Unsolved Mysteries.(murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze)(Brief Article)

Whether the Ukrainian president actually ordered the murder of a political nemesis will probably never be proved to anyone's satisfaction. But judging from the demonstrations that have jolted Kiev, the court of public opinion has already declared Leonid Kuchma guilty, though he has denied it vigorously. Last week about 5,000 demonstrators converged on the city center to push for a "Ukraine without Kuchma" in the largest antigovernment rally since Ukraine gained independence 10 years ago--and organizers promised there were bigger ones to come.

Such anti-Kuchma fervor would have been unthinkable a few months ago. In November 1999 Kuchma was re-elected with 56 percent of the vote. He was expecting to cruise through an uneventful five-year term. But that was before journalist Georgy Gongadze, editor of an Internet news site known for its anti-Kuchma muckraking, disappeared last September under mysterious circumstances. Two months later a headless corpse turned up not far from Kiev. Family members tentatively identified the body as Gongadze's. The police quickly spirited it away and subsequently have refused to let independent investigators examine it.

If that was not enough to feed the conspiracy theorists, members of the opposition published a series of tapes in November that allegedly reveal Kuchma and some of his aides discussing how to get Gongadze out of the way. In profanity-laden conversations, the ...