Almost throughout its independence, Ukraine has suffered from corruption and raiding. However, despite the fact that corrupt officials and law enforcement officers still allow raiders to carry out their activities with impunity, there are those who resist them. We met with one of these people - the head of the "International Anti-Corruption Assembly" in the Odesa region, Anatoly Kolomiyets, who has been fighting raiders for many years.
— Tell me, what exactly does your organization do?
— First of all, we are fighting corruption, raider captures and illegal schemes. "International Anti-Corruption Assembly" provides assistance to people who are not legally savvy and cannot protect their interests themselves. Especially when corrupt authorities, unscrupulous law enforcement officers or judges act against them. Our organization is making every effort to fight this system on the ground. We also provide legal assistance to those who have already suffered and to those people who are in danger.
- What are you working on now?
— Currently, we work with agricultural enterprises, protecting the interests of the founders. For example, there was a case when people were struck off the register, leaving them with rights to the enterprise. Fraudsters are now in power: they are deputies of the Odesa Regional Council and representatives of People's Deputies in the Verkhovna Rada. They fraudulently seized the enterprise and resold it to other people. Such raiders monopolize the agricultural sector in the region and harm not only farmers - for example, now they, as monopolists, can artificially raise the price of products without fear of competition.
In addition, even law enforcement officers sometimes turn to us for help. There are situations when management gives them illegal orders and they do not know how to avoid their execution. The fact is that if a subordinate does not fulfill the requirements of the management, he is either fired or transferred to a remote village. At the same time, the leadership demands the illegal closing of criminal cases, conducting searches to put pressure on a commercial structure or an unwilling citizen, and collecting "taxes." Law enforcement officers often suffer from these orders, because in the end all responsibility will fall only on them. And some of them turn to us for help. We, by our intervention, stop the management's attempts to implement the plan.
— Are law enforcement officers willing to cooperate with you?
- Many are not very willing. The law enforcement officers who are involved in the raiding of enterprises will cover the intruders, receiving their fate. Of course, they are not interested in promoting investigations and are sabotaging our activities.
In turn, there are law enforcement officers who work honestly, and there are also those who are interested in our help. Sometimes they themselves turn to us in order not to allow us to close this or that case, so that we cover certain moments with information, and so on.
— Your opponents clearly do not sit idly by when you work against them. Tell us about the most notable cases when these people have already acted against you.
— After we began to speak out against the raiding of large agricultural cooperatives, they tried to provoke us in every way. For example, they write slander in the mass media to make our image "toxic". As a result, they hope that they will stop cooperating with us. They also write complaints on behalf of non-existent people about fictitious crimes to the Prosecutor General's Office, the National Police and people's deputies
There have been worse cases: a few weeks ago, as a warning, two live grenades were thrown not far from me. Probably, they did not want to kill me, but they would warn and threaten me - for sure. They want me to quit my job. And today I am engaged in agricultural enterprises, which is why I crossed paths with very rich and influential people. This is our work - we fight against the strong of this world, helping the weak.
— Were there serious cases that you managed to solve?
- Yes of course. There was talk of a problem with the Tarutynsky training ground, which we successfully resolved; helped in the situation with the ODSK enterprise; resolved a number of important issues in Zatoka. Small entrepreneurs who find it difficult to start a business come to us, they need legal advice. Or we help people with registration - that is, we provide almost a full range of legal assistance.
— Who is in your team?
— Lawyers, economists, advocates, former law enforcement officers - from those who got burned by the existing system.
— In the conversation, you are not talking about the system for the first time, which in fact has existed for almost 30 years. Why can't this system be broken - there are no interested parties in it?
- Of course. How can an official who spent tens of thousands of dollars to get a leadership position be interested in this? You know that in order to become the head of GASK, the Land Resources Administration, to get a serious position in law enforcement agencies, sometimes you have to pay a bribe of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And these people do not give it in order to help the population later. No, they do it in order to earn even more or to lobby the interests of those with whose money they took their post.
The system will begin to collapse when positions cease to be sold, when influential acquaintances will not be able to help anyone to occupy this or that position, when they will begin to hire people only for their professional qualities. Yes, it is impossible to eradicate the entire system, but its negativity can be reduced. And if the government wanted this, it would do so.
Interview: Roman Sytnyk
