|
Page 5 of 9 But journalist Mikhail Leontiev went even further. He did not talk about the fact of Politkovskaya’s killing being used by the opposition. He argued that this very same opposition killed Politkovskaya: “This is a provocation. Something like this was tested in the Ukraine with the liquidation of Gongadze. They chose an opposition journalist with a well-known name, and then they take him out and in doing so they arrange a provocation against the authorities.”
It is a bold statement, however, that the opposition staged the killing of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze, that the enemies of the Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma did it. There no proof of this, but at the same time there are the recordings made by Kuchma’s bodyguard, Major Melnichenko. In these recordings Kuchma said that it was time to take steps against this evil journalist, and to blame the matter on the Chechens: “Take him away to Chechnya and get it sorted out.”
And here is a recording after the disappearance of Gongadze:
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine reports to Kuchma: “Gongadze has disappeared.” Kuchma: “He’s in Chechnya. The Chechens kidnapped him!” (Laughs.)
But Leontiev, just like Pavlovsky and Sokolov, accuses them of wishful thinking.
These authors are expressing their downright hostility. Not to Anna Politkovskaya, but towards the opposition itself, and to such an extent that the facts are juggled and misrepresented. Why is this? It would be primitive to assume that this is merely their zealous exercise in earning their salaries and positions. No, there is a certain personal passion, zeal. But here, excuse me, we must move on to identities and fates.
I believe the source of this passion is that all of them: Pavlovsky, Sokolov, and Leontiev, were once in the ranks of these same opponents.
Gleb Olegovich Pavlovsky was a dissident during the Soviet times, but among dissidents his name is taboo. We will not try to guess how and what happened there. He speaks about his past as follows: “The problem was only that when I first arrived at that remarkable institution, which is called the KGB, they chopped me up rather quickly. That was the first and last time they succeeded in doing this, but the first time is the first time, and whoever has ended up there, he knows what I’m talking about.”
Whatever lies behind these words, let everyone think for him or herself. During the Yeltsin era, Pavlovsky worked in Yeltsin’s campaign headquarters, and then participated in the transfer of power to Putin: “We, those who helped Putin become president of the Russian Federation, we managed to avoid great bloodshed in the country.” Again, understand this to mean what you wish. He is currently an adviser to the head of the Presidential Administration, heads the Foundation for Effective Policy, and is the anchorman for the NTV broadcast ‘Real Politics’.
|
