INTERVIEW: Alla Yaroshinska, revealer of Chornobyl's "Forbidden Truths"
Alla Yaroshinska, a journalist by training, is a member of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's Council of Advisors (to which she was appointed in 1993) and the president of the Association of Russian Journalists. She also heads a Moscow-based charitable foundation, the Ecological Private Fund, which provides assistance to children affected by the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and issues publications concerning the environment.
Her book, "Chernobyl: Sovershenno Sekretno" (Chornobyl: Top Secret; Moscow: Drugie Berega, 1992) was published in Russian, based on her early reporting and her work as a member of the USSR Supreme Soviet's commission on the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster. It includes a staggering 225 pages of documents drawn from the archives of the Soviet Politburo, and various levels of government of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR.
"Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth," is an abridged English translation (by Michele Kahn and Julia Sallabank) of this book, minus the appended documentation.
The conclusion of the interview conducted by Andrij Wynnyckyj of The Weekly's Toronto Press Bureau follows.
Q: In your Izvestia article of April 25, 1992, you exposed a series of official lies told by the Soviet government to its citizens. Lie No. 1 concerned the Soviet government's statements about the number of people hospitalized in Chornobyl's immediate aftermath. Will we ever know the truth, or have euphemistic diagnoses such as "vascular vegetative dystonia," arbitrary raising of "permissible levels of radiation" and government obfuscation forever clouding the issue?
A: Theoretically, it's possible, but this would take an untold amount of money, an incredible amount of research to calculate retrospectively the dosages sustained by the 8 million people living in the affected area, in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia.
Theoretically, it's possible. Even practically speaking, you could begin scanning the effects in the entire population in order to see what the effects are now that 10 years have passed.
But the governments lack the money they supposedly allotted to feed and otherwise assist those living the zone, and those they now recognize as affected by the disaster, so where could they get the money to conduct research on such a massive scale? ...
This alone underscores the simple fact that Chornobyl is not simply a Ukrainian or Belarusian issue. It's an issue that confronts the entire world. The global ecological situation will never again be the same as it was prior to April 26, 1986.
Q: Lie No. 2 concerned the policy of mixing contaminated foodstuffs with the uncontaminated in 1986, and the subsequent contention that "clean" foodstuffs could be produced in contaminated zones. Did anyone follow up on this story, and were any of these meats and foodstuffs eventually traced and appropriately disposed of, or were all of them untraceable and thus eaten throughout the former Soviet Union?
A: To keep track of the contaminated meat, there was a system of epidemiological sanitary service, just like there is in every country. The problem is that the mendacity of the ideological system, which constantly deceived the people, meant that all government agencies were being deceptive because they took their orders from the Politburo.
They are also heavily responsible. They were the agencies who carried out the Politburo's will... So you had instructions to mix contaminated meat with the clean, and then distribute it throughout the former Soviet Union with the exception of two cities - Moscow and Leningrad.
Q: Do you have any evidence that local authorities or individuals disobeyed the order and simply destroyed the contaminated meat?
A: No. On the contrary, we mostly have evidence that people, not officials, brought in meat they knew was contaminated, they simply brought it in according to the orders they were given. I've never come across an instance in which somebody defied the order.
Q: Lie No. 4 concerned the participation of the Soviet Red Army in the clean-up. What exactly was at issue?
A: The Ministry of Defense issued a secret order that no indication of dosage sustained was to be made on the duty cards for all soldiers, regular servicemen or officers, employed in the Chornobyl clean-up.
A minimum of 200,000 soldiers were used in these operations. These kids, young soldiers - Ukrainians, Russians, they brought them in from all over, this was an international operation, many got lethal doses.
When I became a deputy, I led a group of activists seeking to end the practice of stationing units in the zone. Until 1991 there were people performing their military duties there.
Q: Reservists?
A: No. Not reservists, those who did their compulsory two years of military service in the army. This was a crime.
Q: Lie No. 5 concerned Slavutych, the city built to replace the abandoned Chornobyl plant workers' town of Prypiat - built in a contaminated zone.
A: Yes. This is quite an interesting case. There was a decision made to build a new "energy city" of Slavutych in a contaminated area, a conscious decision.
In the Politburo minutes, there is a letter from an advisor to Gorbachev named Akhromeyev, who has since died, saying that it is impossible to build this city in that spot because of the high level of radiation. Quite a normal position of a normal human being.
But after a few days, after a period during which, in my opinion, the Politburo applied some pressure, there's another letter in which [Akhromeyev] contradicts himself and states that it's actually quite possible to clean up the area and build there.
But clearly, this is a town that should also be evacuated.
Q: Isn't it too late?
A: Well, for those who have lived there for 10 years, who have absorbed radiation every day, it's probably too late in terms of their health. But there are children being born there, growing up, succeeding generations beginning a life there - they should be resettled.
Q: Lie No. 3 concerned information fed to the press inside the former USSR and to the outside world. Have journalists in Ukraine and Russia been able to crack the "levels of deception" since 1991?
A: Yes, absolutely. There is an entirely different situation now. If you find any additional facts about Chornobyl and you want to publish them, you can, as much as you want. There's absolute freedom of speech now. Basically, if you're a good journalist and you want to publish something, you can. There is no more censorship.
The only problems that everyone continues to face is the problem faced by journalists around the world - how to get information from officials.
But nobody has any problems getting published any more.
Q: Have they been more or less successful in doing so than press from the West?
A: This might not sound very modest, but I believe I have more information on Chornobyl than any journalist from the West. That's no reflection on them in particular, I'm sure I have more material than any journalist in Russia, I have a large archive on the subject.
Q: Have Western journalists been putting it to use?
A: My archive? No. It's mine. I got it by shedding my own sweat and blood. I'm a journalist, I use the fruits of my investigation, and I can't give it to anyone else. I'm keeping nothing back, I'm publishing it all.
Q: Are journalists from Ukraine at an advantage or disadvantage because of their proximity to the story?
A: I can't really comment on what kind of problems they face in getting materials from official channels because I haven't worked as a journalist in Ukraine for some time. I haven't lived there for five years.
I visit, I come to see my relatives in the Zhytomyr region, but I can't say. I can only surmise that they also have no problems with censorship in the newspapers themselves.
Whether they have difficulty in extracting information from, Academician [physicist Viktor] Bariakhtar, for instance, that's an entirely different matter.
Q: In your book you champion Prof. Elena Burlakova, former chair of the USSR's Council for Radiological Problems at the Academy of Sciences. Where is she now?
A: She's still in Russia, at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Chemistry, I believe. Her work is very important and continues to be very relevant to the study of the impact of the Chornobyl disaster.
Prof. Burlakova consistently focused on the effect of long-term low-level radiation on humans in the aftermath of the Chornobyl accident, has maintained that it is just as harmful as high doses, and has spared no effort in publishing her results.
Q: Whom did you find most helpful in your investigations?
A: Generally speaking, I didn't get much help. Hardly anyone offered any support. During the days of the Soviet Union, most people put obstacles in my way or threatened me, saying that the KGB would take an active interest in what I was doing and so forth.
Once I became a deputy, it became somewhat easier to get at information. Once, only once, there was a member of the Ukrainian apparat, whom I don't want to name, I don't even want to say what branch of government he worked in, telephoned me in Moscow when I was a deputy, to arrange a meeting so he could pass on some sensitive material about Chornobyl to me.
In Russia, of course, there was Ivan Laptev, the editor of Izvestia who was great, always very supportive. He is now the head of the Russian state committee on the press.
Q: Please describe your contacts with Japanese agencies and individuals.
A: Since I received the alternative Nobel, I set up a publishing house whose principal project is a "Nuclear Encyclopedia." Both Japanese and U.S. scientists have been very helpful and supportive, in writing entries on radiobiology, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so forth.
I've been working very closely with Japanese scientists and various organizations because they're very interested in these matters.
Q: Could you give an account of the publishing history of your "Chernobyl: Forbidden Truth," which first appeared as "Chernobyl: Sovershenno Sekretno" in Russian in 1992? Did you have any difficulties publishing it in Russia?
A: There were no obstacles at all in Russia.
I wanted to publish something in Ukraine first. A journalist in Zhytomyr, Yakiv Zayko, very much wanted to have a book on Chornobyl appear in Zhytomyr, but the local printing house was scared to touch it. And so I was forced to publish it in Russia, and it came out as a slim volume, titled "Chernobyl s Nami" (Chornobyl is With Us, 1991) in Russia.
People in Ukraine were simply too frightened to publish it. Although I must say that Mr. Zayko is a courageous journalist, a former parliamentary deputy.
At any rate, I arranged to have a special printing of "Chornobyl Is With Us," - 50,000 copies shipped directly to the Zhytomyr region, for distribution to the people in the region.
Now, as far as "Chernobyl: Sovershenno Sekretno" is concerned, this was published in Moscow, with many of the documents I had gathered. All proceeds from this book have gone to fund the treatment of children in the Zhytomyr hospital, a pediatric hospital in the Briansk region in Russia that was also affected by fallout.
Q: How was it that "Chornobyl: The Forbidden Truth," appeared in the West?
A: A great degree of credit goes to the European Parliament, particularly a woman from France, Jacqueline Treloun, a deputy of the Green Party. She made a presentation to the Parliament about the importance of my book, and the body apportioned the necessary funds to have it published in French. This was the first time it appeared in the West.
Q: When was this?
A: I can't remember exactly, in 1992 I think.
Q: So it appeared almost simultaneously with the Russian edition.
A: Right, that's right. As soon as it came off the press in Russia I sent a copy off to the European Parliament as a gift. After they published it in French, I was invited to appear before the Parliament, which I did and then traveled around Europe with that body's financial support, speaking about Chornobyl.
When I received the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm together with the U.S. Academic Prof. [John] Gofman, this attracted the attention of European journalists, and so I gave interviews about my book.
So, it came out first in France, then England, then Japan, then Germany, and then in the U.S., just last year at the University of Nebraska Press.
Q: The New York-based Natural Resources Defense Center has suggested that a recent edict of Russian President Yeltsin could result in a choking off of information about past high-echelon meetings and decisions in general and on nuclear policy in particular. Is this accurate?
A: I'm not sure which edict you're referring to. I know that he recently issued one about the construction of an RD-2 nuclear plant at Krasnoyarsk, a plant that would use pre-processed nuclear material, I believe.
I'm not aware of any order curtailing access to information, but this might have been issued recently. I've been out of Russia for just under a month.
Q: Do you think that an accident similar to the 1986 catastrophe could happen again?
A: Given that there are 16 reactors built using the same design [as the Chornobyl plant] running in the countries of the former Soviet Union, another one could happen any day.
Then there's the question of the Chornobyl sarcophagus, which is crumbling. Something needs to be done about that as soon as possible.
All of these reactors should be brought off line. I understand that this isn't as simple as switching off a light bulb, or turning off a television set. But the Chornobyl-type reactor [RBMK] is extremely dangerous.
Q: Do you think that its effects could be covered-up again, or do you think this would be impossible, given the present atmosphere?
A: I believe that it would be virtually impossible. However, old habits die hard. Take the incident in Tomsk, in Russia, about a year ago, official circles provided information, let's say, not very objectively.
But nowadays journalists have the right to get at information, inquire where they will, and in the end we found out what happened, and we wrote and published what really happened.
No, I think that today a cover-up would be impossible. If they work with the necessary dedication and desire, journalists will always dig out the truth.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 12, 1996, No. 19, Vol. LXIV
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