Chernobyl 's Generation

 

The United Nations recently released a report on the long-term consequences of the reactor meltdown in 1986. Astonishingly, its headline grabbing news was that fewer than 50 people died as a direct cause of the disaster. To muddy the waters of the true enormity of the casualties, it further suggested that the region around Belarus was so steeped in poverty and pollution that the additional health hazard from the radiation scarcely dented the mortality figures. Ironically it is a view that is categorically denied in the UN's own webpages. Some journalists may have checked on the U.N.'s Chernobyl site, where the contradiction between this report and the UN's position on Chernobyl is obvious. Few, if any, commented on the thousands of documents detailing the global extent of the catastrophe. One or two people sited the International Atomic Energy Agency's involvement in compiling the report. None suggested that this report could be at best bad science and at worse lies.

 

The facts are clear enough. 520 dangerous types of radiation were shot into the stratosphere with enough force to contaminate an area the size of Europe. Much of this radiation is still settling around the globe. 31 people were vaporised, the half a million or so strong clean up and containment crew were all exposed to very high levels of radiation. Chernobyl city is a ghost town and villages are deserted. The effect on Belarus' economy was catastrophic. Deprived of a quarter of the agricultural land and a fifth of the huge forests that surround it the region was crippled. Still one in ten of the yearly budget is consumed in managing the consequences of a disaster that happened a generation ago. Gomel, probably the most radioactive capital on the planet, has seen the life expectancy plummet and cancers, leukaemia and birth defects cripple the 500,000 children who live there.

 

In the face of what seems to be an unmitigated tragedy why should the Atomic Energy Agency produce such a bland shrug of the shoulders? The answer has little to do with the radiation, and nothing to do with the crumbling concrete mass that was poured over the rector core. It also has little to do with solving the ongoing crisis. Despite the reports reassuring title "a strategy for recovery" it suggests no enlightened action on the massive ground water contamination as the concrete case is leached by the heavy rainfall and vicious snows. It offers no help to the eight million people who were directly in the fallout zone. It denies recognition of the radiation victims, their children and their diseases.

 

Strangely the report has a lot to say about public awareness. It is heavily critical of state aid to the victims, even going as far as to suggest that all the hype about radiation has made people unjustifiably paranoid. Bizarrely it urges that people adapt to life with radiation. "Efforts are needed to identify sustainable ways to make use of the most affected areas that reflect the radiation hazard, but also maximise the economic potential for the benefit of the community," It says.

 

Then in a paragraph that openly sites humanitarian aid as a bigger problem than Chernobyl it declares:

 

"Continuation of the present policies by the three affected States, the international community and charitable organisations will only serve to prolong the dependency culture that has developed over the past 15 years, and the associated negative aspects of health and well-being."

 

In short this means that the extremely poor health of the citizens of Belarius is not because of radioactivity, but because of state aid. To solve this means taking the alleged support away from the people. To take away free health care amid such desperate poverty, would be an act of mass murder, but to privatise the schools and shut the libraries, to bring multi-nationals in to exploit the cheap labour, to neglect the sewers and poison the water, to stop international monitoring of the effects, and most horrifying of all to increase the population living in the contaminated zones, is an act of torture.

 

It would also close the door on Chernobyl. If we are to believe such a monstrous fiction, then we must conclude that nuclear power is safe, people can easily live in contaminated areas and that the deadly core of the reactor is no longer a global threat.

 

After the extremely enlightening glimpse of the Atomic Energy Agency in action in Iraq perhaps we should not be surprised by its attitude, but the body is part of the UN and as such we can now no longer trust the UN to deliver impartial, non-political and useful advice and strategies for dealing with global disasters. Following their lead will only exasperate an already morbid condition.

 

It could be argued that such a denial of a people's suffering is on a par with the lunatic fringe of holocaust deniers.