By Olenka Melnyk, The Edmonton Journal
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Saturday, April 24, 2004

Kuchma denied the allegations that it was his voice on the tape ordering Georgiy Gongadze's murder and refused to resign.

The petite, passionate young woman will discuss freedom of the press in Ukraine as a keynote speaker at a conference of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress today at the Chateau Louis.

Gongadze's visit, her first to Canada, is timely given the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine this fall, which will put the fragile democracy to a critical test. Canadian and American officials are already voicing concerns about the intimidation and violence that have already begun months before the election campaign swings into full gear.

Gongadze's personal story is likely to sway public opinion further against a corrupt regime. And it will likely increase the disenchantment already felt by many Ukrainian Canadians already disillusioned by the slow pace of reforms in their newly independent homeland.

Taking a deep breath, Gongadze rewinds her life back to Kyiv in the fall of 2000. A family photo taken shortly before her husband disappeared shows an attractive, smiling young couple cuddling their toddler twin girls.

"We knew a lot of people had disappeared, but we never imagined that such a thing could happen to us," she says. "We didn't recognize the signs." There were some anonymous threats. Strange cars would park outside their apartment and then tail the family wherever they went.

These were unpleasant experiences, worrisome even, but hardly unusual for Ukrainian journalists, who are accustomed to harassment, says Gongadze. And her husband, an investigative Internet journalist, was a thorn in the government's side with his exposes of high-level corruption.

In 1999, he had even gone to Washington to deliver a petition signed by 64 colleagues, denouncing the intimidation of journalists and increasing state control of the media in Ukraine.

On Sept. 16, 2000, Georgiy went to visit a co-worker and never came back. More than two weeks later, a headless corpse was discovered in a ditch by farmers. A group of journalists heard about the discovery and rushed to the scene to investigate, eventually tracking the body down to a small-town morgue.

They contacted Gongadze, who demanded to see the corpse, begging for weeks until authorities finally allowed her to see the corpse nearly two months after her husband's disappearance.

The body was unrecognizable, but she was able to identify jewelry found nearby as her husband's. It took another two months before the authorities conducted DNA tests on the body confirmed it as that of the missing journalist.

By then Gongadze's private tragedy had become a full-blown scandal as thousands of outraged Ukrainians repeatedly demonstrated in the streets of Kyiv, demanding a full public investigation into the case, backed by the support of international public opinion.

"My personal feelings of grief had become a social problem," says Gongadze. "It was very hard, but I understood that silence would solve nothing, and this killing would be different from the ones before. I vowed that I would do whatever I could to find the truth."

Gongadze knew she had to switch tactics, however, when she heard the secret tapes made by Kuchma's former bodyguard. "When I heard the president's voice on the tape, I understood why we were getting nowhere. Where would I find support? Who would protect me?"

Feeling that it was no longer safe to remain in Ukraine, Gongadze sought political asylum in the United States with her children.

For the past three years she has been a reporter for Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America.

She also campaigns for an international investigation into her husband's death and for press freedom. Four more journalists have disappeared since her husband's death and since independence in 1991, a total of 14 are dead or missing, she says. Radio Liberty has been pulled off the air in Kyiv as the state tightens its grip on media.

This will hardly be welcome news for Ukrainian-Canadians who are already "having a hard time dealing with the oligarchic clans and systematic corruption that has replaced Soviet totalitarianism," says Dr. Zenon Kohut, director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta.

"Things can tip one way or another. There is no clear victor in Ukraine at the moment."

"Nobody could have anticipated how difficult the transition would be," says Dr. Roman Petryshyn, director of the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre at Grant MacEwan College, which has an office in Kyiv, "and what a time-consuming process it would be to build a market-oriented democracy from the ground level up."

After 70 years of oppression, her people received their freedom too suddenly, says Gongadze, who longs for personal closure. "I'm tired. I don't like telling this whole horrible story again and again, but people have to know." (omelnyk@thejournal.canwest.com)