You're reading: U.S. Ambassador Tefft: ‘No evidence’ linking Tymoshenko to Shcherban’s 1996 murder

Editor’s Note: The following is the English-language text of a May interview with U.S. Ambassador John F. Tefft conducted by Ukrainian journalists Sergei Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayem.

U.S. Ambassador John Tefft gave an interview to Ukrainian Pravda two and a half years after being appointed in his position. He navigates through Ukraine’s domestic realities without steers from aides, and understands immediately the context of questions asked.

This interview took place in the new embassy building on A.I. Sikorsky Street. At the secure entrance we left not only our phones, but also cameras. The exterior of the complex resembles Washington government buildings. The interior is minimalist. In the office of the ambassador we passed the gallery of prominent Americans whose parents came from Ukraine: Dustin Hoffman, Milla Jovovich, Vladimir Horowitz, Mila Kunis, etc.

The office of the ambassador is smaller in size compared to the workplaces of Ukrainian officials such as Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Tigipko, whom we visited in March. Offices in Ukrainian government buildings are almost twice the size.

Tefft is a classic diplomat – cautious in his judgment. While assessing the events in Ukraine, he always tries to rely on the words of the American president or the secretary of state.
His style differs from his colleague in Moscow, Michael McFaul, who is a lot more candid with journalists. Tefft, unlike McFaul, does not maintain personal pages on social networks – another sign of Tefft’s caution. Before the interview with the ambassador we announced the event to our friends on Facebook and invited them to submit questions. Some of these we managed to ask in the interview.

Ukrainian Pravda: What is your assessment of the current political situation in Ukraine?

John F. Tefft: “The U.S. government believes that Ukraine has made many achievements, but much remains to be done. The United States has supported key goals for 20 years.

“First – an independent, prosperous, irreversibly democratic country that is modernizing as a European state.

“Second – a transparent government with a dynamic civil society, free to contribute to public life.

“Third – an economic system that is open and attractive to investment.

“Fourth – a society that affords for all its citizens true full protection of the rule of law.

“So based on those proclaimed goals, we have repeatedly spoken out– as have the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, our president – about areas where we have seen backsliding about democratic values, in particular the appearance of selective political persecution of political opposition.

We’ve also looked at what President [Viktor] Yanukovych promised [as] true reform at the beginning of his government. And there have been some laws that have been passed which have made some progress on that, to be very fair.

UP: Which laws do you mean?

“The Law on the Tax Administration and the Customs Service, the Law on Parliamentary Elections, which was supported by many opposition MPs. In addition, the Rada adopted the Law on public access to official documents and the Criminal Procedure Code.

“But the key here is that these laws actually be implemented properly. My staff and I follow this very carefully. So, for example, according to our sources, the law on access to public information is followed in less than 50 percent of cases.

“The criminal procedure code was passed with clauses that allow for a long delay before some powers of the procuracy are reduced as they are intended to be under the new law. We see real problems with the effort to implement the law on public procurement. And then obviously the courts remain potliticized, domestic and foreign investors continue to face raids, intimidation and inconsistent application of the law.”

UP: So as not to be unfounded, could you give some specific examples of the problems of U.S. companies?

“I can’t get into specifics of specific companies, because they consider it to be private information. But I want to assure you that I have repeatedly raised this issue before, perhaps with every senior official with whom I have met here.”

UP: Do these meetings help to solve the problem?

“Many cases are resolved after a meeting with senior officials of the government. But it only gets settled when the American ambassador or the German ambassador, or any other ambassador seeks a meeting with the prime minister or one of the key ministers to solve the problem.

“We must change the whole system, because right now it is a serious obstacle to investment. Separately, I would like to emphasize and call attention to raider attacks, which have a very serious impact on the success of the Ukrainian economy.

UP: Mr. Ambassador, these same phenomena were present with Viktor Yushchenko. And after his government Ukraine demanded political stability. It seems now that Ukraine has achieved this.

JT: “This might be so, but you still have these problems. I travel through Ukraine and I hear people complain about the same problems. I do not want to say that the problems were brought by the Party of Regions. This is all part of the system that exists here, and the system needs to be changed.”

UP: Then explain what you mean when talking about the existence of backsliding– where do you see backsliding?

JT: Backsliding, especially in matters of democracy. This was very clearly expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. First, it applies to selective justice. Also, I think most people will tell you that corruption has become worse now than it was before. As for systemic problems in the economy, in the last 20 years, everyone has spoken about what changes they want, but in the end somehow it does not come to fruition, something always interferes. And problems remain…

UP: To you, what are the most conspicuous examples?

JT: Let me give you an example of public procurement. According to our records, Ukraine spends annually on public procurement $100 billion. Ukraine itself, as said by President Yanukovych, reported that in 2011, $8 billion was illegally laundered. Transparency International believes that this figure of laundered money is actually at $50 billion.
But back in July 2010, Parliament passed a new law on public procurement. And, according to most observers, it was moving forward. The law was supported by the United States, the European Union, the World Bank, and the IMF.

But now we learn that this bill was submitted for amendments – the Cabinet of Ministers is proposing changes that could lead to more corruption than before. Most officials – such as Economics Minister [Petro] Poroshenko – urged the Cabinet to withdraw the bill because it creates too many opportunities and ways for corruption. If such changes do occur, it will serve as a dark example of sliding backwards.

If they ask me, I will give my advice on sanctions.

UP: Before our interview, we asked our friends on Facebook to submit questions for you. Several of them asked about the same thing: will the U.S. seek sanctions against Ukraine. They argue that without these the situation will not be corrected. In your opinion, how real is the possibility of sanctions?

JT: The question of sanctions is a matter for Washington and Brussels. I do not want to deal with assumptions here. This issue is dealt with by national governments. If they ask me for advice I will give my advice. But I will not now discuss it publicly. I think the President of my country and my country’s Secretary of State very plainly made it clear to President Yanukovych our views on this situation. But a decision on punitive sanctions does not currently exist.

UP: What is your attitude on the calls to boycott Euro 2012 due to the situation surrounding Yulia Tymoshenko?

JT: The United States is not a party to this event, and we have no position on this issue. But, if you carefully read the recent statement of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, you probably noticed that it very clearly said that she was deeply concerned about the treatment of Ms. Tymoshenko and other members of the former government who are in prison. The photos of Ms. Tymoshenko with bruises that were released by the Ukrainian ombudsman, beg very serious questions about the conditions of her detention.

We privately and publicly have pressed the Ukrainian government to grant access to health care immediately for Mrs. Tymoshenko. We, by the way, recognize German efforts also in pushing this matter.

One more time, our message – to repeat, we call for the release of Ms. Tymoshenko and other members of the former government, and for them to fully restore their political and civil rights. By the way, I wanted to emphasize the important point that this statement was not from the State Department spokesman, but this comes from the Secretary of State herself.

UP: Might the theme of Tymoshenko be discussed at the NATO Summit in Chicago, where the presence of President Yanukovych is expected?

JT: The arrangements are still being made for Chicago, and I can’t tell you now whether this issue will come up or not. The Ukrainian President has been invited as a president of a country that has contributed to the ISAF forces in Afghanistan

UP: Are President Obama and Yanukovych scheduled to meet in Chicago?

JT: I don’t know how they are going to do the diplomacy, but I am not aware of any plans for a separate meeting.

UP: By the way, has been much speculation about the meeting of the presidents of the USA and Ukraine in Seoul. Tell me how it really was, whether this meeting was planned and whether it took place?

JT: It was planned. It did take place. It was a short meeting. There were three fundamental issues from our side. Thank you for President Yanukovych and the people of Ukraine for following through on the agreement to replace all of highly enriched uranium with low enriched uranium.

Second, President Obama raised our concerns about selective prosecution of Mrs. Tymoshenko and her colleagues

And third, President Obama expressed our strong desire that elections for the parliament which are due to take place in October be free, fair, and transparent.

UP: By the way, is the participation of Tymoshenko and Lutsenko in this election a prerequisite for recognition of their results?

The opposition has told us that they intend to contest the elections. What we are trying to do is to work with OSCE, with our European colleagues, to do everything we can to monitor and to do what we can to ensure that the elections are free and fair. And to support the Ukrainian organizations, such as OPORA who are experienced in monitoring these elections.

UP: Does this mean that if the elections will be transparent and honest, they will be recognized – even despite the absence of Tymoshenko and Lutsenko?

JF:This is a hypothetical question. It is still so long until the event itself. I will not engage in guesswork. I understand that you, the journalists, do the hypothetical questions, but we diplomats shouldn’t be doing it. Yes, I meet with the U.S. consultants of Mr. Yanukovych.

UP: A few months ago there was information that the Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov was on the "black list" of people who cannot enter the United States. His lawyers say the request for a visa is still pending. We understand that you cannot comment on the visa status of specific individuals. So explain something else: the fact that his application has been under consideration for so long – is this common American practice?

JT: I can’t get into this. Our Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 222f, specifically protects the privacy of visa applicants, and prohibits people like me from saying anything about it. And this applies to everybody, not just Rinat Akhmetov.

UP: Then the question of other influential Regions Member, Yuriy Ivanyuschenko. Is it true that Ivanyuschenko was presented to you by the President of Ukraine as a person who will deal with nuclear energy in Ukraine and will lead the issue of investment from America in this area?

JT: I can’t get into that one either, because that was also another visa. Wasn’t it Ukrainska Pravda that printed the long story about this? It’s all part of a visa application, I just can’t.

KP: Our sources say that Ivanyuschenko was to accompany the possible investment by Westinghouse. This is an economic issue, because U.S. and Russian companies are competitors.

JT: I just don’t have any comment on that.

KP: We know that the American advisor Paul Manafort advised the Ukrainian president. If so, why are you talking about the rollback of Ukraine’s democracy?

JT: I think you have to ask Mr. Manafort this question. In my experience, in many democracies around the world American – and European – political consultants are hired to provide advice to candidates. This was certainly the case in Georgia, where I was formerly Ambassador. Also, I believe, in Lithuania. Many of the countries use these consultants regularly. Mr. Manafort has worked for many years with President Yanukovych, and this is becoming part of a fairly typical process that I see in a lot of parts of the world.

UP: Is it true that he is a frequent guest in your office?

JT: I make it my business to keep in touch with everybody I can in this society. And that’s certainly true about people in the government and the opposition; it’s also true of advisors – not only to the President, but also to people in the opposition. So, I’ve met with Manafort, we’ve talks, but my relationship with him is no different than it is with Americans who have been political consultants in other countries where I’ve served as Ambassador, and I think this is a fairly typical of American ambassadors serving in the world today.

UP: Speaking of your meeting with the Americans in Kyiv, have you had any contacts or received any letters from the U.S. on the subject of Isabella Kirichenko, who was arrested last year? She is the wife of Peter Kirichenko, who the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office wants to interrogate in the Yevhen Shcherban case. [Shcherban was a member of parliament and wealthy businessman assassinated with his wife in November 1996 as they exited a private plane on the runway of a Donetsk airport; recently, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka has implicated ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the murder, a charge she denies.] And they seem to have achieved what they wanted after arresting [Isabella] Kirichenko …

JT: I didn’t contact Ms. Kirichenko, but embassy staff contacted her. She is an American citizen, and we are committed to protecting the rights of all American citizens. I’ve not had contact with her, but she has had contact with members of my staff. She is an American citizen, and we try to protect the rights of all American citizens.

UP: Is it true that something close to torture was used on her in Ukraine?

JT: I don’t know. I know that when she was in jail, our consul immediately asked for access to her and visited her, my recollection is, several times. We take that very seriously.

UP: Do you know the other side of her detention? (Do you know) that what was required of her was to force her husband, who lives in the U.S., to testify
?

JT: Yes, I’ve heard the stories, but I haven’t talked to her about it.

UP: What was your reaction to the letter from Ruslan Shcherban, the son of the deceased MP Yevhen Shcherban? What was in it?

JT: I’ll just say with regard to the larger issue of the Shcherban murder. Even before I got this letter, we were looking into some of these allegations that were out there. We have no evidence that I am aware of – and we’ve tried to find – that links Mrs. Tymoshenko to the murder of Mr. Shcherban. This is the Department of Justice and the FBI that were involved in the investigations and, ultimately, in Mr. [Pavlo] Lazarenko’s trial. [Ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is serving a prison sentence in the United States after being convicted of money laundering] So, I have to request that information, and at this point I have nothing. Martha Boersch on Bolshaya Polityka said that she was not aware of this – this is the woman who was the prosecutor of Mr. Lazarenko.

UP: First Deputy Prosecutor of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin said that the U.S. will not satisfy his request to examine Lazarenko in the United States. Why?

JT: With regard to Mr. Lazarenko, we have no way to get him to agree to give testimony to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. As far as I know, he refused such a meeting. And according to our law, we do not have any tools to change his position.

UP: There is the idea that Ukrainian relations with the International Monetary Fund are political, not economic, as told by the IMF. If the Ukrainian government raises gas tariffs for households, will it guarantee that the last installment will be given? And then there won’t be any new conditions, that renewing financial help for Ukraine depends on democracy in Ukraine?

JT: I think you are actually wrong. I think that the IMF has negotiated the agreement. It’s laid out clearly: the structural reforms, which the government of Ukraine agreed to implement. And they haven’t yet finished those. Those structural reforms, those requirements, were developed to address the structural problems in the financial and economic systems. And if they are not addressed, the problems will only become worse over time. That’s why the IMF and the other donors expect Ukraine to meet its commitments under that agreement.

UP: Does the U.S. realize that Ukraine will have to take that money from Russia, which is prepared to provide those credits?

JT: I can just tell you that the Ukrainian Government negotiated this deal with the IMF; it’s their commitment; it’s the requirements they agreed to implement that are at stake here.

UP: As the ambassador, how well informed are you about what’s happening in the re-distribution of assets in Ukraine’s business? And if you know or maybe have in your embassy vocabulary such a notion as the "family", i.e. the ‘family of the president’?

JT: I get press briefings every day, so I read all of the press, including the articles that you guys write. So I am well aware of the stories that are out there. But I don’t have any independent information on those stories. I read with interest. And I think it’s important, as I’ve said repeatedly here, that the free press be able to investigate these things, this is part of democracy. But I don’t have any other specific comment on this.

UP: You mentioned the freedom of the press. Ukrainian authorities said that the state is free press, because there is a free talk show. Do you watch them? What is your reaction? Is this freedom?

JT: I rarely get home on Friday nights to be able to watch either Bolshaya Polityka or Shuster Live. But I have my staff put together a summary for me of the people who are on there, the statements that were made, and the issues that were discussed.

What I would say is that those shows really contain a mix: sometimes of news, sometimes of statements by political leaders of all types, including the opposition, and then they also contain debates that are fairly predictable and break no new ground. So, there are inherent limitations involved, but I think the shows do play a role in ensuring that opposing points of view get out there.

I would say that my experience in two and a half years is that many Ukrainians are able to have their information from a variety of sources and to put together their political judgments based on watching the talk shows, the news that they hear on TV, on radio, and on the internet, and they get multiple sources, also reading newspapers and magazines every week, — people get a variety of news and they form their political judgments as a result of that.

UP: Finally – a few questions from our Facebook friends. Oleksandr Argat asks, when will Starbucks open a coffee house in Ukraine?

JT: That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that one. They have not come to me to talk to me about this. There’s lot of shops already you can have coffee at. They are obviously out to make money. So I can only assume that they’ve either looked and made a calculation not to, or maybe that’s in the works, and we just don’t know about this.

UP: Another question from readers: Yara Chalupa asks that Ukrainian students have to return to Ukraine for two years after studying in the U.S. They complain that during this time may lose U.S. jobs or experience that they got there. Can this policy about the need to return for two years to Ukraine be changed?

JT: You mean if it’s a part of the US Government program. If you are to go as part of our Muskie Program, which is post-graduate, you go to get a master’s in journalism, a master’s- in-law, and you spend two years there, I believe, the requirement is that you spend three [correct is two] years back in your home country.

UP: So it cannot be changed?

This is a requirement, this is something that’s worldwide that we do for this program, because what we want to encourage is that people will get this education and come back to their home countries and use it. That of course applies to exchange programs where we pay for the students, and if people go and study on their own of course have no such requirement.

UP: Has the percentage of refusals to grant visas to the U.S. increased or decreased in the last two years?

JT: We issue the vast majority of visas. We try very hard to issue visas here. If you’d been here this morning you would have seen groups of 40 and 50 students out here trying to get Summer Work and Travel visas. We do 12,000 young Ukrainian university students who go to the States every summer on that program alone. What we are not allowed to do is to give non-immigrant visas to people who intend to go and stay in the States as immigrants. They have to get an immigrant visa and fulfill the law in the categories that are specified under our Immigration and Nationality Act.

UP: Can you compare your feelings and experiences of Ukraine and Georgia? Why did they come out for reforms? And what you remember about Ukraine?

JT: I don’t have to make a final conclusion about Ukraine for, at least, another year. As I tried to indicate, we strongly support free elections, we support reform and the United States Government and certainly this Embassy, as long as I am Ambassador, will continue to push for that.

I am not ambassador in Georgia, so I’ll try to be careful about making comments about Georgia. But I have a good European friend who has worked and lived in Ukraine and Georgia. He has seen both countries very close and very personally. How he would answer your question is: leadership and political will. There are a lot of people in the government here who have been to Georgia to see the reforms. There are some that will take longer, because Ukraine is ten times as big – both physically and in terms of population. But there are some things that can be done that just require political will: fighting corruption.

You have to have laws but then you have to have implementation, you have to have the will to push it through. And the reason I discussed in some detail with you the whole issue of the procurement law is that here we have a step forward, and now there are people wanting to take two steps backwards.

In Georgia, when I arrived in 2005, they had already fired all of the GAI. Soon after I arrived, I think, up to 15 judges had been caught taking bribes for political decisions, and had been tried and put in jail.

So what I tell my Ukrainian colleagues is that you have to have the political will to move forward, to push forward, and to make these fundamental changes. And based on what I see in the polls and what I gather just from traveling around the country and talking to Ukrainians is what people of Ukraine want.