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investigation it had been written in black and white that Volodymyr
Ivasiuk had committed suicide.
There immediately arises the question that if the composer had indeed
hung himself on 24-27 April, and was not found until 18 May, whether he
could have remained hanging from a tree for 21-24 days. Volodya
weighed 80 kg (176 lb), such that hanging for so long, the noose would
have cut into his neck to the depth of the bones. Also during May the
weather was warm and dry. The body would have decomposed during this
interval, and from it would have emanated an intolerable odour. All
these substantiating signs were missing, and missing too were the
autopsy photographs.
On May 22 of every year let us remember that Volodymyr Ivasiuk became
another innocent victim of a totalitarian regime.
M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas
(Clamor), 3Jun97, pp. 11-12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak.
Halas is a Ukrainian-language magazine which reviews popular music and
is published in Kyiv. The section commemorating Volodymyr Ivasiuk in
the 3Jun97 issue was sponsored and supported by Coca Cola Ukraine.
And truly, the administration hated him while he was alive, and feared
him once he was dead. Volodya's mother, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk met
with the first secretary of the Lviv administration, V. Dobryk to plead
with him to permit a monument to be placed on the grave of her son.
"The war took from me my father and three brothers. My sister's
husband did not return from the front," wept the woman, "and now my son
too has been lost. Do I not after all that have the right to
consecrate his memory?" In reply, Dobryk (what evil irony that such a
soulless individual should have a name denoting goodness) pressed a
concealed button and said in Russian to the lackey who entered, "Take
that lady out." Following this visit, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk received
the "insult in the name of Dobryk." She has been in ill health ever
since.
Sooner or later will arrive the day when truth will emerge victorious.
But in the meantime, those who come too near to the truth concerning
what happened to Volodymyr Ivasiuk find themselves the victims of an
unusual number of accidents. One man's wife unexpectedly hangs
herself, another man throws himself from a balcony, still another
drowns, yet another falls under the wheels of a car.... But remember,
butchers, God's punishment will descend even upon you!
M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas
(Clamor), 3Jun97, p. 12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak.
Mr. Safer, you went to Ukraine determined to come back with a story of Ukrainians
persecuting Russians and Jews. You failed to find any substantiation for such a story.
You failed to find any Russian composer and poet who had been found hanging in a forest
under mysterious circumstances. You failed to find any Jewish composer and poet who had
been found hanging in a forest under mysterious circumstances. And you were not
interested in a Ukrainian composer and poet who had indeed been found hanging in a
forest under mysterious circumstances. You went to Ukraine determined to prove that
Ukrainians persecute Russians and Jews, and you reported that story to tens of millions
of 60 Minutes viewers despite a lack of evidence, and despite plentiful evidence that it
is Russians and Jews who persecute Ukrainians, as they have done throughout history.
In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, then, you sided with the
strong against the weak. You sided with the oppressors against the oppressed. You
sided with the butchers against the butchered. You sided with those who hang composers
and poets and against Volodymyr Ivasiuk.
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 669 hits since 17May99
Morley Safer Letter 10 17May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
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.
May 17, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
Who Murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
The death of Volodymyr Katelnytsky
My source is a Ukrainskyi Holos (Ukrainian Voice) article mailed to me by someone that
knew Volodymyr Katelnytsky. The citation that is hand-written on the article is "4-20
August, 1997, p. 1."
The Ukrainskyi Holos article reports that Volodymyr Katelnytsky was tortured to death in
his apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine on the night of 7-8 July 1997. His mother, Lykeria, who
was 81 years old, was tortured and died before the eyes of her son; her body was found
with 21 stab wounds. When Katelnytsky's sister tried to enter the apartment in which
the crime had been committed, she was roughed up by Kyiv police. Some members of the
Katelnytsky family were arrested. The murders are considered to have been politically
motivated. Volodymyr Katelnytsky's funeral was attended by some two thousand mourners.
The life of Volodymyr Katelnytsky
Volodymyr Katelnytsky was a professional journalist. He was active in the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate, was head of the Brotherhood of St. Andrej
Pervozvanyi in Kyiv, and supervised the tour of the chief cities of Ukraine by
Metropolitan Wasyl in May 1993. He was also active politically, serving as Deputy Head
of the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party. In Canada and the United States, he may be
best remembered for the role he played as President of the Committee for the Defense of
John Demjanjuk.
Also prominent among Volodymyr Katelnytsky's activities was the dissemination of a
Ukrainian version of what happened at Babyn Yar, similar, I believe, to the version
advocated on the Ukrainian Archive. One result of Volodymyr Katelnytsky's Babyn Yar
activities is that he was sued for them by Jewish organizations in Ukrainian court, that
in his defense he brought forward historical aerial reconnaissance photographs showing
that none of the activities said to have taken place at Babyn Yar was visible from the
air - not visible, that is, were signs of the execution and burial of 33,771 Jews, or
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.
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 630 hits since 30Jun99
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