ГУЛаг Палестины

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

Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin.

Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the

wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites.

Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings.

As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his

weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the

family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev.

Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television

and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic

deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring

words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr.

Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry

mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above

all. He loved Ukraine, say it."

We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was

then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk,

Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place.

x x x

It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight,

on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro

Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different.

"I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death

tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a

cruel joke?"

Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at

Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had

blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the

reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor,

burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left of his apartment, a

dormitory-type dwelling in a building that housed quite a number of

State television and Radio workers.

News of Vadim's death spread quickly among fellow journalists - many of

whom had attended Kiev State with Vadim, many of whom worked with him on

numerous projects.

He was an elected democratic deputy from Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast. He

had come from the neighboring town in Kirovohrad oblast, just across the

Dnipro River, arriving in the capital city of Kiev in the early 1980s to

obtain a college education.

And from then on, he gained popularity as the founder and host of

"Hart," one of the first serious investigative shows on Ukrainian

television, reporting on everything from Chornobyl to Shcherbytsky.

After he was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1990,

he was appointed vice chairman of the standing parliamentary Committee

on Glasnost and the Mass Media, a job he took very seriously, often

going to Moscow to discuss problems of disinformation in Ukraine, as

presented by central television.

But Vadim never forgot his first vocation - journalism - and he would

often join his colleagues, including a few of us foreign correspondents,

on the press balcony of Parliament during the sessions to give us some

inside news or highlights of his commission's work.

He was our friend, and with his death, our circle has been broken. Many

of us - Ukrainian journalists and foreign correspondents, as well as a

few of his close friends outside this journalistic fraternity - spent

last week trying to come to terms with the tragedy that has struck us.

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.

We have gone through the story over and over. Most of us saw him in

Parliament on Wednesday afternoon; he was excited and invigorated by new

opportunities: he was applying for a National Foundation internship for

the spring in Washington, D.C., he was going to travel on business with

Ukraine's deputy prime minister. His dancing blue eyes were smitten

with the possibilities of new TV shows and programs in an independent

Ukraine.

None of us saw Vadim in Parliament on Thursday or Friday, February

13-14; he missed a few meetings he had scheduled on Friday.

Currently, there are many rumors flying around Kiev surrounding Vadim's

death, based on political, business and personal motivations.

Parliamentary committees have promised to work on an investigation,

although no special committee has been formed to investigate what many

democratic deputies, among them Les Taniuk and Stepan Khmara, have

labelled as murder. Some speculate that Vadim's TV work in Chornobyl

may have triggered an early death...

On Friday, February 14, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) in

Moscow ran an interview with Vadim on journalists' responsibilities and

cooperation between Moscow and Kiev.

"At this time, we (referring to Russian and Ukrainian journalists) can