recordings made in president leonid kuchma's office during 1999 and 2000 reappeared on aug. 10 in munich along with unappealing facts about the former presidential guard who triggered the country’s worst political crisis ever.

in addition to possibly yielding valuable clues about the murder of journalist georgy gongadze and other alleged crimes, full public disclosure of tapes could jeopardize national security by exposing more state secrets.

presidential candidates, journalists and foreign emissaries are today still struggling to keep up with the implications of the tapes made secretly in president leonid kuchma’s office in 1999 and 2000.

hrihory omelchenko, the parliament deputy chairing the ad hoc commission investigating gongadze’s disappearance and other crimes, was nonplussed on aug. 11 when the post informed him it had obtained two unreleased cds with the recordings in munich.

“i’m all booked up this week,” omelchenko said. “maybe we can have a beer next week.”

following an aug. 6 conference in munich devoted to the complicated tapegate affair, socialist party leader oleksandr moroz distanced himself from the recordings and from statements made by volodymyr tsvil and czech businessman volodymyr boldanyuk. both are moroz supporters, and helped evacuate presidential guard mykola melnychenko and his recordings to the czech republic on nov. 26.

moroz told the post on june 30 that he does not know who boldanyuk is.

“what tsvil says now about the intricacy of this case and other things, in my view, is done deliberately to keep the truth from coming out. the issues will be discussed in the report of the ad hoc parliamentary committee investigating gongadze’s disappearance and other crimes,” he told lvivska gazeta on aug. 10.

moroz in early 2000 began making arrangements for melnychenko and his family to leave ukraine.

“i met with melnychenko five or six times during the spring and summer of 2000 to discuss preparations,” tsvil said.

some 35 compact discs comprising melnychenko’s scandalous audio archive remain in europe. one was presented to the post at munich’s legendary hofbrau haus on june 27. another was presented to the post on aug. 10.

the 650-megabyte discs contain compressed wave format recordings created in the fall of 2000. the handwriting on the disc labels resembles melnychenko’s handwriting.

tsvil, who has been in touch with melnychenko over the years, accompanied the ex-guard at meetings in january 2004 with ukrainian officials to negotiate terms for bringing the entire audio archive back to kyiv. the most recent rendezvous took place on feb. 24, 2004 in vienna with presidential assistant serhiy lyovochkin and presidential administration security director volodymyr lyashko bringing $500,000 as an incentive.

“the offer was not accepted,” said tsvil, who has provided the post with photographic evidence of two other meetings with state security service (sbu) agents in january 2004.

lyovochkin’s office refused comment. the identities of sbu agents who have met with melnychenko are known to the post.

the united states in april 2001 granted refugee status to melnychenko, who has refused to say why, how, or if he made and prepared a recording first released by moroz on nov. 28, 2000 in parliament.

the 24-minute audio file, made using a pirated version of the audio software program sound forge, was created on sept. 18, when few people suspected gongadze had been kidnapped or killed. the recording, which contains excerpts of recordings mentioning gongadze, triggered months of street protests across ukraine.

the digital audio file is available to the public, along with 30 hours from melnychenko’s audio archive, through an internet project funded by harvard university’s weatherhead center for international affairs.

many recordings from kuchma’s office surfaced in september 2002 on 5element.net, an internet project created in september 2002 by former parliamentary deputy oleksandr zhyr.

former u.s. ambassador carlos pascual said in early 2001 that the u.s. government would not use the recordings “for political gain,” but it suspended assistance to the ukrainian government after allegedly authenticating a 90-second snippet – from a recording made july 2000 – in which kuchma allegedly approves the sale of a passive radar system to iraq.

this is the first article in a series made possible by support from the danish association for investigative journalism.

(august 2004)