The Environmental Ministry’s spokesperson did just
that when confronted in Geneva in early September with a direct question about
the murder of civic activist Volodymyr Honcharenko and investigation into the
claim he made at a press conference four days earlier about chemically contaminated
scrap metal in Dnipropetrovsk. It certainly looks bad to inform the
working group monitoring compliance with the Aarhus Convention that the
authorities are continuing to ignore their obligations under the convention and
muffle the issue. The Aarhus Convention people were assured that a
committee had been set up and that the results of tests were expected on Sept. 10.
This was news to the Ukrainian environmental and human
rights organizations who have been calling for a proper investigation since Honcharenko’s
murder, as well as his organization which had warned the authorities and been
ignored for much longer.
This is not the first such supposed flurry of
activity, since the local authorities also came up with an investigatory
committee which supposedly carried out tests and conclusively rejected all Honcharenko’s
allegations. Nobody knows what samples were tested and the air tests spoken of
were by definition inappropriate given the specific chemical involved,
Nor were any results forthcoming on Sept. 10. A number of environmental
and human rights groups have therefore sent a letter to the Bureau of the Aarhus
Convention setting the record straight and listing key violations over the
investigation into warnings of seriously contaminated scrap metal which could
end up being sold, conceivably exported.
This
is not about “telling on” the authorities. Proper response is needed, not
yet another fob-off committee. On July 27, Volodymyr Honcharenko produced evidence
indicating a high likelihood that chemically contaminated scrap metal had
already put workers not informed of the danger in hospital. He showed photos
demonstrating the load being transported without any permit or proper
precautions around the city of .Kryvy Rih Even the traffic police
who should under any circumstances have been monitoring a load weighing 180 tons
were not to be seen, let alone others with a direct duty to protect public
safety.
Honcharenko was fatally injured in a
deliberate attack four days later. The attempts seen over the last six
weeks to muffle and / or conceal the issue he was working on when murdered also
place the investigation into his death in jeopardy. For this reason a
number of prominent journalists, civic and human rights activists and members
of the public have signed an appeal, still open for
endorsement, calling for a proper investigation which must include tests of the
scrap metal with samples taken in the presence of NGOs and the
media. They call also for the media to keep the case in the
spotlight. A few days ago we marked the twelfth anniversary of Georgy Gongadze’s
murder. By now nobody is under any illusion that the present regime is as
uninterested as its predecessors in finding those who ordered the journalist’s
murder. Volodymyr Honcharenko was not a journalist, but his investigations
concerned information of vital public importance and often exposed violations,
including by those in power. There will be no end to impunity if
inconvenient voices can be brutally silenced.
Halya Coynash is a
member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group.
