The Secretary General of Nato issued a veiled warning to the Ukrainian government yesterday that military cooperation with the West depended

The Secretary General of Nato issued a veiled warning to the Ukrainian government yesterday that military cooperation with the West depended on Kiev’s respect for human rights.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen’s comments underlined the acute unease in the West at the scandal that unfolded after the discovery of the headless corpse of a Ukrainian journalist, Georgi Gongadze, in a forest near Kiev last November.The Ukrainian President, Leonid Kuchma, was implicated in the assassination by the emergence of tapes purporting to be a recording of him ordering the journalist’s death. Mr Kuchma denied the authenticity of the tapes.Yesterday Lord Robertson held talks in the Ukrainian capital with Mr Kuchma and, while not mentioning the Gongadze case specifically, stressed the importance of media freedom and other basic human rights. Nato has been keen to avoid a direct confrontation because of Ukraine’s strategic position because it fosters links with Nato and Moscow.Lord Robertson told The Independent: “We are in the business not just of dealing with military co-operation but trying to create a community of values – and media freedom is one of the critical areas.”In a calibrated performance, Lord Robertson later highlighted improved cooperation between Ukraine and Nato, whose supreme allied commander, Atlantic, hosted a seminar in Kiev yesterday.At the seminar, Lord Robertson offered a blend of carrot and stick, in an attempt to convince Kiev’s decision-makers of the benefits of a Western orientation.. The four women – mother, two aunts and a cousin – supported each other down the lakeside, to the miniature, artificial beach. Their wailing could be heard across the quiet, mirror-still Lac de Caniel, at Cany-Barville, near Dieppe. The four women – mother, two aunts and a cousin – supported each other down the lakeside, to the miniature, artificial beach. Their wailing could be heard across the quiet, mirror-still Lac de Caniel, at Cany-Barville, near Dieppe.”My baby, my baby,” screamed Salimata Shagaya, whose British schoolgirl daughter, Bunmi, 11, had just been pulled from the water, three days after she disappeared on a school trip to France.”Her spirit is in the water,” came another anguished cry.

While Mrs Shagaya, from Brixton, south London, collapsed against a police vehicle, her aunts paced the sand and threw up their arms in disbelief.Bunmi had vanished on this tiny piece of beach, by a small stretch of lake, roped off for supervised swimming, despite the presence of two of her teachers, two local lifeguards and 300 bathers. When Bunmi resurfaced yesterday, she was found in the shallowest part of the roped pool – just a few feet deep – only yards from where she was last seen.The police had allowed other children to keep swimming in that stretch of water during the search Disbelief came laced with anger. “Why did this have to happen?” cried one aunt, swivelling round on the police officers.Later Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel de Boisseson, in charge of the French police search, shared the family’s confusion “It [the drowning] is not usual and not normal,” he said. Joseph Schmitt, the prosecutor in Rouen, is now considering a criminal investigation. Lt-Col Boisseson said supervision of the children would be scrutinised, and charges might follow. He hinted that one of the lake’s lifeguards had provided important information but refused to say more.The local time was 9.35am yesterday when Bunmi, still wearing her blue swimsuit, and a gold chain around her throat, was lifted from the water by five police divers.

Her body had been spotted by a park employee or a French police officer – accounts conflict – from the shore.The recovery of the little girl, always feared drowned or abducted, was conducted in near silence. To negotiate her release from the thick, green weeds that reach up from the lake’s floor into its opaque, warm waters took more than an hour.Only journalists and a few locals watched from a distance as divers brought Bunmi, on her first overseas trip, back on to the sand where she had so recently played with some of the 40 school friends on holiday from Hillmead Primary School, Brixton. She returned wrapped in a body bag.Lt-Col Boisseson said later that he did not believe that Bunmi’s body had been in the roped-off swimming area on Wednesday when it was full of swimmers. He thought it had floated ashore after the lake was churned up by a reed cutter used by divers.Asked why he had not closed the lake during the search, and had allowed children to swim in the area in which Bunmi went missing, Lt-Col Boisseson said he had not considered closure necessary.

He said he had been aware that her body might float to the surface, and have a traumatic effect, particularly on children.Bunmi’s school friends returned to Britain in the early hours of yesterday morning Bunmi disappeared on the first full day of their holiday They spent the rest of the week being questioned by police. At 5.30am, the children walked in sombre silence from their bus into their school, followed by six teachers.Robert Blower, a spokesman for Lambeth council, said staff were “devastated”. The children had “shed a few tears” and asked for news about Bunmi.Mr Blower revealed the school had not checked which children could swim before leaving England. “This was a trip to give the children a flavour of French life,” he said.