Re: Depleted Uranium

[Richard Hugus <rhugus@cape.com>]

NATO's bombs cause environmental disaster

Written May 16, 1999 by peg:greenleft in igc:greenleft.news

As NATO continues its bombing of Serbia and Kosova, more and more evidence
of the social and human catastrophe it is creating is filtering out to the
rest of the world. However, one aspect of the devastation is barely being
reported by the Western media: the environmental carnage being inflicted on
not only Serbia but the whole region. In their appeals to stop the bombing,
the New Green Party in Belgrade and the Ecological Party from Tirana have
described the massive humanitarian and ecological costs to the people of
the region. The following is from a report compiled by MITCHEL COHEN from
the Red Balloon Collective and the Brooklyn Greens.

Early in April, a leader of the Yugoslavian Green Party warned that NATO
missiles were beginning to contaminate the water supply for much of eastern
Europe. ``I warn you that Serbia is one of the greatest sources of
underground waters in Europe and that the contamination will be felt in the
whole surrounding area, all the way to the Black Sea'', Branka Jovanovic
reported from Belgrade. Her worst fears have apparently come true. On the
first day of the NATO air strikes, March 24, the municipality of Grocka was
hit where the Vinca nuclear reactor is situated. The site contains a great
stockpile of nuclear waste. No US media reported this.

The municipality of Pancevo was hit, in which the petrochemical factory and
a factory for the production of artificial fertilisers are situated. They
were bombed again two weeks later.The municipality of Baric was also hit.
Baric houses a large complex for the production of chloride, using Bhopal
technology. ``It is not necessary for me to explain what the blowing up of
one of such factories would represent'', Jovanovic said. ``Not only
Belgrade, which is situated at a distance of 10 kilometres, but the rest of
Europe would be endangered.''

On the second day of bombing, a chemical factory in the Belgrade suburb of
Sremcica was bombed. Also hit was a rocket fuel storage area, causing
releases into the surrounding area and water. Jovanovic also reports that
four national parks were bombed, and that the depleted uranium weaponry
first used against Iraq, responsible for thousands of cases of leukaemia
and other cancers in children, is now being used against Yugoslavia.

In the US the news is well-scrubbed so that no blood leaks: [A typical news
report would read] "NATO bombers continue to hit and cripple Yugoslavia's
oil refineries."  Compare that to the detailed story filed by Tom Walker,
reporting from Belgrade for the London Times on April 19:

 "A towering cloud of toxic gases looms over Belgrade after warplanes, on
the 25th night of the NATO onslaught, hit a petrochemicals plant in the
northern outskirts of the city. An ecological disaster was unfolding
yesterday after NATO bombed a combined petrochemicals, fertiliser and
refinery complex on the banks of the Danube in the northern outskirts of
Belgrade. A series of detonations that shook the whole city early yesterday
sent a toxic cloud of smoke and gas hundreds of feet into the night sky. In
the dawn the choking cloud could be seen spreading over the entire northern
skyline. Among the cocktail of chemicals billowing over hundreds of
thousands of homes were the toxic gas phosgene, chlorine and hydrochloric
acid. Workers at the industrial complex in Pancevo panicked and released
tons of ethylene dichloride, a carcinogen, into the Danube, rather than
risk seeing it blown up. At least three missile strikes left large areas of
the plant  crippled, and oil and petrol from the damaged refinery area
flowed into the river, forming slicks up to 12 miles long. Temperatures in
the collapsing plant were said to have risen to more than 1000 degrees
centigrade.

 Asked about the hazard from chemical smoke, NATO said there was 'a lot
more smoke coming from burning villages in Kosovo'. Meanwhile, in Pancevo,
dozens of people reported suffering from poisoning due to the bombings of
refineries, fertiliser facilities and a vinyl chloride and ethylene plant.
Huge quantities of toxic matter such as chlorine, ethylene dichloride and
vinyl chloride monomer were released. Transformer stations were also
heavily damaged, and very toxic transformer oil flowed out. The health
ministry could not find enough gas masks to distribute; residents were told
to breathe through scarves soaked in sodium bicarbonate as a precaution
against showers of nitric acid.


"By burning down enormous quantities of naphtha and its derivatives, more
than 100 highly toxic chemical compounds that pollute water, air and soil
are released, endangering the entire Balkan ecosystem, said New Green Party
scientist Luka Radoja. Radoja points out that the NATO bombing is happening
just as many crops vital for survival are supposed to be planted: corn,
sunflower, soy, sugar beets and vegetables. As a result, the planting of
2.5 million hectares of land has been halted. The lack of fuel for
agricultural machines will have catastrophic results, because it leads to
hunger of the entire population. When you add to this the poisoning of the
water, air and soil, the catastrophe becomes a cataclysm. As an expert who
has spent his entire work on the fields of this up-until-now ecologically
pure part of Europe, I am a witness to the disappearing of the most
beautiful garden of Europe'', Radoja said sadly. In fact, the ecological
crisis only grows worse. With the bombing of petrochemical facilities,
NATO's air strikes have come perilously close to hitting tanks containing
tens of thousands of tons of explosive chemicals. According to Miralem
Dzindo, one such tank, containing 20,000 tons of liquid ammonia, was
recently grazed by NATO missiles. ``If that had gone up in flames, much of
Belgrade would have been poisoned. The pollution in the Danube and in the
atmosphere over Belgrade `knows no frontiers'.''

Dzindo warned neighbouring countries that "the poison clouds could soon be
with them". Indeed, the chief inspector of the Macedonian Ministry of
Environment, Miroslav Balaburski, said that furans and dioxins released by
bomb explosions are being carried long distances. The pollution is entering
Macedonia by air and by the river Lepenec, which crosses the border between
Macedonia and Yugoslavia, according to Zoran Bozinovski, a speaker for the
Centre for Radioisotopes, a Macedonian government institution based in
Skopje. Ivan Grozdanov, a chemist at the centre, made the further point
that burning aircraft fuel is the primary source of stratospheric nitrogen
oxides, which are severely damaging to the ozone layer. As Robert Fisk,
reporting from Serbia for the London Independent in mid-April, commented:
``Shame on the leader of the French Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and on
Joschka Fischer, the Green Party leader and foreign minister of Germany,
who are making this war possible and without whose support the NATO
bombardment of Yugoslavia would fall apart. ``Bombing a civilian
population, destroying their water supply, poisoning their crops - this is
the 'Green alternative'?

No. It is the very essence of modern warfare, of advanced technologies
specifically designed and utilised to inflict terror and ravage human
beings and nature alike for their refusal to accede to the demands of
international capital.''

---------------------------------------------
BALKANS: Bombs Create Eco-Justice Disaster. Originally posted in IGC member
conference May 17, 1999
Posted by: igcnewsdesk@igc.org
"Green Left #361 May 19, 1999"



First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by Green Left Weekly.
Correspondence and hard copy subsciption inquiries: greenleft@peg.apc.org
or visit                              http://www.peg.apc.org/~greenleft