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EDITORIAL, The Kyiv Post
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, June 19, 2003
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Former Vice Prime Minister Leonid Kozachenko has been released from jail,
although it is presumed that he will have to stand trial on a myriad of
charges leveled by the Prosecutor General.
The evidence available thus far suggests that Kozachenko's crime has been
taking the rhetoric that flows from the country's highest authorities
seriously, and then trying to put those words into action.
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Just a few months ago, Kozachenko was the darling of the administration. He
traveled around the world, taking delegations of grain traders and farmers
to sell Ukraine's second bumper grain crop to old customers and to new ones
that had never before considered buying from Ukraine.
Then a combination of things happened that resulted in charges being brought
against Kozachenko and an about-face in Ukraine's expansionist grain-trading
policies.
First, a cold December brought a procession of record lows that withered
what had been hardy fields of winter wheat. It was soon evident that the
2003-04 wheat crop would be drastically reduced. This, in and of itself, was
no great problem since Ukraine's state reserves had substantial quantities
of wheat that could be released to the market to make up for any shortfalls
before the short but adequate new crop arrived in July and August 2003.
During his tenure as vice prime minister for the agricultural sector,
Kozachenko, an English-speaking, internationally oriented agricultural
entrepreneur, had not only overseen two bumper grain crops, he had made
decisions that got surplus grain to international markets. More importantly
to the growing number of corporate and individual private farmers,
Kozachenko made decisions that assured that more cash was delivered
directly to the producers than at any time in Ukrainian history.
Farmers who have money of their own, independent of decisions by regional
and district authorities, tend to think independently. That unnerved the
political powers. In the past, the agricultural sector - and with it most of
Ukraine's countryside - had been subjugated to local office-holders, and
thus easily dragooned into its usual position as the most dependable part of
the administrative resource.
There is a broad consensus in the agricultural sector that this is what
brought the wrath of high political forces on Kozachenko as plans were put
in place for the upcoming presidential election. An agrarian sector that
thought for itself was an unacceptable outcome, and the man who made it
possible would have to pay the price.
There is, however, an even more sinister side to this matter. Others in the
power structure, seeing the grain trade so successful and profitable,
determined that the most hated element in the old ag structure, Khlib
Ukrainy, should be used as a force to put the sector firmly back under state
control.
Kozachenko is now engaged in the laborious task of examining the numerous
volumes of material that prosecutors have amassed against him. Independent
legal sources familiar with the case say that the volumes of so-called
evidence appear to contain nothing to support criminal charges. The accused
says that all he wants is for the trial to get underway - in public, with
the press free to cover it fully.
If there is any justice in Ukraine, Leonid Kozachenko will remain free and
will, after his acquittal, be able to begin rebuilding his life and
business, rather than sweltering in the fetid, six-man cell in Podil where
he was kept for so long.
As for those who engineered recent events in the agriculture sector, in
particular the misguided prosecution of Kozachenko, one can only hope that
their trial and judgment will come sooner rather than later.
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