Chornobyl conference at United Nations initiates fund-raising for humanitarian aid

by Irene Jarosewich

UNITED NATIONS - More than 11 years after the largest nuclear disaster in history, several dozen representatives from U.N. member-states and non-governmental organizations on November 25 attended a conference on Chornobyl, the first step in a series of programs proposed by the U.N. to alleviate the consequences of the Chornobyl explosion in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The United Nations, under the auspices of the office of the undersecretary of humanitarian affairs, is planning a series of pledging conferences to fund these programs in the future. The next conference is tentatively scheduled for April 1998, to coincide with the 12th anniversary of the explosion, and will focus on obtaining direct monetary commitments from public, as well as private institutions for U.N. programs.

Unlike the pledging conference organized by the United States and held several days earlier at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, which sought international financial support to rebuild the crumbling sarcophagus that covers the damaged reactor at Chornobyl, the conference sponsored by the U.N. focused on status reports on the current medical and environtmental situation, the coordination of resources as well as the appeal for and identification of sources of funding for humanitarian aid, containment and clean-up of environmental damage, and medical research.

The president of the U.N. General Assembly, Hennadii Udovenko, opened the conference, and reports were presented by Volodymyr Kholosha, Ukraine's vice minister for emergencies and protection of the population affected by the Chornobyl disaster, and representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.N. report was presented by Yasushi Akashi, undersecretary for humanitarian affairs.

According to Mr. Kholosha, who spoke also at a press conference at the U.N. on November 24, teams appointed by the U.N. visited Ukraine, Belarus and Russia last year to evaluate the environmental and medical consequences of the nuclear explosion. Based on their findings and recommendations, several programs were developed. Between eight and 10 programs dealing with various aspects of the disaster's medical and health consequences, both psychological and physical, environmental protection, as well as public education and information dissemination could be funded through the U.N.

The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution during the afternoon session on November 24 to strengthen international cooperation and to coordinate efforts to study, mitigate and minimize the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster. A guest at that session was Serhii Parashyn, director general of the Chornobyl nuclear power station.

(Nadia Svitlychna, a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., contributed to this report.)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 30, 1997, No. 48, Vol. LXV

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