1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
Chornobyl: legacy of a disaster
A decade later, public debate continues as to the significance and gravity of the explosion at the Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station (AES) on April 26, 1986.
For the Group of Seven industrial states, Chornobyl was a significant disaster and continues to be a significant threat to Ukraine and neighboring European countries. A Memorandum of Understanding had been signed on December 20, 1995, in Ottawa between representatives of Ukraine and the G-7 member-states. Ukraine agreed to completely decommission the Chornobyl AES by the year 2000. In turn, the G-7 would provide a package of credits and loans that would help Ukraine with the plant closing.
Within Ukraine there was opposition, foremost from the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksander Moroz. Mr. Moroz felt that the amount of money offered was too little, the timetable too short and that, in general, bowing to international pressure to decommission Chornobyl was a bad idea. He was joined in opposition by the administrators and engineers of the plant itself, who insisted that as a result of enhanced safety features and procedures, Chornobyl should remain on line. Claims were made that power stations in Armenia and Lithuania were bigger safety threats.
Various politicians argued that during an energy crisis, one in which Ukraine was increasingly dependent on expensive oil and gas supplies from Russia and Turkmenistan, the country could not afford to shut down the two remaining reactors at Chornobyl, which supplied Ukraine with 5 percent of its electricity.
Nonetheless, President Leonid Kuchma kept the promises he made to the international community in 1995, and on April 21, during the G-7 Summit on Nuclear Safety and Security in Moscow, he formally agreed to close Chornobyl by the year 2000 in exchange for $3.1 billion in assistance from the G-7. At the final stage of discussions, President Kuchma added a condition that the G-7 nations review the issue of the rebuilding of the sarcophagus as separate from the closing, and that international experts be assigned to assist with the project.
As part of the decommission package, Ukraine's conditions included funds to complete construction of plants to replace lost energy production; relocation, retraining and compensation for dislocated workers; and a new facility for management of nuclear waste, since 95 percent of Ukraine's nuclear waste is stored at Chornobyl.
Medical and public health consequences
While the G-7 states have determined that Chornobyl continues to be a hazard and threat, in an apparent contradiction the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to maintain that other than an increase in juvenile thyroid cancers, no medical or public health consequences can be definitively attributed to Chornobyl.
Ten years after the disaster, the topic that continues to be surrounded by the most conflict and controversy is the health consequences of the Chornobyl explosion.
At the conclusion of the conference "One Decade After Chornobyl: Summing up the Consequences of the Accident," sposored by the IAEA, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission (EC) on April 8-12 in Vienna, key findings included: 1) the only serious health repercussions from Chornobyl that can be attributed to radiation is an increase in thyroid cancer among children; 2) radioactive cesium has no impact on the human organism; 3) low-level radiation is harmless to people; 4) many of the illnesses and disorders reported by Chornobyl-affected populations, including repressed immune systems are a result of stress and anxiety, or "chronic environmental stress syndrome."
The IAEA studies - which did not include the populations most affected by radiation contamination, 800,000 firefighters, first aid and clean-up workers throughout the former republics, and several hundred thousand evacuated residents - provoked a strong reaction from academic, government and medical sectors.
In fact, experts cite the following: there has been a precipitous rise in diabetes and childhood anemia; the rate of male infertility in Ukraine, the country that provided the largest number of clean-up workers, is the highest in the world (it is highest among former clean-up workers, men in their 20s and 30s); there has been a precipitous rise in childhood diseases that result from a weakened immune system; about half of the former clean-up workers are receiving medical treatment for digestive, respiratory and skin diseases; and birthrates in Ukraine and Belarus, the two former republics most affected by Chornobyl, are dropping precipitously. In addition, a University of Hiroshima study reported a doubling of birth defects among newborns in Belarus.
A study by the Canadian Society for International Health found that for every two live births in Ukraine, there are three abortions. Fear of giving birth to deformed children as a consequence of Chornobyl in great part fuels this trend.
A report from a 1995 study by the Canadian Red Cross found that even after almost a decade, one-third of the food tested for consumption by residents of the Rivne Oblast registered higher than normal levels of radiation.
The Canadian Red Cross study also found that though poor nutrition as a result of no funds for food is in part the cause of the increase in malnutrition among children in Ukraine, in certain regions parents will not feed children local produce and dairy products, preferring to risk the child's health with lack of nutrients, rather than permanently contaminate their bodies with radionuclides.
The lack of money to monitor simple public health problems, not to mention the complex health consequences of Chornobyl exacerbates the problem of identifying Chornobyl-related disorders.
"An accident has taken place at the Chornobyl power station, and one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Those affected by it are being given assistance. A government commission has been set up." - Announcement of USSR Council of Ministers, broadcast on Soviet television from Moscow on April 28, 1986.
"The Chornobyl disaster is a catastrophe of the 21st century, not the 20th ... humanity does not yet comprehend its scale ... the real disaster is just beginning." - National Deputy Volodymyr Yavorivsky, former chairman of the Parliament's Special Committee on Chornobyl, speaking at Columbia University on April 9, 1996.
In a statement issued at the conference "Chornobyl: Implications of a Decade," held August 24 in Rio De Janeiro, participants stressed the need to increase the role of independent investigators, in contrast to "experts" employed or engaged by "bureaucratized agencies," as the latter have lacked credibility and public confidence.
Among the independent studies ongoing is a project by the University of Alberta, "The Chornobyl Children's Project," and a study at Baylor University in Texas of clean-up workers with preliminary indications that leukemia rates are elevated among this population.
The University of Illinois Ukrainian Environmental Health Project is participating in a collaborative Chornobyl thyroid cancer study with the National Cancer Institute and the Kyiv Institute of Endocrinology.
The Canadian Red Cross has deployed six mobile diagnostic labs since 1992 in Ukraine to measure radiation contamination in soil, air and produce, and has been screening adults and children for various ailments. Of the 55,617 individuals screened for thyroid ailments in 1995, all registered measurable increases in various thyroid disorders, and especially an increase in the number of tumors among children.
UNESCO's Chornobyl Program has established three centers in Ukraine to assist in the social and psychological rehabilitation of populations affected by Chornobyl.
Environmental contamination
An issue over which there is much less controversy is the environmental damage caused by Chornobyl. Over the past 10 years, numbers have been revised, mostly upwards, concerning percentage of land contaminated, number of curies released, direction of cloud movement. Soviet authorities originally reported 50 million curies released; recent studies have revised the figure at least threefold to between 150 and 200 million curies (15 curies were released at Three Mile Island).
More than 10 percent of Ukrainian and about 80 percent of Belarusian territory was contaminated by fallout, thus, millions of acres of contaminated land in those two states have been excluded permanently from economic activity.
The nexus of environmental and public health concerns for the next decade is the leaching of radionuclides from the fallout into drinking water. Plant root systems also take up radionuclides leached into lakes and rivers.
Socio-political consequences
The word "Chornobyl" is recognized the world over as a reference to the explosion of a nuclear power plant. It has also come to signify disaster, hubris, tragedy, fear, anger, illness, deformation, stupidity, incompetence, lies, deceit.
From the very beginning of the tragedy, medical and environmental consequences were predicted and debated. However, one of the least defined and least predicted areas of impact was the socio-political consequences.
In the past several years, a consensus has developed that Chornobyl was a major catalyst for the final disintegration of the USSR. In a recent interview, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, then head of agitation and propaganda for the Communist Party in Ukraine, recalls the re-viewing stand on May 1, 1986, during the May Day parade:
"(I was told) to let the television station know that there should be footage of people frolicking, ... children singing, ... this is the directive of the Politburo, to convey that everything is calm, that nothing terrible has happened."
This deceit after the promise of "glasnost" was a heavy blow for those who held out for change from within the system. According to Oleksandr Burakovsky, a former member of the leadership council of Rukh, the Popular Movement of Ukraine, Chornobyl "was a jolt that awakened the intelligentsia, ... particularly the intelligentsia that was living in the republic's capital, Kyiv, mere kilometers from Chornobyl. This was not yet a movement for independence, but a movement into awareness ... Chornobyl showed 'glasnost' and 'perestroika' to be a fiction."
According to Zyanon Paznyak, Belarusian activist, "Chornobyl had enormous impact on national consciousness in Belarus ... the impact is not only physiological, but psychological ... long-term apathy and despair has set in. People feel imprisoned by (the) consequences."
Furthermore, the financial burden of ameliorating the consequences of Chornobyl limits economic development. This is resented by the population in Belarus and Ukraine. According to former Prime Minister Marchuk, Ukraine spends $1 billion a year to manage the Chornobyl's effects.
Commemorative events
Throughout the world, the tragedy of Chornobyl was commemorated on the national and local levels. In the United States, the Chornobyl Challenge '96 coalition was organized at the initiative of Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Dr. Yuri Shcherbak, and chaired by Alex Kuzma, director of development for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund (CCRF).
An official delegation from Ukraine, headed by Vice Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ivan Kuras attended the commemorative dinner on April 8 hosted by Ukraine's Permanent Mission to the United Nations and CCRF at Columbia University's Low Library.
On April 23 on Capitol Hill, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) heard testimony on the legacy of Chornobyl. Testimony was provided by Dr. Shcherbak, Ukraine's ambassador; Serguei Martynov, Belarus' ambassador; Mr. Kuzma; and Prof. Murray Feshbach of Georgetown University. The next day, the ambassadors of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine held a joint press conference and released a trilateral statement at the National Press Club in Washington to mark the anniversary.
More than 1,000 participants attended the ecumenical service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on April 26 hosted by Cardinal John O'Connor and attended by representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic, Ukrainian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Among the dignitaries addressing the public were New York Gov. George Pataki and Ukraine's ambassador to the U.N., Mr. Zlenko.
On May 1, First Lady Hillary Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore hosted a Chornobyl commemoration at the White House. Also invited to speak were Mr. Kuzma, and 11-year-old Vova Malofienko, a Chornobyl survivor who is being treated in the U.S. for leukemia. After the White House commemoration, an ecumenical service was held at the "Church of the Presidents," St. John Episcopal Church.
April 26 is also National Arbor Day. The association American Forests began a reforestation project to commemorate Chornobyl, and memorial forests were planted near Orlando Fla., and in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Poltava oblasts.
In Canada, commemorative activities included a Chornobyl Memorial Concert staged by the Ukrainian Opera Association; an exhibit in Toronto, "Chornobyl Through the Eyes of Children;" an official commemoration on Ottawa's Parliament Hill; and also in Ottawa, across from the Arts Center, a billboard-sized memorial designed by Ukrainian British artist Stefan Gec featuring photographs of six original firefighters killed on the disaster scene.
April 26 in Ukraine was an official day of mourning: blue-and-yellow flags flew with black ribbons attached. Commemorative events in Kyiv included a U.S. government airlift that arrived on April 25 with more than $11 million in aid; the opening by U.S. Ambassador William Green Miller and Minister of the Environment Yurii Kostenko of the International Chornobyl Center for Nuclear Safety, Radioactive Wastes and Radio-ecology on April 26; the unveiling on April 25 of a monument to the heroic efforts of the firemen and clean-up workers; and a Presidential Commemorative Concert at the Taras Shevchenko Theater on the evening of April 26.
President Clinton and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada issued commemorative statements, and both houses of the U.S. Congress issued resolutions. The United Nations designated April 26 as an international day of commemoration.
Local events and commemorations
Many local events and commemorations included fund-raising to assist the victims of Chornobyl. Fund-raisers took place in Cleveland, Boston, Rochester, N.Y., Ottawa, Toronto, Hartford, Conn., Buffalo, N.Y., Perth Amboy, N.J. and other cities throughout North America.
On February 4, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. hosted a benefit. The guest speaker was actor Jack Palance, the 10th anniversary spokesman for the CCRF. Funds raised were used by CCRF to buy equipment for a neonatal clinic in Chernihiv. Throughout the 10th anniversary year, the CCRF leveraged more than $3 million of aid to help the victims of Chornobyl in Ukraine.
Other major efforts: Manor Junior College donated $44,000 to the Ukrainian National Women's League of America for their programs to aid Chornobyl victims; the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund sent hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical aid to Chornobyl-affected areas; the Ukrainian Cultural Institute in North Dakota organized 10 tons of food and clothing that was sent to the Chornobyl region; and Hand in Hand Together, a charitable organization in Minnesota, with the help of the Ukrainian American community sent 50 tons of supplies to a hospital in Chernihiv Oblast.
* * *
The tragedy of Chornobyl has become a symbol of the world's worst environmental disaster. But it is more than a symbol, it remains a disquieting reality.
As of December 1, only reactor No. 3 remains on line. In keeping with international commitments made in April, reactor No. 1 was taken off line on November 30. Reactor No. 2 was taken off line in the fall of 1991, after a fire in the reactor's control room, and reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986.
According to Minister Kostenko, securing the crumbling sarcophagus that covers the exploded reactor is top priority: "... Ukraine will need about 70 years (to neutralize Chornobyl) and make the sarcophagus safe ... "
As the 10th anniversary year of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster comes to a close, it is worth recalling the words of Ambassador Shcherbak in an April interview with this newspaper: "If the world ignores the lessons of Chornobyl, then someone will have to relive the tragedy again."
For the record:
Conferences held on the topic of Chornobyl included:
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 29, 1996, No. 52, Vol. LXIV
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