EDITORIAL: Chornobyl continues (04/21/96)

EDITORIAL

Chornobyl continues

Ten years ago, when the fourth reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian SSR exploded, spewing radiation into the atmosphere, the Soviet Union kept silent. True, the Kremlin leadership set up a government commission within 12 hours after the explosion. But, it did not begin evacuating the residents of Prypiat, the nuclear station's "company town," until 36 hours later; and it did not make any public statement about the accident until 48 hours later. That announcement told the Soviet citizenry and the world precious little. (Its text appears on the front page of this issue.) Due to the information vacuum, news stories had to rely on unofficial sources whose reports could not be confirmed.

The Soviet deception had begun.

May Day celebrations in Kyiv went ahead as planned, and Soviet television showed faces of smiling children marching down the Kheshchatyk. Journalists, meanwhile, were not allowed to travel to Kyiv; that was allowed only three weeks later and then only to the towns were the first evacuees had been resettled. The USSR declined offers of international assistance. A small delegation of Ukrainian Americans, escorted by Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York, called on the Soviet and Ukrainian SSR missions to the United Nations in hopes of learning more about the disaster and finding out how our community here could help. Their efforts, too were rebuffed. Everything is under control, said the Soviet regime's spokesmen.

And the deception continued.

On May 14, Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, architect of perestroika and glasnost, uttered his first words about the Chornobyl tragedy - 18 days after the accident. He reported nine dead and 299 hospitalized with radiation sickness. Meanwhile, the secret minutes of the Politburo's Chornobyl working group indicate that thousands were hospitalized at that very moment.

The USSR had failed its first true test of glasnost, reverting completely to its well-honed policy of deception.

In August of that year, at the Vienna meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Soviets reported that 50 million curies of radiation had been released by the Chornobyl accident. Updated research has now shown that the amount of radiation released by Chornobyl is between 150 million and 200 million curies. (The Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. released a mere 15 curies.)

The deception was continuing - and it was succeeding.

In the succeeding years, the truth slowly began to leak out about Chornobyl and its consequences, and the populace became increasingly more disillusioned with Soviet lies. A Green movement arose in Ukraine, and the first anti-nuclear protests took place in 1988. New political groups began to make their voices heard; soon, the issue became independence - for in an independent Ukraine, the people would have their say, they would determine their own future. Chornobyl, thus, was the beginning of the end of Soviet power. In 1990 on July 16, the newly elected Parliament voted to declare Ukraine's state sovereignty and to proclaim the three non-nuclear principles. Just two weeks later, it voted to close down Chornobyl by 1995 and to work out a program to eliminate all nuclear plants from Ukraine. In 1991 - the year it became independent - Ukraine adopted a moratorium on the construction of any more reactors.

Thus, Ukraine showed its resolve to be rid of nukes. But, energy realities soon intervened. With Russia pressuring the newly independent state and cheap oil and gas suddenly in short supply, Ukraine was compelled to rethink its position about closing down its nuclear plants. The money was simply not there, and the country sorely needed energy. Winter of 1993 saw many of Ukraine's streets and buildings darkened, transportation running irregularly and brown-outs for several hours a day in areas outside of Kyiv.

The energy crunch continues to this day, and Ukraine continues to look to the world for support in its wise decision to shut down Chornobyl, re-seal the stricken fourth reactor and seek out alternate sources of energy. There is much hope that the G-7 meeting in Moscow on April 19-20 will honor its previous pledges and make new commitments to help Ukraine out of its nuclear morass.

Meanwhile, Chornobyl's horrific effects - medical, psychological, environmental, social, etc. - continue. As shown on the pages of this special anniversary issue, there is no agreement by various authorities, researchers and specialists on the quantitative effects of Chornobyl. But there is agreement that the effects are there, touching the everyday lives of people in Ukraine and Belarus and parts of Russia - and that Chornobyl will be with us for many more decades to come.

As Ukrainian Member of Parliament Volodymyr Yavorivsky said at Columbia University last week: "The Chornobyl disaster is a catastrophe of the 21st century, not the 20th. ... Humanity does not comprehend its scale. ... The real disaster is only beginning."

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