 |
 
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
"CHERNOBYL THE BIGGEST BLUFF of the XXth CENTURY" Part 4 |
 |
|
by Marcin Rotkiewicz in collaboration with Henryk Suchar and Ryszard Kami�ski Polish weekly WPROST, no 2 (14 January) 2001 |
|
In October 2000 French television has shown a movie on the disaster, entitled "Chernobyl, an autopsy of the cloud." French scientists protested against this program - the letter to the French TV network chairman has been signed by the presidents of the most prestigious scientific societies for biophysics, nuclear medicine and nuclear physics. Two years earlier Polish scientists delivered a similar letter of protest to the National Radio and Television Council. This action concerned the emission of a British documentary "Igor - a child of Chernobyl." Polish scientists stated: "This movie describes the case of a boy with defects of extremities, who has been born in the vicinity of Minsk in Belarus, two years after the Chernobyl accident. In this documentary it is repeatedly stated that the boy's deformities has been caused by irradiation from radioactive dust. The movie's authors claim that similar developmental anomalies occurred in a million children on contaminated territories. All this information is simply untrue." The fear of accident consequences fell on a receptive ground - it may be said that bad news was even expected. - "Mainly it was the result of the fear of atomic bomb" - explains Professor Kazimierz Obuchowski from the Psychology Institute of Bydgoszcz Academy. - "The disaster happened in the times when the conflict among nuclear superpowers still existed, and various organizations loudly expounded on horrible consequences of atomic warfare. People sought the information which could endorse their misgivings and fears - and only such information was deemed credible." - considers Professor Obuchowski.
Chernobyl, or a profitable myth
Why the Chernobyl myth is so industriously supported? What it is all about? The answer is:
number one - the money, number two - the money, and number three - the money.
Ukraine and Belarus inherited a heavy burden from the Soviet Union - Soviet authorities
granted pensions and social privileges (worth, after conversion, a dozen or so US dollars)
to 600 000 people (deemed to be victims of the explosion). It is estimated that at present
over 3 million people are entitled to some privileges on the account of "permanent health
detriment caused by Chernobyl radiation." No politician will dare to take them away. Up to
the year 2015, in impoverished Byelorussia, the "Chernobyl relief payments" alone will equal
$86 billion. To this one should add the costs of safety arrangements for ruined reactor.
The super-sarcophagus construction (the present concrete one is in a bad shape) shall cost
$300 million. Up to now the United States and Western Europe transferred $800 million for
the elimination of accident consequences; EBDR (European Bank for Development and
Reconstruction) plans to contribute further 2.3 billion euros. Kiev claims that, during the
next 20 years, coping with the accident consequences will cost $5 billion! In Ukraine it is
often heard that the politicians' eager appeals for financial support "for liquidation of the
Chernobyl disaster consequences" have their roots in the fact, that some part of this money
will go for patching up the holes in the state budget, and some - perhaps - will end in the
pockets of bureaucrats.
|
