Yale/Columbia conference examines latest information on Chornobyl's impact

by Roma Hadzewycz

NEW HAVEN, Conn./NEW YORK - "Chornobyl: Ten Years After," a conference held at Yale and Columbia universities on April 8-9, examined the multifaceted consequences of the world's worst nuclear accident, looking at its effects on public health and the environment, its social and political impact, energy alternatives for Ukraine, and response from the international community.

Among the conference's major revelations:

• Dr. Vladislav Torbin of the Ministry of Chornobyl and the Medical Department of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers provided an updated official figure on the number of deaths in Ukraine directly attributable to the Chornobyl accident. Since the meltdown at the nuclear power plant through the end of 1995, 148,000 persons, among them 2,800 liquidators, have died in Ukraine alone.
  
  
• Dr. Alexander Sich, a nuclear engineer who lived and worked at the Chornobyl complex for 18 months, reported that the accident management actions taken in the first days after the nuclear disaster were ineffective or were not accomplished as reported by the Soviets. In particular, the helicopters dumping boron, lead, sand and other materials into the reactor core had largely missed their target and the core remained mostly uncovered. In the end, the reaction in the stricken reactor simply ran its course within 10 days, and the active phase of the accident came to an end. Dr. Sich also reported that the amount of radioisotopes released as a result of the accident was at least three times, and possibly four times, the 50 million curies originally reported by Soviet authorities.

In addition to five panels covering the aforementioned topics, the two-day conference featured opening addresses by Dr. Yuri Shcherbak, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, and Anatoliy Zlenko, the country's ambassador to the United Nations, as well as luncheon speeches by Ivan Kuras, deputy prime minister for humanitarian affairs of Ukraine, and Volodymyr Yavorivsky, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament who has been intimately involved with the Chornobyl issue since day one.

Sponsored by the Chornobyl Challenge '96 coalition, the commemorative conference was hosted at Yale University by the Council on Russian and East European Studies and the Chopivsky Family Foundation, and at Columbia by The Harriman Institute.

Support was provided also by the Petro Jacyk Program for Ukrainian Studies (Columbia University), the Yale Ukrainian Initiative, the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund and the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

The conference was opened at Yale University's Law School auditorium by Michael Holquist, chair of the Council on Russian and East European Studies.

"Chornobyl is not in the past"

Ambassador Zlenko opened the first day's session with a presentation on international cooperation in minimizing Chornobyl's consequences. First, however, he provided some sobering statistics regarding the aftermath in Ukraine: 3.5 million persons, nearly one-third of them children, are affected by the disaster; 160,000 have been resettled, which means that 50,000 families have lost their homes. The ambassador cited a figure of 6,000 dead, but cautioned that the exact figures are unknown.

What is known, however, is that "there will be lasting consequences," Mr. Zlenko stated. For example, 800,000 liquidators, mostly young men sent to "eliminate the consequences of the accident," now face an uncertain future in terms of health. "Chornobyl is not in the past. Chornobyl lives with us today, and it will be with us in the future."

He noted the three principal challenges faced by the Ukrainian government: to meet the social and economic needs of the accident, an expenditure of 12 percent of the annual state budget; to minimize the suffering of those directly affected by the accident, especially children; and to guarantee a safe and clean environment, not only for Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, but for all European nations.

At the conclusion of his remarks Ambassador Zlenko noted the political decision made by President Leonid Kuchma to close down the Chornobyl plant by the year 2000. He underlined that he hopes the international community would honor its commitments to help Ukraine face the ramifications of Chornobyl. (The full text of Ambassador Zlenko's address appears on page 11.)

The nuclear accident's "hidden truths"

"Hidden Truths and Consequences: Chornobyl's Effect on Public Health" was the title of the conference's first panel, chaired by Martin Cherniak of the Yale University School of Public Health, who noted "we are running out of time" to do the studies so necessary to learn about Chornobyl's effects.

The first speaker, one of the researchers who has sought to learn the truth about the Chornobyl accident, was Dr. Alexander Sich, who is now affiliated with the Nuclear Safety Account of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and soon will direct the new International Chornobyl Center. Dr. Sich spent 18 months in the zone beginning in October 1991 in order to reassess the management actions taken to mitigate the consequences of the accident.

He explained that he was prompted to conduct this research due to the widespread skepticism that not everything had been said about the Chornobyl accident and the fact that in 1990-1991 the first cases of thyroid cancers apparently related to the accident were already being reported.

Dr. Sich began his remarks by pointing out that, at the August 1986 experts' meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the Soviets had reported on the "success" of their intervention in containing the burning core and halting radioactive releases into the environment. And, yet, Dr. Sich's research found that "There was no human intervention that caused the accident to stop; it stopped by itself."

In fact, "The helicopter pilots' actions turned out to be in vain," he said, as through no fault of their own they missed when attempting to smother the fire in the reactor core. They were aiming at a "red glow" which turned out to be located, not in the core, but on the floor of the central hall located about 15 meters away from the reactor shaft. As a result, the core remained uncovered and radioactive releases continued, with the most active releases taking place in the first nine to 10 days.

To this day, however, the IAEA considers the Soviet version of events presented in Vienna to be accurate. "The IAEA knows there is something wrong with the initial account," Dr. Sich concluded, adding, "I don't know why they have stayed with it."

Criticism of the IAEA was continued by Dr. Murray Feshbach, professor of demography at Georgetown University and author of "Ecocide in the USSR" and, most recently, the "Environmental Atlas of the Russian Federation."

"The IAEA is a large part of our problem" in understanding Chornobyl, he stated. In 1989 that agency had brought in experts to study the accident's effects. However, it was only three years after the event, and, therefore, the effects were not yet in full evidence; and the population studied included only the 100,000 residents of the immediate area who were evacuated. Furthermore, the IAEA did not have access to data controlled by a secret department of the Ministry of Health and, thus, the scale of the consequences was misunderstood.

He noted that a marked increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has already been reported, particularly in Belarus; and he expressed surprise that very little leukemia has been recorded in the affected regions, but said he is suspicious that much information is hidden under different categories of illnesses. He went on to note that he expects the near future will bring increases in lung cancers - particularly among the liquidators, as plutonium aerosols entered into their lungs.

Dr. Feshbach concluded that there is a potential for much more thyroid cancer, higher leukemia rates, lung cancers and other diseases - "all of the effects have not yet been seen." He cautioned also that if the figures on radiation releases are actually quadruple those originally reported (as some research has shown), the effects will be much greater, and previous estimates of morbidity and mortality will have to be revised accordingly.

Next to speak was crusading journalist Alla Yaroshinska of Moscow, who in 1992 uncovered secret protocols of the Kremlin that proved the Soviet leadership knew much more about the severity of the Chornobyl accident than it admitted. A story about the facts revealed in the minutes of the Politburo's operational group on Chornobyl, headed by Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, was published by Izvestiya under the headline "Forty Secret Protocols of the Kremlin's Wise Men." Ms. Yaroshinska is also the author of the recently released book "Chornobyl: Forbidden Truths" (University of Kansas, 1995).

A former deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet who now is an adviser to President Boris Yeltsin, Ms. Yaroshinska focused on three fundamental points in her presentation.

First, she said, there is no doubt that a "global deception was under way" as the Politburo had made a political decision to take steps to make the consequences of the Chornobyl accident seem less severe. For example, the government made great efforts to get hospitalized people released. The Politburo's minutes indicate there were 10,000 persons hospitalized in Ukrainian hospitals in the first two weeks after the accident, and the Politburo decided to raise the lifetime permissible dose of radiation by tenfold, and in some instances by 50-fold. Thus, in an instant, she noted, "all these people were deemed to be healthy."

Second, a political decision was made that irradiated meat was not to be discarded, but was to be mixed - one part contaminated product to 10 parts "clean" - and sold throughout the USSR, except Moscow.

Third, different information was released to the press for internal consumption and for dissemination abroad. "There were different levels of deception" for the internal USSR audience, for the Warsaw Pact states and for the West. "This proves that [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev lied when he told the world we did not know about the consequences of Chornobyl," Ms. Yaroshinska emphasized.

"Who will answer for what occurred at Chornobyl in Ukraine in 1986? This remains unanswered," Ms. Yaroshinska stated. She then pointed out that the ones guilty of covering up Chornobyl's effects are "those individuals who were responsible for protecting the public." They are not being prosecuted, she said, because the statute of limitations has run out. "How ironic, given that Chornobyl's consequences will continue for many years," she commented.

Dr. Wladimir Wertelecki, chairman of genetics at the University of South Alabama Medical School, opened his presentation by noting that "chaos and inertia are very effective conspirators against facts and progress," and observing the disproportion between the severity of the Chornobyl accident and knowledge about its effects.

Chornobyl is "not just an ecological disaster," he said, adding that "nothing in the food chain has escaped Chornobyl" and that the accident "destabilizes all species, including our own."

It is a massive disaster of two types: the immediate violent explosion and the slow, chronic disaster whose effects will be felt for decades. "Ukraine is at risk of birth defects in generations to come," and that is why the Rio de Janeiro International Congress of Human Genetics, which will be attended by more than 9,000 top genetics experts, will devote a panel to Chornobyl.

Finally, Dr. Wertelecki pointed out, "We talk as if we know Chornobyl's health effects, but we don't," and he added that "learning the facts about its health effects can be very destabilizing for the nuclear industry." Thus, "Chornobyl is not a scientific problem, as science is mute; it is also an ethical problem."

Dr. Daniel Hryhorczuk of the University of Illinois School of Public Health, who is director of the Ukrainian Environmental Health Project established five years ago in Ukraine at the request of then Health Minister Yuriy Spizhenko, spoke about the project's study of thyroid cancers. The joint U.S.-Ukrainian study funded by the Department of Energy has set up a thyroid cancer registry listing children in Ukraine up to age 14 at the time of the nuclear accident at Chornobyl; some 76,000 children are eligible for inclusion into the study which intends to follow them for 15 to 30 years, Dr. Hryhorczuk explained.

Already it has been seen that the highest thyroid cancer rates in Ukraine are in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv regions - those most affected by Chornobyl's fallout.

Regrettably, Dr. Hryhorczuk noted that the project has now stalled due to a lack of commitment at the highest levels (i.e., the executive and legislative branches) of the U.S. government, and the lack of funds and changing leadership at Ukraine's Ministry of Health.

The race against time

The second panel of the Yale session, moderated by Dr. Zenon Matkiwsky, president of the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund and chairman of the department of surgery at Union Hospital, looked at "The Race Against Time: Seeking Solutions to the Environmental Challenges Surrounding the Chornobyl Disaster."

The lead speaker was Dr. Vladislav Torbin of the Ministry of Chornobyl, who underlined that "the medical consequences of Chornobyl have no medical analogy." After reciting a litany of statistics on the number and categories of people affected by the disaster - including a figure of 3.2 million, which he said is the total number of Chornobyl's victims in Ukraine, among them 1 million children - the physician commented that "every year the number of healthy children in Ukraine decreases."

Dr. Torbin said that, while it is true the general health of Ukraine's population has deteriorated, it has declined even more among the populations affected by the Chornobyl's fallout. Among the liquidators, for example, some 35 percent today are ill. He also pointed to dramatic increases in thyroid illnesses among children and increases in leukemia among the liquidators.

Later, pressed for an updated official figure on the number of deaths due to Chornobyl, the doctor cited a number of 148,000 in Ukraine alone. His statement marked the first time a Ukrainian government official had cited a figure of that magnitude; previously such statistics had been cited by various non-governmental groups, such as the Chornobyl Union.

Further information about the poor state of health of Ukraine's residents was provided by Dr. Olesya Huchiy of the Ukrainian State Medical University and the Department of Public Health. Focusing her remarks on women and children who were the subjects of a 1985-1995 study of the population in the Kyiv area, Dr. Huchiy stated, "We are at the start of a demographic crisis" in Ukraine. The study's subjects were from three regions of Kyiv: an industrial (city) region, an uncontaminated rural region and a radiation-contaminated region.

In general, she noted an increase of morbidity in women and in newborns, but the rise was most dramatic in the contaminated region, and the least in the rural region. Congenital defects, she added, were up dramatically among newborns in the radiation-contaminated region; infant mortality also was up, caused by prenatal conditions, congenital defects and diseases of the respiratory system.

To sum up, Dr. Huchiy said, "Chornobyl is a major cause of chronic disease and its effects are being felt slowly."

Many of the same findings were reported in Belarus, said Dr. Anna Petrova, co-author of the Comprehensive Belarusian Health Study. Fetal deaths, prenatal deaths, post-natal deaths, low birth weights and congenital abnormalities had increased most in radiation-affected areas, she noted, adding that fully 20 percent of the land in Belarus is contaminated and every fifth person lives on contaminated territories.

Another significant statistic cited by Dr. Petrova was a 25 to 30 percent decrease in the birth rate in Belarus, and this, too, she said could be linked to Chornobyl as one of the results of radiophobia.

Dr. Elaine Gallin of the Office of Medical Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy, touched upon the department's involvement in working with Ukraine to increase the safety of its nuclear reactors and in conducting medical studies in Belarus and Ukraine with a focus on thyroid disease and other ailments, such as cataracts among liquidators. She noted that, unfortunately, the budget for the department's Office of Environment, Safety and Health had been decreased by 25 percent since 1993.

Dr. Allison Keyes of the Nutrasweet-Kelco Co., a unit of Monsanto, spoke in detail about the use of alginate (a seaweed extract) in lessening the effects of strontium-90 when it is ingested in contaminated food. Last month, Dr. Keyes noted, Ukraine had approved the use of an alginate product known as Algisorb as a drug to reduce the gastrointestinal absorption of strontium-90 and its deposit into bones.

She announced that Monsanto, Nutrasweet-Kelco and Biotechnologia (Moscow) were donating a supply of Algisorb sufficient to treat 500 children for one year. The donation was made to mark the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl accident.

A change of venue

The conference resumed the next day, April 9, at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs with welcoming remarks by Prof. Mark Von Hagen, director of the Harriman Institute, and an opening address by Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Dr. Yuri Shcherbak.

A founding member of the Green World ecological association and former chairman of the Green Party of Ukraine, Dr. Shcherbak referred to Chornobyl as "the largest modern disaster" and called on all to rise in a moment of silence for its victims. He then proceeded to delineate the "peculiarities" of this "unprecedented disaster," including its peaceful character, its global ramifications - as its effects know no boundaries, and its destructive impact on the state, political and social structure of the Soviet Union.

Chornobyl is notable also because it brought significant social, medical and psychological consequences, involved large numbers of the population and did long-term damage to the environment, the ambassador said. The Chornobyl accident is extraordinary also because, "even after 10 years, it still requires the close attention of the international community," as it is not an internal affair of Ukraine.

"Perhaps the most tragic peculiarity of Chornobyl," Dr. Shcherbak concluded, "is that mankind has yet to fully understand the dramatic consequences of the accident and the warnings it brings." (The text of Ambassador Shcherbak's address appears on page 10.)

Dr. Dmytro Hrodzinsky of the Department of Biophysics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, who is now lecturing in the U.S., was added to the conference program in view of his years of work on the effects of the Chornobyl accident and his significant research.

"From the first days of the accident I have worked near this monstrous reactor," he told his listeners. "Even today, the world is far from comprehending the full consequences of this accident; and some would deny those effects, especially supporters of the nuclear industry."

Because of the nuclear accident, Ukraine has lost 30,000 square kilometers of forest and a like amount of arable land, Dr. Hrodzinsky reported. But the main consequence of Chornobyl is the damaged health of large segments of the Ukrainian population: liquidators, evacuees, residents of contaminated areas and children of irradiated parents.

He then went on to illustrate the radiological effects of Chornobyl, referring to cancers, mutations of cells, immune system deficiencies, secondary diseases and both specific and non-specific health effects. Dr. Hrodzinsky spoke of the increased incidence of blood diseases, circulatory disorders and genetic anomalies in children, and noted in particular the dramatic rise in pediatric thyroid cancers in Belarus and Ukraine. He added that the trend has not yet peaked and will continue for the next 40 years.

The social and political impact

During the panel presentation on the social and political impact of Chornobyl, chaired by Prof. Alexander Motyl of the Harriman Institute, Dr. David Marples, professor of history at the University of Alberta and author of three books about the consequences of Chornobyl, chose to focus his remarks on the accident's reverberations in Belarus.

Belarus received 65 percent of all the radioactive fallout. "Virtually the entire republic was affected by the fallout of iodine-131; today the danger is from cesium, strontium-90 and plutonium-239," Dr. Marples noted. In 1992, medical specialists noted a rise in general morbidity among the population; there are increases in the incidence of anemia, chronic gastritis and other digestive diseases; children are born with congenital defects - and the highest levels are in contaminated regions.

Dr. Marples who had just returned from Miensk, capital of Belarus, where he participated in a conference dedicated to problems of Chornobyl, spoke also about widespread radiophobia as an example of the severe psychological stress among the population. He said the causes of this malady are delayed official information, contradictory information from various official sources and the absence of information about the accident and its aftereffects.

Pointing to documentation of a marked increase in thyroid cancers among children, he reported that the highest incidence is in the most contaminated region, the Homiel Oblast, while Viciebsk, a "clean" oblast, has hardly any cases. Leukemia rates also are expected to rise, as the peak for this disease is expected to occur 15 years after the Chornobyl accident.

Furthermore, "the impact of low-level radiation is still being widely debated," Dr. Marples said. Some scientists say it weakens the body's resistance "to the degree that a form of 'Chornobyl AIDS' is prevalent today, whereby the human organism is more susceptible to all kinds of disease."

What is perhaps most disturbing, Dr. Marples continued, is "a general apathy, a view that the future will bring no improvement, and a lack of confidence in authorities. And this is passed on to the children." Thus, in addition to a declining state of health, "a general air of hopelessness prevails" throughout Belarus.

Alexander Burakovsky, a human rights activist and author of "Period of Half Life," addressed the topic of Chornobyl's social effects. "The explosion at Chornobyl," he said, "uncovered the shortcomings of the system and awakened the sleeping. ... It led to the appearance of parties that later worked for the independence of Ukraine." Such was the reaction of the populace to what was seen as "an act of political betrayal by the [Communist] party."

Mr. Burakovsky credited the Chornobyl accident with spurring the Parliament to adopt the July 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty that proclaimed Ukraine to be a state abiding by non-nuclear principles.

The controlling elite of the country came to be seen as "completely cynical," he continued, and "glasnost was proven to be only for secrets of the past - not secrets of the present."

He concluded by stating that "it was the political hubris of the Soviet leadership that made such an accident as Chornobyl inevitable," and that is why Chornobyl turned out to be "the first step toward dissolution of the USSR."

Ludmilla Thorne of Freedom House added information on the emotional distress experienced by evacuees, not only because of the stress of being uprooted from their homes, but also because of the lack of acceptance in the areas where they were resettled. She pointed out that the evacuees were treated as outsiders and were ostracized, in some cases treated almost like lepers.

As well, Ms. Thorne spoke about the lives of returnees - those who chose to go back to their homes in the exclusion zone. She noted a danger posed by their agricultural activity, as they grow their own food and then sell it at bazaars as close as Kyiv and as far away as Moscow. Thus, food from the contaminated regions makes its way into the homes of unsuspecting buyers.

Dr. Natalia Lakiza-Sachuk, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, emphasized how the stresses of Chornobyl affect family life, increasing the death rate and decreasing the birth rate. The result, she said, is "a family that does not reproduce itself - a total disruption of demographic development."

Dr. Lakiza-Sachuk reported that Ukraine's birth rate of 10 per 1,000 population is the lowest among the states of the former USSR; its death rate of 14.7 per 1,000 population is the second highest among developed nations. In the period of 1991-1995, Ukraine experienced depopulation of 500,000; Belarus, too, had a negative population growth.

She went on to note dramatic changes in Ukraine in normal reproduction among women of child-bearing age and a massive infertility problem among men age 18-29 - the highest infertility rate in the world. And, she pointed to at least a doubling of still births, congenital defects and perinatal deaths in the post-Chornobyl period.

The issue of energy futures

The two afternoon panels at Columbia University focused on energy futures for Ukraine and on overcoming the nuclear legacy. They were chaired, respectively, by Virginia D. Judson, chief energy planning analyst for the State of Connecticut; and Kate Waters of ISAR (formerly the Institute of Soviet-American Relations).

Carol Kessler, senior coordinator of nuclear safety programs at the U.S. Department of State, spoke of the developing U.S.-Ukrainian partnership on energy issues.

"There is nothing more important than the G-7 memorandum of December 20, 1995, that will lead to the closure of Chornobyl," she noted, and then went on to give the details of that document. "It is vital that Ukraine rid itself of the Soviet legacy of Chornobyl and close down this unsafe plant," she underlined.

Ms. Kessler also pointed out that the G-7 had invited President Kuchma to the nuclear safety summit that is to take place in Moscow on April 19-20 in recognition of his role "as a true leader in efforts to improve nuclear safety."

E. Steven Potts, president of Professional Services International Inc., described how Ukraine could better use its energy resources through renovation of existing thermal and hydroelectric plants, reutilization of resources and use of alternative energy sources. He stated that "the future of Ukraine has to be along multiple paths for energy" as he said he is "skeptical that Ukraine can get rid of its reliance on nuclear power, oil and gas in the near term."

He also chided the U.S. for not doing more to help Ukraine in this sphere, noting, "I am chagrined and embarrassed that the Clinton administration has done so little to help post-Chornobyl Ukraine."

Scott Denman, executive director of the Safe Energy Communications Council, spoke out against the use of nuclear power worldwide as "the funds spent on nuclear power far outweigh its usage." Only 7 percent of the world's primary energy and 17 percent of its electricity is provided by nuclear power.

He pointed to worldwide trends which indicate that nuclear power is now falling out of favor. For example, he said, "The debate has now shifted in Europe from whether to close [nuclear power] plants to when to close them." There is a shift in the former USSR and the East bloc as well; at the time of the Chornobyl accident, 65 reactors were under construction, today that number is down to 10, he reported.

The final speaker on the energy futures panel was Dr. Ivan Vyshnevsky, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, who delved into the physical and technical aspects of the Chornobyl accident.

He spoke at length also about the state of the sarcophagus covering the stricken fourth reactor at the Chornobyl plant, which was seen as a temporary structure. A new structure must be erected, he noted, but the cost - some $1.5 billion (U.S.) - is prohibitive. That is why Ukraine is looking for international assistance, he told his audience.

Dr. Vyshnevsky also gave statistics on nuclear power in Ukraine: today there are five nuclear power plants with 15 reactors and a capacity of 14,000 megawatts; they produce 37 percent of Ukraine's electricity (in the wintertime that proportion increases to 50 percent). Ukraine ranks eighth in the world in terms of its nuclear power capacity.

The final panel of the two-day conference covered the broad topic of overcoming the Soviet nuclear legacy and international response.

Katya Bowers, former director for the Western NIS of the Counterpart Foundation, spoke of her experiences in Ukraine where she saw first hand the poor state of hospitals. She noted that special needs include equipment for early diagnosis of illnesses and good nutrition. Ms. Bowers also pointed out that currently there is very little international aid being provided as interest has waned.

She added that a very hopeful sign for Ukraine is the new phenomenon of non-governmental organizations like the Chornobyl Union, Greenpeace and Green World. "This is a new thing in Ukraine, and they have discovered that they have power" in influencing the government.

Judi Friedman, director of People's Action for Clean Energy, speaking from her perspective as an American activist said, "I believe the Soviet nuclear legacy is not just the result of Soviet oppression, but of government oppression." She commented, "Chornobyl haunts my world view," and the "Soviet nuclear legacy is part of the global nuclear mafia."

Ms. Friedman concluded her remarks by emphasizing that there are viable alternatives to nuclear power, and "these offer hope for future generations."

Alexander Kuzma, director of development for the CCRF, gave some background on the organization. "The Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund took on the challenge posed by Volodymyr Yavorivsky, who sounded the alarm," he said, "We are proud of our achievements, but haunted by the immensity of the Chornobyl disaster," which "will be a challenge for many years to come."

Mr. Kuzma especially underlined the importance of coalition-building, and he cited several examples of unlikely partners successfully working together via informal coalitions toward a common cause.

The final speaker of the panel was Mary Olson, a researcher with the Nuclear Information Resource Service, who put Chornobyl in a worldwide context by noting, "There are 450 operating reactors around the world today, so Chornobyl is an issue of global legacy."

She went on to counter the myth that "nuclear power is safe, cheap and clean," adding emphatically that "Chornobyl proves this is a myth." Another myth she said, is the generally held belief that a Chornobyl accident could happen only in Ukraine and not, say, in the United States.

Commemorative address by Rep. Gilman

A special commemorative address was delivered during the conference at Columbia University by Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a longtime supporter of Ukrainian causes, in particular, human rights issues.

It was the New York state Republican who 10 years ago on May 5, just 10 days after accident at Chornobyl, led a small delegation of Ukrainian Americans to the Soviet and Ukrainian SSR Missions to the United Nations. With his intervention, the group tried to obtain more information about the disaster and to offer assistance to its victims.

"Despite the passage of 10 years, the reactor facility at Chornobyl, one of the world's most unsafe nuclear facilities, is still in operation - risking at every minute of every day the recurrence of the kind of deadly accident that happened in 1986. We are compelled to ask how this could be," said Rep. Gilman.

He went on to note that the costs associated with closing the plant are astronomical: "The governments of Ukraine and Belarus simply cannot find the funds to do this at a time when their economies are in a tremendous depression. ...their efforts are inadequate to address the many problems involved in dealing with Chornobyl."

"The outside world must find the means, as difficult as this may be, to help address this important problem." The congressman noted that the U.S. government is helping Ukraine increase the efficiency of energy generation and use, to search for new sources of energy, to improve the safety of its nuclear reactors and to set up an international research center outside of Chornobyl. He added that private volunteer organizations are providing assistance to victims of the accident, while the National Cancer Institute is conducting a study on Chornobyl's health effects.

The congressman also called on the Group of Seven industrial countries "to revisit the issue of Chornobyl." Russia, he said, must do more to help, particularly by forgiving "some or all of the energy debt Ukraine owes it"; Belarus "must recognize that meaningful economic reform is the only way that the economy can begin to grow and provide the long-term financial resources to help address its post-Chornobyl problems"; and any Ukrainian officials who believe Chornobyl "can still be used as a bargaining chip for greater aid from the G-7 countries should consider what Ukraine would face if... the concrete sarcophagus over the destroyed reactor were to collapse."

Luncheon speakers

During the course of the two-day conference, luncheons were held featuring prominent officials from Ukraine.

At Yale on April 8, the featured speaker was Deputy Prime Minister Kuras. He noted that the date of April 26, 1986, "is now a watershed in our history," and that with the Chornobyl explosion "humanity began to understand not only its vulnerability, but also its responsibility." Quoting the president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, he said, "Chornobyl was a brutal and perhaps final warning to humanity."

He expressed thanks to President Bill Clinton, the U.S. government and American citizens for their aid and concern for the people of Ukraine. In gratitude to Yale University for hosting a conference on the earth-shattering effects of Chornobyl, Mr. Kuras presented a commemorative album published by the Ukrainian government to mark the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster.

At Columbia, the luncheon presentation was delivered by Volodymyr Yavorivsky, who was introduced by Mr. Kuzma as "one of the pioneers in bringing the truth out about Chornobyl" and the "founding father of the CCRF."

Mr. Yavorivsky, who is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the chairman of the Democratic Party of Ukraine, opened by stating, "I am convinced the Chornobyl disaster is a catastrophe of the 21st century, not the 20th. ... Humanity does not comprehend its scale." He added that "people might think it happened a long time ago and that it's over, but I can tell you the real disaster is only beginning."

Consider, for example, he told his audience, the fact that 34 million people get their drinking water from the Dnipro River, and that river today is threatened by Chornobyl.

He reminded his audience that "Ukraine was born at the time the Chornobyl disaster befell it... and Ukraine was left to face it alone."

"We survived four years of silence and lies about Chornobyl," Mr. Yavorivsky said. "This conference shows a completely different approach, one without romanticism, one based on cold pragmatism from the distance of 10 years. You see Chornobyl today the way it should be looked at."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 21, 1996, No. 16, Vol. LXIV

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