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the later disinterment and burning of their bodies. As a result of his convincing
defense, the court acquitted Volodymyr Katelnytsky of the charges brought against him.
Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
As we have no direct evidence of who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky, we can only perform
a Cui bono? analysis which will at least tell us where to start looking. That is, if it
is the case that the three most prominent events in Volodymyr Katelnytsky's life were:
(1) that he defended John Demjanjuk, (2) that he contradicted the Soviet-inspired
Holocaust version of the Babyn Yar story, and (3) that he was tortured to death along
with his mother, then it would take a mental paralysis with which I have not as yet been
seized to refuse to consider the first two of these events as possibly having caused the
third.
I don't accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination.
As you broadcast the Ugly Face of Freedom on 23 October 1994 and Volodymyr Katelnytsky's
assassination did not take place until 7-8 July 1997, I obviously do not accuse you of
having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination in your broadcast.
But I do accuse you of having missed the big story of which Katelnytsky's
assassination is but one piece.
However, the persecution and assassination of Ukrainians did not begin in 1997. It
began hundreds of years earlier, carried right up until your broadcast in 1994, and
continued through 1997 to this day. What I do accuse you of, then, is ignoring a
centuries-long stream of evidence attesting to the persecution of Ukrainians, and of
broadcasting instead the story of the persecution of Russians and Jews even in the
absence of evidence. Your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a
story of a prominent Russian activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether
along with his mother or alone. And your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up
anything like a story of a prominent Jewish activist being tortured to death in his
apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been
able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is
ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and
murdered.
And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination.
But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you
could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time
plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's
assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue
broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in
their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom,
Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had
you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their
oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is 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.
June 30, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of
Freedom was that Ukraine is a place where Jews and Russians are oppressed by militant
Ukrainian nationalists, and where they are the targets of Ukrainian violence. The
closest that you came to substantiating this claim was to broadcast Rabbi Bleich's
allegation that an elderly Jewish couple had been attacked and robbed somewhere in
Western Ukraine. However, this allegation was devoid of substantiating detail, and my
request for specifics (both in my letter to you of 24May98, and in my letter to Rabbi
Bleich of 23May98) was answered with silence. I repeat that request to you now - please
inform me of the details of this attack, which minimally would include the time, the
place, the names of the victims, and the address where a police report is available. If
you do not have such information, please retract the allegation.
You must be aware that I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well as
of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine has questioned whether such an attack on
the two elderly Jews ever took place. Levitas's doubt was first expressed in an open
letter to you, and I reminded Rabbi Bleich of it in my letter to him of 23May98, of
which you were mailed a copy. In view of I. M. Levitas's doubt, and in view of your and
Rabbi Bleich's silence in response to my request for particulars, the impression grows
daily stronger that you and Rabbi Bleich made the incident up.
The chief purpose of the present letter is to demonstrate to you yet again that your
conclusion which I summarize in my first sentence at the beginning of the present letter
is exactly backward. Ukraine is not a place where Ukrainians attack and murder, it is a
place where Ukrainians are attacked and murdered, as has been the case for the last
three hundred years, at least. Below is documented one further instance in support of
this conclusion. It is the story of Vadim Boyko, member of parliament, and popular
television investigative journalist. I would have expected that the story of Vadim
Boyko would have appealed to you, and for that reason that you might have included it in
any broadcast that you prepared about Ukraine, as his life - at least up to the final
moments - was not unlike your own:
February 23, 1992
Journalist's notebook in Ukraine
by Marta Kolomayets
Kiev Press Bureau
A colleague's tragic death
"He was a man engaged to a young Ukraine," said Volodymyr Yavorivsky, as
he bid farewell to Vadim Boyko, who died tragically on February 14, at
the age of 29.
Hundreds of mourners crowded into the third floor atrium of the
Ukrainian State Television and Radio headquarters, tearfully passing
each other on the steps Vadim so often bounded, rushing to the studios
where he recorded his popular television programs.
Now, on February 17, the mourners paid their last respects to Vadik (as
he was affectionately known), searching for a reason why such a
promising, talented life was cut short. As slow dirge-like music played
over the loudspeakers, they filed past the closed coffin, sewn up in
black cotton and laden with bunches of carnations of all colors.
At the foot of the coffin stood a black and white photo of the young
journalist and politician. An enlarged copy of the same photo,
decorated with a black mourning band, hung above the coffin. To the
left, the newly adopted Ukrainian national flag, also decorated with
black bunting, kept guard over its native son. Wreaths from the
Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin.
Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the
wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites.
Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings.
As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his
weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the
family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev.
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 cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is
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 cannot prevent this we stop
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
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