MOSCOW - Ukrainian police have torn down a makeshift camp in Kiev that had been set up by protesters demanding the resignation of President Leonid Kuchma. Opponents of Mr Kuchma accuse him of involvement in the murder of an investigative journalist.
Some 400 police struck in the early morning, dismantling tents and taking away about 40 demonstrators in unmarked grey vans.
The attack, expected for weeks, was greeted with shouts of "Kuchma out!" and "Shame! Shame!"
The demonstrators had camped out in freezing weather since December, after secret tape-recordings of Mr Kuchma, made by one of his bodyguards, revealed he had frequently discussed ways of getting rid of Georgy Gongadze, a journalist whose headless body was found in a wood north of Kiev.
The protesters main slogan was "Ukraine without Kuchma". They came from political parties on the right and left.
At the centre of the encampment in Kreshchatyk Street was a picture of Mr Gongadze, in front of which were heaped flowers. One placard from local football supporters read "Dynamo Fans against Kuchma".
As soon as the campsite was cleared Mr Kuchma said: "It was an absolutely correct decision by the authorities to show that they are the authorities, and everybody should remember that for the future."
Mr Kuchma claims that the tapes, made on a recorder placed under his sofa, have been doctored. But Yuri Lutsenko, a protest leader, said: "The authorities have taken a dictatorial path. Ukraine is sinking into the mire of totalitarianism."
He pledged that demonstrators would rebuild their camp. The US President, George Bush, has written to Mr Kuchma saying that the situation is a test of Kiev's adherence to the principles of law, democracy and human rights.
On Monday, the Ukrainian prosecutor general finally admitted that the journalist had been murdered, and launched an investigation.
Previously – despite an official DNA test that showed with 99.6 per cent certainty that the headless body was Mr Gongadze – the prosecutor general had refused aninvestigation, saying the journalist might be alive.
On the tapes, made by the former Security Service (SBU) officer Mykola Melnychenko, the President is heard suggesting to Yuri Kravchenko, the Interior Minister, that Mr Gongadze be kidnapped "by Chechens" and held for ransom. Mr Kravchenko says he has "a fighting team" that will do anything Mr Kuchma wants.
Other tapes record the President arranging to blackmail local officials into supporting his re-election campaign in 1999 by threatening to put them in jail for corruption.
The government has alternately claimed that the tapes are false or that passages have been manipulated.
The International Press Institute in Vienna, which arranged for the tapes to be examined, said it was impossible to prove their authenticity. But it added that since hundreds of hours of conversation are recorded "it seems hard to believe that such a huge amount of evidence may have been doctored or manipulated".
The demonstrations against Mr Kuchma have been small. Gennadiy Pochtar, the director of the Promedia Information and Press Centre in Kiev, said: "People are so alienated from the government that they don't even want to protest against it." Protesters say many people are frightened of losing their jobs by voicing opposition.
Police tear down Kiev protest camp
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