-outs.
“Since
Sept. 16, 2000, when Georgiy Gongadze disappeared, and even more recently, when
the body of Mykhailo Kolomiets was found in Belarus, one question continues to
nag me. What exactly is the role of public prosecutors in Ukraine? Do they ever
actually solve any serious crimes? When it comes to suspicious deaths, my
experience in Ukraine says ‘No, they don’t.’
“When
I met him on my first trip to Ukraine in 1990, Orest was a student leader. Head
of World Ukrainian Student Organization, he also ran the Studentske
Bratstvo, a fraternity in L’viv.
A charasmatic and honest man who was always ready to help the next guy, Orest
was that most rare of creatures among soviet citizens, a straight shooter.
“We
immediately took to each other and he joined me on my first pilgrimage to my
father’s village. There, we spent a few evenings seated outside my aunt’s
house, singing sentimental songs about Ukraine. My aunt and cousin listened
with tears in their eyes.
“Only
a couple of years earlier, such a ‘display of nationalism’ could have led to
Orest’s prompt arrest and my immediate whisking away to the nearest airport by
an Intourist ‘guide.’
“Our
friendship grew over four years.
“Then
one evening in mid-December 1994, back in Montreal, I came home to find my
answering machine blinking furiously. There was an unusual number of messages.
I listened to the first one. ‘Hi, this is Slavko from Cleveland. I’m calling to
find out about the situation with Orest?’ The caller hadn’t left his number,
and I couldn’t recall a Slavko from Cleveland.
“The
rest of the messages were similar. One after another, they asked about Orest.
They came from all over North America and there were several more whom I didn’t
know.
“What
was going on? I quickly made some calls of my own and tried to get back to some
of those who had called me. No luck.
“Before
giving up, I decided to try one more number. I dialed an NGO in Kyiv that Orest
had been affliated with. The tense voice of a young woman answer at the other
end of the line. After I explained who I was and why I was calling, there was a
long pause. With a tremble in her voice, she finally said, 'Orest is dead.'
“I
was stunned. I had spoken to him only four days earlier. ‘How? What happened?’
“‘It
seems he was poisoned,’ the young woman replied. ‘The prosecutor’s office
hasn’t stated any clear cause of death, but they’re not considering foul play.’
“I
felt icy shock and my heart began to race. A week earlier, a former professor
and a long-time friend had died of heart failure. But this was different. Orest
was 28. A young, vital, healthy person. My best friend in Ukraine was dead, for
no apparent reason. And there wasn’t a thing I could do.
“Mutual
friends later reported that the official story was he died of alcohol
poisoning. Yet, his widow insisted that when Orest had arrived home the last
night, he was totally sober. Not only that, she told me, he had had over US
$400 in his breast pocket and it was still there when he came home. She thought
someone must have slipped something into Orest’s drink, because he was in a
great deal of pain.
“At
the time I tried to keep track of the futile investigation thousands of
kilometers away, in L’viv. Like everyone else who knew Orest, I wanted concrete
answers. But officials either suggested he had drunk himself to death or that
he had had an enlarged heart. (Prosecutors in Ukraine love that one.)
“Curiously,
at the time of his death Orest was also responsible for the Ukrainian branch of
an American humanitarian aid society that provided medical supplies for
orphanages and hospitals in Western Ukraine. There were rumors at the time that
some local racketeers wanted in on the supplies he was getting. The idea was
that he would pilfer some, they could sell it on the black market, and he would
get a cut.
“It
wasn’t exactly an original set-up. Many aid organizations found themselves in
the same situation. Many succumbed to the temptation – or the threat. But Orest
would never have agreed to such an arrangement.
“Whatever
had really happened, none of us would ever know. The years passed. Together
with Orest’s other friends and his family, I came to accept that he was dead.
His widow eventually remarried. To this day, we keep in touch, as do many of
the others I met through Orest.
“I
see some of these friends more than others. Some are journalists, some are
lawyers, a few are even politicians. We’re always analysing the state of the
country. And when somebody suddenly dies, we just look at each other as if to
say, 'There’s another Orest. We’ll never know the truth about that one!'
“But
you know what? It shouldn’t be that way.” •
–thanks to Liubko M.
