FOR THE RECORD: REMARKS AT CHORNOBYL PLEDGING CONFERENCE
Following is a translation of President Leonid Kuchma's speech at the international conference of potential donor-nations held in New York on November 20 to raise funds for the Chornobyl Shelter Fund. The text was provided by Ukraine's Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Among international developments of particular weight are those that will be remembered for a long time. Today's very representative meeting is among them. For Chornobyl has been and remains a sharp and painful topic for my fellow countrymen.
So, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to representatives of the G-7, the European Commission and all those 45 nations that have responded to my and Vice-President Gore's invitation to participate in this meeting.
Regrettably, we have been an entire decade behind in so doing. Nonetheless, as the saying goes, better late than never. Our conference can, and must, play a really historic role and become a turnabout landmark in practically solving the Chornobyl problem, which has, without exaggeration, planetary parameters.
I am very grateful to the leadership of the United States, particularly to Vice-President Albert Gore, for their understanding of our problems generated by the Chornobyl nuclear accident and for the United States' instrumental role in mobilizing the international community's effort to overcome its aftermath.
The Ukrainian people have paid dearly for Soviet leaders' reckless actions and their propensity for neglecting the people's vital interests. I would remind you, in particular, that when Ukraine was a member of the USSR, issues involving the construction and operation of nuclear power plants, including the Chornobyl plant, were entirely under the USSR's jurisdiction.
That nuclear monster was built with no consideration given to the Ukrainian people's and authorities' opinion on the subject, yet at the Ukrainian taxpayers' expense.
Immediately following the nuclear accident, the leadership of the Soviet Union, in attempting to play it down, deceived its own people and reassured the global community, pretending that nothing extraordinary had happened. As a result of this, the already critical situation was thus artificially further aggravated, primarily for those who found themselves within the accident's zone or were sent there to eliminate the accident's consequences.
Following the Soviet Union's disintegration, Ukraine found itself alone and facing a challenge unprecedented in mankind's history, though by that time the world community gradually came to more or less adequately realize its real magnitude.
And, yet, under those extremely disadvantageous conditions, we were trying to do our best, on our own. However, this mustering of the state's manpower and material reserves, [on a scale] unprecedented during peacetime, has overstrained the nation and continues to demand new sacrifices.
I would like to single out the following salient points.
In 1997 about 12 percent of the national budget's outlays are earmarked for solving problems related to the Chornobyl accident, though for a decade a sizable portion of budgetary expenditures was spent on localizing the disaster.
Almost $4 billion was spent on social rehabilitation for 800,000 persons who suffered as a result of the accident. This includes 70,000 disabled persons whose number annually grows by 10,000 on the average.
Almost $60 million has been spent over the past three years to stabilize the sarcophagus facility. Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Ukraine's aggregate expenditures to solve the Chornobyl problem are supposed to amount to around $600 million by the year 2005. This sum is commensurate with what the G-7 and the European Commission have pledged to allot within the same period.
The Ukrainian state has been allocating sizable sums to finance continuous monitoring of the quality of atmospheric air, potable water, food, recultivation of the affected land and improving the natural environment's condition.
It would be superfluous to say what all this means for a nation that has to combine overcoming the consequences of totalitarianism with radically overhauling the economy along market lines.
I will cite some more figures which are quite characteristic. About 50,000 square kilomaters of territory with over 2,000 population points with a total of 2.6 million inhabitants have been contaminated.
Around 160,000 residents have been evacuated from heavily contaminated areas. Some 180,000 hectares of farmland and 157,000 hectares of woodland have been lost in view of their excessive radioactive contamination.
These figures, however impressive their scope may appear, are but the tip of the iceberg, which only modern science can appraise with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy. But who will endeavor to make a realistic forecast of the Chornobyl nuclear accident's likely impact on the Ukrainian nation's genetic pool and estimate its future potential losses?
Ladies and gentlemen, all of us should remember that Ukraine's voluntary renunciation of its nuclear weapons does not mean that its territory no longer harbors any nuclear threats.
Such threats may resurface at any moment.
First and foremost, I would like to point to the so-called sarcophagus facility's condition as by far the most acute and precarious problem involving the Chornobyl Plant's unit No. 4 and its post-accident suprastructure, which might figuratively be called an uncontrollable nuclear time bomb set to explode at a time unknown to humanity.
Not only Ukraine, and its capital city of 3 million just 100 kilometers away, but the whole of mankind is being threatened with this volcano's eruption.
The Chornobyl disaster's planetary scope makes it necessary for the global community to join in efforts to overcome it.
Built according to a temporary plan during extremely harsh conditions in 1986, the sarcophagus was not designed for a lengthy operational period.
Proceeding from what most recent surveys discovered there, authoritative experts maintain that the facility's safe existence will last for only a few more years, provided there are no elemental disasters or man-made cataclysms.
According to expert estimates, the remainder of fissionable fuel inside the sarcophagus poses a major menace, too, as a source of new self-sustained nuclear chain reactions. Since then, many useful suggestions have been voiced, yet none of these meet the necessary requirements in full.
A general scheme to implement measures involving the shelter facility, which contains 22 individual and very task-specific points, was endorsed only in early 1997.
The key, strategic objective remains to fully remove, deactivate and isolate radionuclear materials.
Ukraine has voiced its readiness to contribute as its share about $50 million to directly implement the said scheme, as well as $100 million to support the zone's infrastructure to ensure the facility's safety.
However, to fully implement what we have planned to do, additional financial and intellectual resources will have to be mustered, and today's meeting is called to facilitate this.
Yet, as all of us understand, this is just the beginning. Meanwhile, the project's value and significance are hard to overestimate now that we are faced with a host of technogenic risks and hazards.
So, investing in the project's implementation goes beyond investing just in one's own safety and that of one's descendants.
It is a potent challenge and a unique opportunity to develop and apply previously unknown technologies and equipment, which will not only minimize the nuclear accident's aftermath but prevent any such disasters in the future.
We should also bear in mind that organizing the sarcophagus facility's safe functioning is, though an important and significant step, but one element in the broad context of solving the Chornobyl problem.
Ukraine was the first to realize the necessity of shutting down the Chornobyl plant, and remains the party most interested is doing so. However, a great number of objective reasons, primarily the vital need to rely upon the nation's entire stock of electrical energy resources against the background of chronic shortages within the power supply system, make it necessary to exercise flexible and prudent attitudes to the plant's destiny.
A principal decision has been made on the plant's closure, and we have no intention of changing it. However, Ukraine will be unable to implement it without commissioning additional power-generating facilities to offset the loss.
We cannot ignore the fact that the shutdown of the Chornobyl plant will leave thousands of workers without jobs. And they are people who have been sparing no effort and even sacrificing their health to curb the nuclear menace; thus, they deserve the world community's gratitude and respect. Should their daily exploits be ignored, and should one be indifferent to their destinies?
Ladies and gentlemen: I am convinced that the issues I've raised in this speech demand a search for optimal solutions, and coordinated and joint efforts on the part of all nations.
The "Chornobyl syndrome" is a Ukrainian phenomenon solely from the angle of geography. It is the sword of Damocles that jeopardizes the lives, health and well-being of all nations and every living creature on earth.
There are no borders capable of protecting human beings against the worst technogenic disaster in human history, against what is the most devastating and merciless of all elemental disasters: the nuclear menace.
The Chornobyl accident's tragic consequences annually add to growing mortality rates, emergence and aggravation of diseases, and contamination of the natural environment. The Chornobyl bell tolls to alert us to the danger posed by the so-called "peaceful atom." We cannot alter what has happened. Yet, with this bitter lesson taught to us, we can and must prevent new catastrophies. We can and must avoid new sacrifices and lower the risks of repeating such fatal errors.
Ladies and gentlemen: Having fallen victim to the grim disaster, Ukraine is fully and morally entitled to appeal to the global community for support and aid. This aid helps not Ukraine, but all of us.
I would like to believe that this appeal will not go unheaded. There is no time left to delay, to postpone decision-making. If the world fails to hear the warning message, both we and our descendants will have to pay.
I think it might be appropriate here to cite the wise King Solomon's words: "Do not refrain from doing good for the needy, when it is in your hands to do so. Do not say to your neighbor: Go and come again and tomorrow I will help you, when you can help today."
Thank you for your attention and support.
Following are remarks delivered by Vice-President Al Gore at the Chornobyl pledging conference held in New York on November 20.
My friends, I know you have been hard at work as allies, as partners and as concerned citizens in addressing the dangerous legacy of one of the world's greatest human and environmental tragedies - the Chornobyl explosion of 1986. It is an honor to be here as the representative of the United States, but also of the G-7, which this year we chair. And let me offer a special welcome to my colleagues from the G-7 who met in Denver to discuss Chornobyl, each of whom is participating with us today. Thank you all very much.
When reactor No. 4 of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disintegrated in a blast of steam, flaming graphite and deadly radionuclides, the promise of a new season of renewal and hope gave way to a long, sad winter of suffering that remains with us to this day.
Chornobyl caused the complete social disintegration of whole communities. It caused dangerous radiation exposure of millions of people in the former Soviet Union alone. Half a million courageous men and women involved in the clean-up and medical care of survivors would not escape the radioactive fall-out. Thousands of clean-up workers have died to date - and the death toll continues to rise. In all, well over 50 million curies of radioactivity were released during the accident. This is dozens the times of radiation emitted by the atomic explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki - about one million times as much as the Three Mile Island accident of 1979.
And its effects still linger. They are measured in the anxiety of young Ukrainian and Belarusian and Russian parents who hope and pray that their newborns will grow healthy and whole. They are measured by the degraded natural resources that trace a poisoned arc across Ukraine, through Belarus, into Russia and reaching as far as Scandinavia.
And they are measured by the uncertainty that we all share as we wonder whether one day another nuclear disaster might once again unleash its fury. The human mind can not easily imagine the social, economic and environmental consequences if it were to do so.
The British author G.K. Chesterton said at the earlier part of our century that, "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men [and women] however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." My friends, the time to act is now.
So today, with this pledging conference, let us - the community of nations - begin a new journey - perhaps even a historic journey - towards a more secure and safe future for Chornobyl.
A decade after the disaster, international experts have agreed that the hastily constructed shelter has deteriorated and could collapse if steps are not taken soon. In a unique gesture, these experts from companies around the world pooled their talents and ideas to create a single plan, the Shelter Implementation Plan.
The U.S. is proud to commit a $78 million share to this project. Ukraine has committed a $50 million in-kind contribution, plus an additional $100 million in-kind to ensure the necessary infrastructure is in place.
But despite these already significant contributions, an additional $400 million is needed to complete the shelter project.
This pledging conference is the first step in an international effort to secure this additional support.
While not all the funds are needed this year, we should set the goal for today high, for it will launch us far toward the final total of approximately $760 million we need to raise over the next few years. We seek your help especially for the year 1999 and beyond, as the funds provided by the G-7 and Ukraine will only cover the first year's costs.
The task before us is not an easy one. We have tremendous work ahead of us. And we must summon the very best of our mettle and our might and our will to help ensure - once and for all - that the Chornobyl sarcophagus is stabilized, and the shelter project at last is completed. Stabilizing and improving the safety of the enormous shelter which surrounds the radioactive remains of the destroyed unit 4 reactor is a critical part of the support needed to assist Ukraine in meeting the 2000 deadline for closure of Chornobyl.
Some may ask why should we care at all? The reasons are very simple:
One is human - so many have suffered. There remains the potential that more could suffer still, and so we seek to avoid further tragedy.
One reason is global - Chornobyl was one of the key events of the 20th century that made us understand that we are all neighbors and share in global environment. Nuclear safety problems are not just national, but are a threat to the environment of an interlinked planet. The Black Sea basin, of which Ukraine is part, links up with Caucasus states and Central Asia, with the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, and with Europe. One step beyond in each direction, and the whole world is linked.
That is why each of our nations has a great stake in a secure, prosperous and independent Ukraine - a Ukraine that is emerging as a profoundly important part of the architecture for a seamless post-Cold War Europe.
And President Kuchma, let me say that we praise the steps you have already taken to promote Ukraine's integration into this new architecture. Just this year you reached agreements with all your neighbors - landmark agreements that set the course for a new turn in history with Russia, Poland, Romania and Belarus. We were all proud as well when Ukraine joined NATO's 16 leaders in Madrid to launch a historic partnership that integrated Ukraine more deeply into Europe's security structures.
But the future of these reforms cannot be taken for granted. A more prosperous - and democratic - future will only take hold with the active commitment of all those who truly believe in freedom and the right of all people to have a voice in their political and economic destinies. President Clinton and I - and each of us here today - are not neutral bystanders. That is why this year the United States is providing $300 million in grants and $300 million in credits as a sign of our commitment and engagement in support of reforms in Ukraine.
It is why we also have supported you every step of the way in your courageous decision, in accordance with the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding with the G-7, to close Chornobyl permanently by the year 2000, and I commend you for your leadership on this critical issue.
Let us never forget, Chornobyl wasn't simply an act of God. It was caused first and foremost by man. It was a product of a closed authoritarian system that was not accountable to its citizens for its actions. It also served as a powerful symbol of what can happen when irresponsible leaders and closed societies approach such overwhelmingly powerful technologies like nuclear energy with hubris, naiveté and even disdain.
This, perhaps, is one of the most enduring lessons of Chornobyl - a lesson we'd do well to remember at this pledging conference - that only in freedom can people claim their rightful destiny to live in safety and security. Only in freedom can people insist on public health systems that work and on natural resources that are safeguarded and clean. We all have a stake in these principles. And we come together today to pay tribute to their undeniable force and their capacity to make this world a better place for us all.
Many nations are here today, representing many different cultures, but similar aspirations unite us all - each of us wants our children to have a brighter future. So let us then do this for our children's future - for Ukraine's children - so that when they read Chornobyl's history, they will read not just of failure, but of human fortitude and a commitment to join hands to transform this tragedy into a monument for freedom and hope.
Thank you and God bless you all.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 14, 1997, No. 50, Vol. LXV
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