Ukraine's Kuchma facing calls to quit

Politicians and the media are uniting against President Kuchma

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukranian President Leonid Kuchma is under pressure to quit after opposition parties vowed to create a forum to oust him.

The parties, in a rare show of unity, said they would create a Forum for National Salvation to press for his resignation and help organise further "Ukraine without Kuchma" street protests.

Thousands of people have marched through major cities calling for Kuchma's resignation and demanding increased freedom of speech.

Kuchma, who has drawn recent criticism from the West after six years of aid and support, has hit back at his detractors, saying they "threatened national security."

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Kuchma has been seen as the man to revive the Ukraine after it suffered decades of mismanagement and corruption under the former Soviet Union regime.

He has attracted $2 billion in aid since the Ukraine declared independence in 1992 -- making it the third-largest recipient of U.S. international aid.

But a string of accusations that he is trying to stifle free speech has brought stinging attacks from both home and abroad, culminating in calls for him to stand down.

Levko Lukyanenko, a politician and former dissident who spent more than 20 years in Soviet prisons, said: "We are setting up this forum... to speed up the liberation of society from this corrupt regime."

A leading independent television station, 1 + 1, had earlier said it was under systematic political pressure from the security services.

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The discovery of a decapitated body in a forest near Kiev, believed to be that of outspoken journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who has been missing since last September, has also added to the pressure.

Gongadze's Web site, Ukranian Truth, has campaigned against alleged corruption in Kuchma's government.

An opposition politician has published tapes of a voice, he says is Kuchma's, which says he wants to get rid of the reporter.

1+1 said in a statement: "The current political crisis in this country has intensified pressure on (free speech).

"Not only are state officials regularly interfering in coverage of political events, they are using their status to settle personal accounts with the independent media."

The European Union earlier this week called for "a full and transparent inquiry" into Gongadze's disappearance, while the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said the official investigation into the case had been "extremely unprofessional."

But Kuchma was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine news agency as saying the forum would damage the Ukraine economically.

"If strategic investors and serious foreign companies do not come to Ukraine to take part in privatisations -- the results will be fairly obvious," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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