Alexandr Gorobets: Will Poland accept diplomatic married couple with a strange reputation

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma seems to have never spoken about television. It was a kind of taboo. For everybody knew and saw it was not so as it should be. He probably also saw it. Though what to do: namely such television pleased him. The central channel seemed to work to satisfy this only man. Though, it looks like Kuchma has clever advisers. They understood everything, and managed to reassure the state’s head that the situation must be changed. Because that UT-1 channel could influence only 5-6 percent of minds, instead of influencing, let us say, 90 percent. It was so awfully engaged: there were only two subjects – successes of the power leaded by Leonid Kuchma and hatred against the opposition. Everybody knew beforehand, what Vladimir Dolganov, the TV company’s president and the central channel’s leading journalist would say, what other announcers would say. The audience just switched over the channel. So, it would be unreasonable to go to elections with such TV luggage. And Leonid Kuchma decided to renounce his beloved journalist Vadim Dolganov. Yesterday, he even started to speak about how today’s Ukrainian television should be. This was said while introducing the new leader of the National Television-Radio Company. According to the president, main characteristic of television should be objectivity. The National Company’s production should visually reflect the state authorities’ position. So, state position must dominate in its work. Programmes for children, youth, pensioners and disabled persons should be transmitted more often. Educational programmes and programmes about life in regions of Ukraine are also of great importance. Air policy of state television, Leonid Kuchma supposes, should be more logical and predictable, engaged plots are inadmissible. You see, the Ukrainian president understood everything. You could listen to what he says: everything is right. So, what Dolganov was making under his leadership was just defamation of opponents. It was not analytics. Neither it was freedom of speech. Vadim Dolganov, who is a sane person at home, looked like unruly dog, ready to tear to pieces everybody, who has its own point of view differing from the president’s one. After Vadim Dolganov was dismissed, he declared he possessed a certificate of intellectual privacy – TV project “7 Days”. Actually, this is the project that caused all the discussions. He promised he would start it in one of commercial channels. Though, Vadim Dolganov simply did not have what to say. Because he himself understands, no one channel will not translate from what everybody turns away. At least, Ukraine is not Turkmenistan. Dolganov said he probably would work in Moscow. He worked there for a long time, he has many friends there. Even some proposals are said to have come from Moscow. Though it looks like the former leader of the National TV Company has to go to another country – to Poland. The question is, that Ukrainian justice minister’s wife Syuzanna Stanik has soon to resign his commission. The Public Prosecutor General’s Office found so many sins in the institution headed by her, that only a diplomatic exile with Leonid Kuchma’s personal protection could save her from more fundamental changes in the fate. Now Poland should give its approval of the new Ukrainian ambassador’s candidacy. It must be noticed, that earlier Warsaw did not accepted the candidacy of Vasili Kuybida, the today’s head of Lvov city. Poles said, this person was unwanted to Poland as Ukrainian ambassador. This refusal is connected with an old scandal between Lvov citizens and Polish side, when in a Catholic cemetery where Poles are buried, some words were cut offending Ukrainians’ national pride. The Lvov mayor actively annihilated the Polish cemetery work. So, now Kuybida belongs to personas non grata in Poland what about representing on its territory Ukrainian national interests, but he is not forbidden to enter Polish territory. Syuzanna Stanik is not threatened with such things, as well as her husband who is predicted for the embassy’s press-secretary. Though, the Polish press did not miss opportunity to discuss the subject of the future ambassador’s name. By a strange coincidence, Syuzanna Stanik’s name as translated from Polish means a part of woman underwear. After the married couple Dolganov-Stanik’s departure from the country, Ukrainian public prosecutor general Mikhail Potebenko will most likely sighs with relief. The former TV-boss seriously supposes he has been dismissed at Potebenko’s urgent request, conflicting with Dolganov’s family. In his interview to Kiev newspaper, the public prosecutor general in particular said that after bringing an action against supreme workers of Ukrainian Justice Ministry, headed by Dolganov’s wife Syuzanna Stanik, Dolganov personally came to him and demanded to stop the action. After the refusal, Dolganov is said to appear in his progarmme “Zone of the Truth” with libellous attacks on the public prosecutor general. Though Mikhail Potebenko says nothing about the custom point that was headed by his son (now he is already deputy chairman of Ukrainian Custom Service). According to a document belonging to Dolganov, this custom point was suspected of being a smuggling staging post, through which goods on 18 million dollars passed. Mikhail Potebenko did not bring any action connected with this case. Yes, Dolganov has left the central TV channel, though nobody could say whether the channel’s policy will be changed or not.

Alexandr Gorogets PRAVDA.Ru Ukraine Kiev

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/22/34084.html