212 Letter from IWHO concerning non-publication of the Proceedings of the Conferences held in Geneva in 1995 and Kiev in 2001. See p. 592.
Meanwhile…
3. BANDAZHEVSKY’S PEREGRINATIONS IN THE WEST
After all his torments in prison, Bandazhevsky now faced the torments of exile. As soon as he arrived in France, he began to realise the extent of his powerlessness in the scientific desert in which he now found himself. The Regional Council of the Auvergne (the regional authority in charge of four “departments”), where he was now living, gave him a grant that was enough to buy food, but offered no possibility of continuing his scientific work. The project conceived by CRIIRAD to set up a “CRIIRAD-Bandazhevsky laboratory” in Belarus had come to nothing. The Belarusian authorities refused to register an international independent association—a private organisation which would therefore have been free from government influence, and was to have studied the effect of radioactive substances on humans and animals. Instead, Bandazhevsky had suggested, as a way of continuing the fight to obtain objective scientific data about the effects of radioactivity on the organism, that he and his wife Galina undertake scientific research with children from the Chernobyl area while they were convalescing abroad. In this way they could make use of the experience of different associations in other countries involved in the rehabilitation of children’s health, and to strengthen links with them. The aim was to set up a scientific project that was independent of the Republic of Belarus.
The Belarusian authorities interfered with the implementation of the project, by offering their services to CRIIRAD in providing information and helping them to find contacts from within official scientific circles. To Bandazhevsky’s surprise CRIIRAD accepted. It was over this issue that the Bandazhevskys and CRIIRAD went their separate ways. On 15th June 2007, in a letter explaining why he was leaving the project, Bandazhevsky wrote:
Such touching concern for science at Chernobyl is laughable, when the same authorities refused permission for an independent scientific laboratory to be set up jointly by myself, Galina and CRIIRAD. And meanwhile the government of Belarus approved the WHO/IAEA report about the medical consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, published on the 20th anniversary of the accident; when it cancelled most of the state subsidies for the liquidators.
By taking on the role of intermediary between scientific circles in Belarus and CRIIRAD, the Belarusian authorities are proposing a compromise, whose aim is to deprive me of CRIIRAD’s support in the battle to tell the truth about Chernobyl, and to reduce my influence on public opinion. This compromise excludes any possibility of independent scientific research, or of the results of that research being disseminated widely. By collaborating with CRIIRAD, the government of Belarus believes it will be able to exert real influence over me.
All of this, without any concern about the medical consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. The particular project that CRIIRAD is proposing in Belarus, authorised by the government, will be mainly humanitarian, offering whatever aid the government of Belarus permits to be given to the victims, while conducting scientific research, which will be strictly under their control. It will only have an appearance of being scientific. There is no other way of looking at it. I cannot see what interest there can be in conducting scientific research within a project of this kind, when it will be impossible to show objective results, and those results will not be used to improve people’s health. The present government in Belarus would not allow that. Collaborating with the authorities in Belarus in this sort of project means consenting to the situation that exists there currently regarding the medical consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, where millions of people are subjected to permanent radioactive contamination because they live in an area where no-one should live.
I cannot close my eyes to the fact that people continue to ingest radioactive elements in the food they eat and that they continue to live in areas contaminated by radionuclides. They are deprived of the necessary preventive and medical help and of rehabilitation. Therefore I will devote my strength and talents to continue the struggle to tell the truth about the medical consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, without making any compromises. That struggle is intimately connected to the struggle for democracy and human rights within the country, and above all with the right to health.
While he languished in inaction and isolation in his flat in Clermont-Ferrand, the local authority that had so generously offered, in the presence of journalists, to pay his rent and give him a mobile telephone during their humanitarian welcome in summer 2007, were now asking to be repaid. Yury Bandazhevsky, seeing no opportunities on the horizon in this foreign country, found the strength to drag himself out of the stagnant mire and to leave for Berlin with almost no preparation. He was invited to stay with a kind man who organised convalescent camps for children from Chernobyl. But he soon saw that there was nothing for him in Germany and he left for Strasbourg to stay with a family that he did not really know, who invited him to come and stay with them. In a letter on the 27th October 2007, Bandazhevsky explained:
I didn’t set off to Germany light-heartedly. I was forced to leave Clermont-Ferrand because there seemed to be no possibility of getting a contract for work in France and because of other financial problems. The abortive trip to Germany is simply the continuation of everything that has happened to me over the last 8 years of my life.
In Strasbourg he received a warm welcome and accommodation and it was here, at last, that the scientist was able to mix in well-informed circles. He got to know the Deputies who had supported the idea of the Passport to Freedom that had been awarded to him after his arrest. Here, he established relationships, took part in serious discussions, and encountered understanding and support.
On 17th April 2008, Bandazhevsky took part in parliamentary hearings, entitled “Chernobyl today”, at the European Parliament in Brussels where he presented his theses and the Deputies adopted a resolution to support a co-ordinating and analytical Centre “Ecology and Health”.
The Ukrainian Parliament was very pleased that the European Parliament was showing an interest in the problems of Chernobyl and on 15th July 2009, the Bandazhevsky Centre was officially registered in Kiev as the Scientific Centre for Radiological Medicine and the Centre for Re-adaptation for Victims of Chernobyl of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine.
The legislative ratification had a specific objective. In September and December 2008, the budgetary Commission of the European Parliament adopted on the first and second reading, the allocation, starting in 2009 of “a grant for the monitoring and analysis of the consequences of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl on public health and the environment in neighbouring countries, in particular Belarus and Ukraine, as well as its socio-economic impacts”
Up until the spring of 2013, it was not clear whether the money would be assigned to Bandazhevsky’s Centre, as no specific beneficiary had been designated. On page 229 of this book, I related the story of the million euros destined for the Belrad Institute for a radioprotection project for the most contaminated children in Belarus, as part of the TACIS programme. The dossier was sent in May 2002 to the leader of the delegation of the European Commission in Kiev, disappeared into thin air somewhere in the Ukrainian capital, and never reached its destination in Brussels. I gave that chapter the title “Europe’s duplicity”. The European Union decided instead to fund the programme CORE, launched on 6th December 2003 in Paris, one of whose aims was to remove the Belrad Institute from its activities in the Belarusian countryside. (see page 277)
4. THE “ECOLOGY AND HEALTH” CENTRE 213
213 www.chernobyl-today.org
EXTRACTS FROM BANDAZHEVSKY’S REPORT
Governments in the former USSR, and in the current republics of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, have not been able to solve the main humanitarian problems resulting from the Chernobyl accident. This has led to the current deterioration in the
health of these populations.
The position of concealing the true extent of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and the reluctance to implement the necessary measures to protect the health of people is inhumane. Objective information is urgently needed. Indeed, real action to ensure adequate protection of the health of the population constantly in contact with radiation agents is desperately needed.
Unilateral acts (in the field of medicine or the socio-economic sphere), taken over the past 20 years in this region, have not yielded positive results in terms of improving people’s health. This, in our opinion, is due to the lack of a comprehensive life-support program in the areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This requires providing reliable scientific information on health to the international community. It also requires active participation of the international community in promoting the adoption of effective measures to overcome the humanitarian consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
In this regard, the main goal of the Centre for “Ecology and Health”, established in Ukraine, is to inform the international community about the situation in areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Centre also seeks to coordinate the efforts of doctors, ecologists, economists, industrialists, politicians etc. as well as to develop a set of measures aimed at ensuring the safety of people living in the contaminated areas.
The project, entitled “Integrated Model of livelihoods in the area of radioactive contamination”, aims to coordinate the efforts of the international community to devise measures for the population to live safely when exposed to radiation in one of the most highly contaminated areas of Ukraine. The lessons learned in the region will subsequently be disseminated to other contaminated areas.
After analysing the situation created after the Chernobyl disaster, and in consultation with representatives of regional authorities, it was decided that the Ivankov District in the Kiev Region would be chosen to serve as the main pilot area. This district is one of the most heavily contaminated in the region, with very high levels of Cs-137 and Sr-90 radio-nuclides.
WHY THIS PROJECT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN UNDERTAKEN OR PROPOSED
1. The project is presented by the co-ordinating and analytical Centre “Ecology and Health”, set up by the European Parliament. Members of the European Parliament are on its Monitoring Council.
2. The main aim of the project is to stop the incorporation of Cs-137 radionuclides into the human body, in particular into the bodies of pregnant women and children.
3. The project is based on a coherent solution to the problem posed: the improvement in health of the people who live in areas contaminated by radioactive elements.
4. The project will provide full information at every stage of its development to the international community.
5. The project will provide international cooperation in order to obtain the humanitarian, material and legal aid that will be necessary to complete all stages of its development.
Finally, on 26th April 2013, we learnt in the media of a new development that could have important implications: 27 years after the Chernobyl disaster the European Union was inaugurating cooperative action with Ukraine for the protection of victims, by allocating 4 million euros to Yury Bandazhevsky’s Centre “Ecology and Health” in the Ivankov district, situated in the contaminated territories between the power station at Chernobyl and Kiev.
Today, we can rejoice and offer our congratulations to the two Members of the European Parliament, Michèle Rivasi, Vice-President of the Greens/ALE (European Free Alliance) and Corinne Lepage, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, whose insistence in the matter made this possible. But these are crumbs, alms to a beggar in comparison to the aid needed, after 27 years of indifference, to care for the hundreds of thousands of children living there. Given the level of deceit and the lack of care shown by Europe for so long about this health catastrophe, their offer can only be described as paltry, their response almost amnesiac. Europe is spending 500 million euros on a problematic super-sarcophagus and less than 1% of this sum on the lives of the people condemned from childhood to a slow agony, a life cut short and blighted by suffering.
Yet, even this minimal aid programme, arriving so late in the day, would be impossible to implement in Belarus, even though this is the country that received 70% of the radioactive material released onto the European part of the former USSR from the fire at Chernobyl. The EU would use the pretext that it no longer has relations with this country. In reality, everything depends, as always, on political will. In 2003, the German government financed a radioprotection programme for children in Belarus, but the third stage of the programme was cancelled due to pressure from groups who were hostile to the use of pectin (see page 235, in the Chapter “The War against pectin”).
5. LONG LIVE THE BELRAD INSTITUTE 214
214 http://belrad-institute.org/
The circumstances that allowed the Institute of Radiation Safety “Belrad” to be created will never be reproduced. This means that should “Belrad” disappear through lack of funds, no other organisation will take its place.
The Institute was born during the collapse of the USSR, a particular moment in history and was a response to the enormous damage caused by the radioactive fallout on the inhabitants who were not evacuated from the contaminated areas of Belarus. A similar situation exists in both Ukraine and southern Russia but no comparable organisation came into being in those countries.
On 12th February 2008, six months before he died, Professor Nesterenko, having been invited to a conference organised by the French regional authority Rhone-Alpes, addressed the following appeal to Hélène Blanchard, Vice-President of the Regional Council:
Twenty two years have passed since the accident at Chernobyl. The health catastrophe for the people who live in the contaminated areas gets worse every year. There is an acute shortage of international projects on radiation protection and rehabilitation of children in Belarus. Over the last few years, I have attended numerous conferences in the rich countries of the West, and I have informed them of the dramatic situation for our children and of the work we do to try to protect them at my institute “Belrad”, and although the problem is discussed and promises made, I have never received any financial support from international organisations for the projects I have proposed. The Europeans who participated in the CORE project (Cooperation and Rehabilitation) opposed, under all sorts of pseudo-scientific pretexts, the financing of the harmless pectin-based food additive for children, whose effectiveness in accelerating the elimination of radionuclides from the body has been proven over a number of years. Western scientists collect data, but do not help the children. From the point of view of medical ethics it is inadmissible to measure high levels of caesium-137 in a child’s body without providing them with preventive treatment in the form of pectin. We are able to provide a small proportion of the projects that are needed through our association “Enfants de Tchernobyl Belarus” (Children of Chernobyl Belarus), but we do not have nearly enough money. New radioprotection projects for children are needed in the six most contaminated districts. I am putting forward a proposal here for this sort of project and request that the regional authority consider participation and financial support. We need to show how useful a conference like this one is for the children of Chernobyl. After suffering all these years, limiting ourselves to the provision of information only, without being of any practical use to them, would be immoral.
Vassili Nesterenko attended the conference but he did not receive any response to the project that he presented.
In conclusion, I will let our colleagues from this unique institute, that Europe continues to ignore, speak for themselves, to remind us again of its value and why we cannot allow it to be lost.
The independent institute of radioprotection “Belrad” was created in 1990 to offer practical help to the inhabitants of the contamina
ted areas. It took some time to set up because various bureaucratic problems needed to be solved and funding, premises and the indispensable qualified personnel found. It took four long years. The Institute was set up by the academic Andrei Sakharov, President of the Soviet Foundation for Peace, the chess champion Anatoli Karpov, the Belarusian writer, Ales Adamovich and the corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Vassili Nesterenko. Professor Nesterenko became the director of the Institute, its heart, the generator of ideas and a brilliant organiser.
Unfortunately, Nesterenko, a scientist of international renown, had to deal not only with the scientific side and with leading the Institute, but also with the innumerable battles of attrition with bureaucracy, with misunderstanding, often ignorance, and the refusal of certain government bodies to engage jointly in the problem. These “battles” took a toll on time, money, his strength and his health. A human being’s strength and health is not unlimited, and in 2008, Vassili Nesterenko left us forever, leaving behind him a fully functioning Institute, ideas, disciples and many good memories in the minds of thousands of people.
The Belrad Institute has never considered its methods of radiological protection of the population to be the only solution or to be a panacea for all disasters. On the contrary, we are well aware that our work is just a small part of what needs to be done. Positive results can only be achieved by using a whole series of comprehensive protection measures, such as: monitoring of radiation in the environment, food and populations; medical examinations; administrative measures; rehabilitation of contaminated areas; the application of modern methods in agriculture and forestry; education; use of radioprotectors for the quick elimination of radionuclides from the bodies of people and dairy and beef cattle and so on. In this context, the experience and the scope of activities performed by the Belrad Institute could be extremely useful.
The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag Page 75
