Tuesday, May 11, 1999.

Chernobyl, again? – Ecological risk of war in my country

    At 2:00pm the emergency core-cooling system, which would draw power and affect test result is shut of. This is the first of many safety violations.

    This was start of nightmare called Chernobyl. The blasts knocked aside a thousand ton lid atop the reactor core and ripped open the building’s side and roof. Several tons of uranium dioxide fuel and fission products such as cesium 137 and iodine 131, as well as tons of burning graphite flung into the night.

    Are we witnesses of the new one? In some of NATO attacks on my country ecological catastrophe was avoided only by pure luck.

    I will try to describe first effects of attacks on Yugoslav chemical industry, and then effects of usage of depleted uranium bluets and possible effects of attack on nuclear institute nearby Belgrade. I hope that after this text you will find the will and way to act in your country to stop this attacks.

    In the city of Pancevo, virtually a suburb of Belgrade, air strikes had repeatedly hit the oil refinery, the fertilizer factory and the petrochemical plant — all among the largest installations of their type in South-Eastern.

    The air strikes against the oil refinery may have been understandable, given that a legitimate military or strategic target is indeed the fuel supply, which services the Armed Forces. But the total value of the damage in Pancevo was about $1.3-billion, and only $650-million of this at the oil refinery, which was hit a total of three times (by April 19, 1999).

    The flames at the Pancevo oil refinery, soaring 20 meters into the air, and billowing black smoke continued unabated two days after the last of the strikes.

    The nearby HIP Petrochemija petrochemical plant was also severely hit, and the careful strikes were not an accidental spillover from the hits on the oil refinery. Several facts are important with this. There was clearly no strategic or military value to the HIP plant. But specifically the strike against HIP Petrochemija highlighted the gratuitous campaign against the civil population, rather than military targets. HIP manufactures chlorine for use in PVC (production of plastics). Had chlorine stockpiles been hit, then Pancevo would have lost its entire population to the toxic outflow into the atmosphere. HIP executives, working with town officials, feared air strike damage when the attacks began and worked feverishly to process and move the chlorine. Moving it untreated would have been difficult and would have merely led to further problems.

    At the last minute, the facility was largely emptied of chlorine when the strikes occurred. Some amounts of chlorine have been in the facility in the moment of attack, and it was released in atmosphere.

    On March 24, 1999, however, a Romanian train was at Pancevo railway yard when air strikes began hitting targets less than a kilometer away. About 800 tones of chlorine were aboard the train. Had it been hit, most of Belgrade’s population would have been killed by the toxic outflow.

    Not all of the toxins came from the oil refinery or the petrochemical plant.

    A major fertilizer plant, not far from the refinery and the HIP plant was also hit: another clear civil target. Here, had the plant’s liquid ammonia stockpiles been hit, the environmental damage would have been enormous, as in the case of the chlorine. As it was, there was sufficient chlorine and liquid ammonia, coupled with the petroleum which was hit, to create the high toxicity levels in the city and to produce an normous, lingering cloud, which was moving toward Belgrade. The wind shifted and much of the cloud dissipated into the upper atmosphere to flow over other parts of Europe.

    In the second largest Yugoslav city, Novi Sad, oil refinery was also attacked several times. The modern refinery was build by American companies. Every part of refinery was independent from other parts of refinery so flames from one part of refinery weren’t able to set fire on the other parts of refinery. Despite the fact that after first two attacks refinery in Novi Sad was heavily damaged and unusable, NATO proceeded with attacks. Since it was build by American companies I don’t believe that NATO didn’t have documentation. Refinery was attacked until every part of it was destroyed.

    The black clouds coming form burning refinery were on the sky of Novi Sad for days. The rain these days in Novi Sad was black and acid. If a drop of that rain had fallen in your eye, you would felt ache.

    This was the consequence of attack on refinery which was prepared for it. If it wasn’t prepared after explosion and burning the fuel in it, for 5 minutes, Novi Sad would be left without oxygen. Nobody in the city and its surrounding area would survive.

    In all this cases NATO wasn’t doing anything to avoid possible catastrophe.

    What was the consequence of these attacks? Both Pancevo-Belgrade and Novi Sad are in agricultural area of Yugoslavia. Toxic outflow to atmosphere with rain came into the soil – chlorine, additives and heavy metals used in production of gasoline, are toxic and can cause cancer. Eaten with food, some of those substances will be accumulated in the organism, and they will stay there until the end of life, causing long term effects (such as child birth defects).

    People in Pancevo and Novi Sad and their surrounding area inhaled these toxic gases for days. The effects on them will be much larger. But I don’t consider myself lucky because I don't live in these cities; whole my country is going to feel the effects of these attacks.

    NATO aircraft are attacking Yugoslav targets with special bullets, which contain depleted uranium. The controversial rounds, which contain depleted uranium, were used extensively by U.S. A-10 warplanes to destroy the Iraqi tanks and other armored vehicles during the Gulf War. When fired, the armor-piercing rounds leave radioactive trail. Upon impact, they disperse depleted uranium dust.

    Maj. Gen. Charles Wald, who is the Joint Chiefs’ vice director for strategic plans and policy in US army, said “I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve been around the A-10s for a long time and I know that I’ve seen the munitions handler put these bullets in the aircraft, holding on to them for 20 years, so they’ve done a lot of scientific studies on those things and there really doesn’t seem to be a severe problem, so I don’t think there’s a problem at all with [the rounds]. There’s never been a problem for any of us so it’s kind of old news.”

    According to the National Gulf War Resource Center, a coalition of veterans groups based in Washington, some 300 tons of depleted uranium was fired by U.S. aircraft at Iraqi troops in the 1991 Gulf War.

    I don't believe that bombs with depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process used for making atomic bombs and nuclear fuel, are not dangerous like NATO says. The invisible piece of it might kill me or destroy the future of my children if I drink water or eat food from areas where the attacks are taking place. My whole country is affected. I don't have another homeland.

    VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences nearby Belgrade is not attacked jet. I wish I could say that there is no real threat. Unfortunately, this is not the case yet. There is no any firm denial by NATO officials that the VINCA Institute was on the NATO target list for bombing, neither even any single indication that it was removed from the target list.

    Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences has two reactors, one active and the other (called “the Big”) conserved eight years ago, but significant amount of 235-U enriched and unused fuel is still in its interior. Highly radioactive material for everyday activities is also located in several research laboratories. There is about the 5,000 spent fuel rods that are stored in some 30 aluminum casks in a pool of water. There is also hangar full of barrels with low radioactive material (which was used in medicine).

    Therefore, we should not underestimate a risk to the region if the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Science, less than 30 miles from Belgrade, were bombed by NATO, whether intentionally or by mistake, particularly due to the consequences which would have much more serious and catastrophic effects.

    NATO is able to get all information about places where is radioactive material stored and amounts of it from experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Vienna who are well informed about the structure of the VINCA Institute and are perfectly aware of all potential risks.

    IAEA officials said there was no evidence that Yugoslavia was preparing to abandon its longstanding renunciation of nuclear weapons. Nor were there signs, they said, that elements within the military were diverting the uranium at Vinca or taking other steps that would suggest an intention to use the material to develop a bomb.

    After Pancevo, Novi Sad I pray to God that Vinca Institute is not next intentional or unintentional target and after attack on China embassy I am afraid that some old data would mark the end of history of the whole region (Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bosnia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania). In worst scenario nobody would be able to live in this region not for decades but for thousands of years.

    Instead of the conclusion, I would like to ask you to help us with sending a message to organizations for protection of human environment, Greenpeace and other ecological organizations in your country and demanding from them to act.

Igor
age 22, student