- BELGRADE ," Already
in Serbia the effects of NATO's depleted uranium munitions are apparently
being felt by members of the Yugoslav Army who fought in Kosovo. Two former
soldiers were recently discovered to have cancerous eye tumors. The Belgrade
weekly tabloid Nedeljni Telegraf recently reported that three officers
from the Army's Pristina Corps died of leukemia, while 10 others now suffer
from the disease; four of them terminally. They join the dozens of soldiers
involved with the wars in the Balkans now sick from what is being referred
to as ,"Balkans Syndrome.," Unfortunately, it wasn't until soldiers
from Western countries began dying of cancer and getting sick that depleted
uranium in the Balkans became an international issue for the corporate
media. A fact not lost on people here.
-
- ,"The West wouldn't give a damn if their troops
weren't getting sick and dying,," says 53 year-old taxi driver Nenad
Bulatovic. ,"If we get sick, that' s collateral damage. We call that
America's Milosevic Syndrome.,"
-
- While leading scientists and environmentalists in Serbia
are indeed concerned about the effects of DU munitions, they say it is
just the tip of the toxic iceberg. ,"Depleted uranium is just one
page in a very thick book of the ecological and health catastrophe caused
by the NATO bombing,," says Vukasin Pavlovic, Director of the Belgrade-based
ECOCenter.
-
- Pavlovic's group has just issued a ground-breaking report
titled ,"Environmental Impacts of the NATO War in Yugoslavia.,"
Though the report does deal with the question of depleted uranium, it seeks
to sound alarm bells about the lesser-publicized effects of NATO's targeting
of petrochemical factories, oil refineries and chemical plants during the
1999 bombing.
-
- "War-induced negative effects cannot be viewed as
collateral damage, because they are not induced by unintentional targeting,
but by the deliberate and planned destruction of industrial and other environmentally
hazardous systems,," the report states.
-
- During the bombing it became domestic wisdom not to eat
fish from the Danube River because of concerns the NATO bombardment had
contaminated the international waterway.
-
- Their fears are certainly not unfounded.
-
- One of the stunning revelations in the report is the
sheer quantity of toxins released into the Danube, the source of drinking
water for 10 million Europeans. The report highlights NATO's April 14-15th
strikes on the Petrochemical Industrial Complex in Pancevo, which lies
on the banks of the Danube, 10 miles outside of Belgrade. Within moments
of the bombings, a devastating toxic cocktail poured into the river. This
included some 3,000 tons of alkalis, 1,400 tons of vinyl-chloride monomers
(VCMs), 1,000 tons of ethylene dichloride and 800 tons of 33% hydrochloric
acid, according to the report. Attacks on the plant also resulted in an
estimated 20 tons of highly carcinogenic VCMs entering the atmosphere.
In 78 days of attacks, the petrochemical plant was bombed 9 times.
-
- ,"NATO didn't use chemical weapons during the bombing,,"
says Dr. Zorka Vukmirovic, a leading environmental physicist and one of
the authors of the report. ,"But indirectly it caused the effects
of chemical weapons use. If you release so many hazardous substances, major
air pollutants and carcinogens in the vicinity of big cities like Belgrade
and Nis, it is obviously a deliberate action against the civilian population.,"
-
- But NATO's attacks on the Pancevo petrochemical plant
are not limited to Serbia. Environmental groups and environment ministries
from throughout the Balkans have discovered contamination of the Danube
in several other countries. There are also studies from Greek environmentalists
that the bombing caused increased pollution levels in the air over the
northern Greek city of Xanthi.
-
- The ECOCenter's report also raises particular concern
over the repeated attacks on an oil refinery situated in a populated area
in Serbia's second largest city Novi Sad. The report estimates that over
the course of 12 NATO attacks on the refinery, some 80,000 tons of crude
oil were incinerated, exposing the city's residents to a high concentration
of hazardous, carcinogenic and toxic substances multiple times during the
bombing.
-
- ,"These compounds have a high cancer risk, particularly
when inhaled,," writes Professor Pavlovic. ,"Their deposition
in the environment also jeopardizes other environmental media, particularly
food storages and grain silos.,"
-
- ,"The people of Novi Sad are and will continue to
be victims of the NATO bombing,," says Dr. Vukmirovic.
-
- The report estimates that up to 50% of the sites targeted
by NATO warplanes were ,"industrial and other hazardous objects with
high environmental risks.," Professor Pavlovic is now calling for
modification of international war law conventions and standards. ,"Crimes
against nature and its ecosystems must be added to the list of war crimes,,"
he says. ,"International war law should confirm that ecocide, equal
to genocide, is the most harmful and most dangerous form of destruction
of nature.,"
-
- The environmental destruction wrought by NATO's attacks
continues to pierce through everyday life in Serbia. Dr. Vukmirovic says
she doesn't drink the milk from a leading dairy farm near Pancevo for fear
of contamination, ,"I only buy milk from Subotica (in the north of
Serbia),," she says. Professor Pavlovic admits, ,"I love fish
soup, but all of the scientists I know who are monitoring the Danube tell
me not to eat it, so I just go without.,"
-
- These sentiments are echoed at Green Markets around Belgrade
where people make it a practice of asking merchants where their food is
from. ,"We know they lie sometimes if they have goods from an area
heavily hit by NATO,," says Mirjana, a mother of 2. ,"It just
makes me feel better to ask.,"
-
- There are also fears in the agricultural sector here
that goods exported from Serbia will eventually require labels with warnings
about their safety.
-
- Though the discussion of depleted uranium is certainly
not new in Serbia, the current publicity makes it difficult to go anywhere
without encountering a discussion or mention of DU. ,"Carla Del Ponte
should take her depleted uranium out of this country before she takes Milosevic,,"
a 70-something pensioner said outside the press conference of the Chief
War Crimes Prosecutor when she was in Belgrade last week (He was not allowed
in to the press conference).
-
- In Kosovo, NATO has identified some 112 sites where it
acknowledges using depleted uranium munitions. But NATO has not given the
government in Belgrade a comprehensive list for the rest of Serbia. Estimates
from the Yugoslav Army say that as much as 1.5 tons of DU was dropped on
other areas of Serbia. Authorities in Belgrade have to date confirmed 5
sites in Serbia other than Kosovo where depleted uranium munitions were
used. Four of these have been fenced off and declared public health risks.
-
- Since NATO's bombing ended in June 1999, a number of
reports from international agencies have examined the environmental impact
of the NATO bombing. In several instances, these studies have supported
NATO's contention that the consequences are negligible. In the first visit
of the United Nations Environmental Program to Serbia weeks after the attacks
ended, the agency declared they found no negative impact of the use of
depleted uranium. When asked what methodology was used to search for DU
contamination, the head of the delegation, Pekka Havisto, said they had
taken random soil samples in Serbia. Scientists here say that's like trying
to find a needle in a haystack. Rather than publicizing the fact that NATO
refused to provide the UNEP with a map of areas targeted by DU munitions,
the agency elected to declare it had found no significant health risks.
-
- ,"The United Nations tried to diminish or reduce
the scope and negative environmental impacts of the NATO campaign,,"
says Professor Pavlovic.
-
- Eventually NATO released the map of 112 sites in Kosovo,
most likely a fraction of the actual total. Now, almost two years after
the bombing campaign started, the UN has begun analyzing the areas. But
that's just Kosovo. The rest of Serbia remains in the dark because of NATO's
refusal to make public the full extent of its DU use.
-
- Without a highly detailed map of areas hit by depleted
uranium, future health consequences may be the only way to discover where
measures might have been taken to prevent further tragedies.
-
- Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist based in
Belgrade. He reported live daily for Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! during
the 1999 NATO war and was one of the few foreign journalists in Belgrade
to witness the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in October. He can be reached
at jeremys@EUnet.yu
-
-
-
- Common Dreams NewsCenter is a non-profit news service
providing breaking news and views for the Progressive Community. www.commondreams.org
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