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Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television
and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic
deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring
words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr.
Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry
mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above
all. He loved Ukraine, say it."
We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was
then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk,
Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place.
x x x
It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight,
on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro
Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different.
"I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death
tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a
cruel joke?"
Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at
Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had
blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the
reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor,
burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left of his apartment, a
dormitory-type dwelling in a building that housed quite a number of
State television and Radio workers.
News of Vadim's death spread quickly among fellow journalists - many of
whom had attended Kiev State with Vadim, many of whom worked with him on
numerous projects.
He was an elected democratic deputy from Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast. He
had come from the neighboring town in Kirovohrad oblast, just across the
Dnipro River, arriving in the capital city of Kiev in the early 1980s to
obtain a college education.
And from then on, he gained popularity as the founder and host of
"Hart," one of the first serious investigative shows on Ukrainian
television, reporting on everything from Chornobyl to Shcherbytsky.
After he was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1990,
he was appointed vice chairman of the standing parliamentary Committee
on Glasnost and the Mass Media, a job he took very seriously, often
going to Moscow to discuss problems of disinformation in Ukraine, as
presented by central television.
But Vadim never forgot his first vocation - journalism - and he would
often join his colleagues, including a few of us foreign correspondents,
on the press balcony of Parliament during the sessions to give us some
inside news or highlights of his commission's work.
He was our friend, and with his death, our circle has been broken. Many
of us - Ukrainian journalists and foreign correspondents, as well as a
few of his close friends outside this journalistic fraternity - spent
last week trying to come to terms with the tragedy that has struck us.
We ca
reported that 8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to
their television sets exploding, we all believe that Vadim would have
survived this kind of accident.
We have gone through the story over and over. Most of us saw him in
Parliament on Wednesday afternoon; he was excited and invigorated by new
opportunities: he was applying for a National Foundation internship for
the spring in Washington, D.C., he was going to travel on business with
Ukraine's deputy prime minister. His dancing blue eyes were smitten
with the possibilities of new TV shows and programs in an independent
Ukraine.
None of us saw Vadim in Parliament on Thursday or Friday, February
13-14; he missed a few meetings he had scheduled on Friday.
Currently, there are many rumors flying around Kiev surrounding Vadim's
death, based on political, business and personal motivations.
Parliamentary committees have promised to work on an investigation,
although no special committee has been formed to investigate what many
democratic deputies, among them Les Taniuk and Stepan Khmara, have
labelled as murder. Some speculate that Vadim's TV work in Chornobyl
may have triggered an early death...
On Friday, February 14, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) in
Moscow ran an interview with Vadim on journalists' responsibilities and
cooperation between Moscow and Kiev.
"At this time, we (referring to Russian and Ukrainian journalists) can
be friends, if we are honest to the end. We are currently living in a
commonwealth, the root of the word is found in the word "druh,"
friend... We will never become true friends, until we journalists
understand that we are the ones who can, who have the responsibility to
stop our peoples from total degradation, from the catastrophe that can
occur between our peoples," he said. "If we ca
being journalists. We will become persons who today do their work and
tomorrow, one by one, are destroyed."
Vadim's deep sense of responsibility, his courage and commitment to the
truth will always be admired by his friends and colleagues. And we are
all committed to learning the truth.
Given the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, I can only
hope that his last interview prophecy did not become self-fulfilling.
Mr. Safer, you travelled to Ukraine looking for stories of persecution and violence
against Jews and Russians, you failed to find the evidence, but you broadcast the story
anyway. All the while, you were surrounded by stories of persecution and violence
against Ukrainians, but that plentiful evidence you ignored. In other words, you went
to Ukraine not to discover its reality, but to confirm your prejudice. You played the
role not of journalist, but of propagandist. Given the opportunity to make a
contribution toward protecting the lives of journalists in Ukraine by broadcasting the
story of Vadim Boyko, you declined. Showing anything on 60 Minutes that might win
sympathy for Ukrainians was contrary to your plan.
Had you managed to find a Jewish member of parliament and television broadcaster who had
died in Ukraine under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece
of evidence for the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. Had you managed to
find a Russian member of parliament and television broadcaster who had died in Ukraine
under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece of evidence for
the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. However, you found neither of these
things. In Ukraine, death under mysterious circumstances is reserved for prominent
Ukrainians, which conclusion you had no interest in broadcasting.
Below, I identify four incidents which I have brought to your attention either in three
earlier letters, or in the present one. Although the first two cases occurred before
your broadcast of 23Oct94, and the second two occurred after, all serve to support the
conclusion that within today's Ukraine, it is Ukrainians who are the targets of
violence:
Date of my letter
Subject of my letter
Date of Attack
Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom
15May99
Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
April 1979
30Jun99
Who murdered Vadim Boyko?