Original article in Ukrainian by Ilona Bilan, Head, Democracy Advocacy Group, UCIPR (www.ucipr.kiev.ua), for UP
More than 20 years have passed since the accident on Chornobyl atomic power station – the biggest technological disaster of the XX century. Radioactive cloud, which passed over the European part of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, covered more than 145 thousand square meters of the territory or about five thousand populated areas of these countries, 2218 villages and cities of which situated in Ukraine and were inhabited with 2.4 million people. 116 thousand people were evacuated from the suffered territories and 230 thousand were resettled outside of the contaminated zone. 200 thousand out of 600 thousand people who took part in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster got heightened doses of radioactive irradiation. According to the official data, about five million people suffered from the Chornobyl disaster. As of January 1, 2006 2.6 million of victims lived in Ukraine. Among them more than 100 thousand persons were given the status of the 1st category victims, about 300 thousand people were given the 2nd category, the 3rd category numbered more than 600 thousand and the 4th category included more than one million; the victims number more than 600 thousand children including 4.5 thousand of orphans and 3 thousand disabled children. According to information of the Emergency control ministry more than 500 thousand victims had died for the 20 years which passed after the tragedy and more than 100 thousand people were given the status of disabled who suffered from diseases connected with the disaster.
In fact, it is almost impossible to estimate all the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster, as behind the dry statistic data there are fates of hundreds of thousands people who lost their relatives and homes.
And now we can hear UN officials declaring curtailing of humanitarian aid for the regions of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus suffered from the Chornobyl disaster and saying about exaggerating tragic consequences of the nuclear wreck. This was stated by l. Vinton, the project manager of the UN development program for CIS countries. "International humanitarian aid will be reduced against the background of urgent world problems like famine or climate changes. Chornobyl regions do not look like the most painful ones on the world map; quite a lot has been done there for two decades," Vinton said. She also pointed that all three countries must rely on their own resources and programs.
UN experts, who work on the biggest programs concerning giving support under the aegis of the UNO, questioned disastrous radioactive effects on health of population, as they could not prove that living on contaminated territories is harmful for people’s lives. According to Vinton, "science still cannot answer lots of questions connected with radiation though we see that negative changes at cell level happen on both contaminated and non-contaminated areas." She stated that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus need propaganda of health style of life and psychological help to overcome radiophobia. "Unhealthy style of life, smoking and alcoholism have more strongly pronounced negative character that radiation. In fact, there are only two risk groups connected with the disaster, which are "liquidators" and then little children who got irradiation of thyroid gland and leukemia," Vinton mentioned. UN does not have precise data concerning how much money allotted by donors was spent on aid for contaminated territories, though UN experts are convinced that the matter concerns hundreds of milliards dollars which were not always used effectively.
The latest UN statements which underestimate consequences of the Chornobyl disaster are not the first ones. For example, the first joint report of the UNO, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO) was presented during IAEA conference held in September of 1991 in Vienna. The results of the Chornobyl disaster were considerably lessened in the report as according to experts health of liquidators had not been examined, and the period of radioactive emissions from April 26 to May 6 of 1986 had been recognized by UN experts as short-term. According to Ukrainian experts, this report was influenced by the agreement between IAEA and WHO of 1959 on not spreading data about effects of consequences of APP disasters on people’s health in case this data contradicts IAEA interests.The second UN report was published in February 2002. The report accented attention on psychological stress but not on medical results. The report stated that resettlement of hundreds of thousands people led to "collapse of basics of social life and ruin of families and caused unemployment, depression and diseases caused by the stress." The articles of the report underlined that there were not many facts which proved increase of diseases caused by the irradiation: "Efforts made to reveal tendencies of increase of leukemia diseases among the evacuated population and liquidators failed. There are no proves recognized by international experts which witness about such tendency of increase." Besides, UN representatives stated that diseases of the majority of disabled children had nothing in common with the Chornobyl disaster, and the direct effect of radiation was not that considerable.
The third UN report was presented in September 2005, and UN and IAEA experts again questioned disastrous radioactive effects on health of population and future generations and did not take into account harmful influence of small radiation doses on gene pool.
The mentioned UN reports aroused sharp criticism from the side of Ukrainian ecologists and doctors, while representatives of power structures did not say a word. According to N. Preobrazhenska, the head of the Charitable Salvation Fund of Ukraine’s Children from the Chornobyl disaster, there is no wonder in it as the governmental delegations did not include any representative of Health Ministry of Ukraine. According to her, IAEA officials manipulate world public with the example of the Chornobyl disaster declaring safety of atomic power engineering and small doses of radiation.
In 2006 the World Health Organization published the results of researches on "Chornobyl’s inheritance: medical, ecological and social and economic consequences." One of the results was a conclusion that the majority of victims got small doses of radiation and that is why no malfunctions and anomalies connected with the radiation were revealed.
In general, to estimate consequences of effect of small irradiation doses is quite difficult, as well as it is very difficult to estimate doses of inner radiation, i.e. radionuclides’ effect on an organism which we take with food and air. According to Ukrainian experts, radiation effect on living organisms does not have threshold level, which means there is no safe level of irradiation, and estimations of risks may be only big or small. And it means that whatever inconsiderable radiation effect is it will become apparent sooner or later.
On November 19 of this year the UN general Assembly passed a resolution according to which it applied a new approach to the history of suffered territories – decades of rehabilitation and stable development, which translating from the official language means that it is possible to live in the region of radioactive contamination without worry for health. According to the statement of Sultanoglu, the deputy assistant of the administrator of UN development program, people "can live on these territories and give birth to children and their problems with health have nothing in common with myths about radiation." Hence, according to UN specialists’ opinion, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus now must solve independently the problems of creation new working places and rehabilitation of the contaminated territories. According to Vinton, "now it is time to get rid of myths about radiation and to live in new realities with constant control over foodstuff."
The mentioned statements of UN officials found support in certain power circles of Ukraine, in particular in the person of the expert of the National commission on radiation protection of population M. Shulga, who agreed that now we should start to develop infrastructure of the Southern part of the 30-kilometer zone actively preparing it to colonization. So, the expert is convinced that in 2016 the half-life of cesium and strontium will be finished and this territory will become twice cleaner than it is now, which means that the level of radioactive contamination will decrease to safe indices.
It is worth to mention that the President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko also supports the idea of restoration of the contaminated areas. In his allocution on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster he stated that he insisted "all power bodies focus on the problems of development of the contaminated territories, social rehabilitation of people and creation of favorable conditions for their activities. It is necessary to adjust the system of health protection, to work out and implement the programs of economic development and attraction of investments." During his recent visit to Israel the Ukrainian President pointed out possibilities of using the lands which, according to him, were attributed to the Chornobyl zone by mechanical principle, and now it is possible to sow tens of thousands hectares of this land with industrial crops, in particular rape.
However, Ukrainian ecologists consider living on the contaminated territories impossible. According to the candidate of biological science S. Gamak, the deputy director of International radioecological laboratory of Chornobyl center, the existing radioactive norms do not allow children to live on the transferred zone. B. Boreiko, the director of Kyiv ecological and cultural center is also convinced in this. He considers that nobody has cancelled the law of physics for the moment and cannot change the half-life of radioactive materials. He is convinced that "these are political games and under influence of our rulers. Same Yushchenko."
Experts are convinced that UN statements are the attempts to refuse financial engagements, taken in 90ies of the last century. Though it is so sad but Ukraine will have to carry Chornobyl burden without assistance, spending enormous financial resources and sacrificing national interests in the name of safety all over the world.
