Marples address kicks off Toronto commemorations (05/05/96)

Marples address kicks off Toronto commemorations

by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - In even tones that masked the passion of his arguments, on April 20 in the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall, Dr. David R. Marples pulled no punches in his outline of the growing catalogue of ills that beset humanity living in the shadow of "Chornobyl: Ten Years Later."

He charged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and agencies of the European Union with "conscious distortions of fact" in their reports on the immediate aftermath and long-term health consequences of the accident, and he assailed the decision by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to provide funding for the completion of additional nuclear reactors in Ukraine as "irresponsible."

This was the address that kicked off the Toronto area's 10th anniversary commemorations of the catastrophe at the Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station (CAES), sponsored by the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's Toronto branch.

In introductory remarks, Serhiy Borovyk, Ukraine's Consul general in Toronto recalled bitterly that because of the Soviet leadership's silence about the lingering danger, he had taken his children to the May Day Parade on Kyiv's Khreshchatyk.

He also paid homage to those "who have dedicated their careers to bring the truth to the world" about Chornobyl, including the University of Alberta historian Dr. Marples, whose most recent contribution to the field include an entry on Chornobyl in the Encyclopedia Brittanica's 1996 Annual Yearbook, and an article in the April 1996 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Dr. Marples led off with a bold charge against the officials of the IAEA, the WHO and the former Soviet government for "conscious distortion of fact," asserting several statements were demonstrably inaccurate - including the contention that the only observable health effects were thyroid abnormalities, and that most other ailments were psychosomatic, due to stress and fears resulting from the circulation of an excess of information about the "incident," as the nuclear industry called it.

He denounced those officials who claimed that thyroid cancer, a form of tumor that spreads rapidly through the body if untreated or not excised, as "a relatively harmless form of cancer."

"I didn't know there was a harmless form of cancer," Dr. Marples rejoined.

The Chornobyl specialist called the Ukrainian government's request to the G-7 countries for $4.4 billion (U.S.), to pay for the complete decommissioning and closure of the crippled CAES and replacement of it with a non-nuclear power plant, "entirely justified."

He also said the $3.1 billion offered at the recent G-7 summit in Moscow was an improvement of the previous offer, but "quite clearly, still inadequate."

Dr. Marples commented on the EBRD's offer to finance the completion of nuclear power stations in Rivne and Khmelnytsky to compensate for the shutdown of Chornobyl. "This, in my view, is irresponsible," he said, contending that such a policy "exacerbates the problem of the already dangerous condition of Ukraine's reactors."

He faulted the G-7 countries and Russia for persisting to view nuclear power as the "only conceivable option" in confronting Ukraine's future energy needs. Dr. Marples claimed this was a noxious side-effect of the U.S. government's practice of "pouring 60 percent of its energy research budget over the past two decades only into nuclear power." He said Ukraine suffers from past "Soviet decisions to do likewise."

Turning to the question of the human toll of the CAES meltdown, Dr. Marples asserted: "The single most persistent lie that must be dispensed with, if there is to be any truth told about the Chornobyl disaster, is that there were 31 dead. This figure has no validity."

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization, various levels of the Soviet government have all repeated the total ad nauseam."

In closing, the historian noted that the principal danger lies in that, particularly in the West, people will forget that Chornobyl's aftereffects are a continuous and growing problem, not a single cataclysmic event to be commemorated with bowed heads and cautionary tales.

"It's not something that happened and is over," Dr. Marples said, "The more time goes by, the more the problem develops."

"It is much worse now than it was five years ago," the Alberta-based professor added, "and in five years it will be much worse than it is now."

The forcefulness of Dr. Marples's presentation was somewhat blunted by a depressingly low turnout of about 65 people, emphasized by the cavernous dimensions of the 1,500-seat Convocation Hall. Not only did it lend damning credence to Dr. Marples' anxiety that Chornobyl will be remembered only on anniversaries, it raised the possibility that it might not be remembered at all.

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