Warren Christopher at Okhmadyt Hospital (05/12/96)

Warren Christopher at Okhmadyt Hospital

Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited the Okhmadyt Hospital on March 19, during his six-hour visit to the Ukrainian capital. Following are excerpts of his remarks.

... I've just had a tremendously moving time having a tour of this hospital. It brought home to me the terrible harm that the Chornobyl tragedy continues to do to the people of Ukraine. I particularly want to salute and thank the doctors and the nurses, all the staff of this hospital for the dedicated and heroic work that they do. As we all know, the Chornobyl tragedy has caused thousands of deaths and severely taxed Ukrainian natural resources. It continues to reach into the future to claim new victims, and indeed the specter of another Chornobyl continues to hang over this region.

In my brief remarks today I want to speak about what the United States is doing to help Ukraine to overcome this terrible tragedy. I want to touch more broadly on the environmental crises in all the newly independent states, and I want to explain why these issues are so critical to our diplomatic engagement in this region.

In the last two years the United States has delivered over 900 tons of medical supplies to the hospitals of Ukraine. We have helped Ukraine to improve the safety of its nuclear power plants, and we have also helped it to strengthen its regulation of nuclear power. On April 26, the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy, we will deliver another 10 million dollars in aid, medical relief, and we will also provide a mobile laboratory that will enable the Ukrainian government to monitor radiation and environmental contamination throughout the country. We are working with our G-7 partners to help Ukraine meet its commitments to close the Chornobyl reactor by the year 2000, a project that still requires a great deal of work and funding.

It is necessary that we remind ourselves that Chornobyl was not a natural disaster. It was the product of a closed, authoritarian government. It was one of the most cruel legacies of communism, a system that managed to produce virtually all the evils of industrialization with very few of its benefits. One of the surest safeguards against another Chornobyl is a skeptical, open, democratic, questioning society. ...

... it should not take a tragedy like Chornobyl to teach us this obvious truth, that we have a responsibility to protect public health and to safeguard the resources upon which our prosperity as well as our health are based. We must meet that responsibility, for the sake of our people, our security and our future. ...

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