Furthermore, for people to make use of the various procedures that would allow them to reduce their annual radioactive load, it is necessary to:
• raise funds so that inhabitants of contaminated regions can fertilise their land with mineral fertiliser and thus reduce the transfer of radionuclides from the soil into the food chain;
• ensure fertilisation of fields and pastures with mineral fertiliser (potassium, phosphorus and calcium) to obtain “clean” milk and meat;
• spread mineral fertiliser (potassium, lignite) on forest soil in a radius of 8–10 kilometres around settlements so that mushrooms and berries are “clean”;
• work with the inhabitants to introduce the habit of regular radiological control of the fruit and vegetables grown in their gardens and the products that they consume from the forest;
• using HRS, take regular measurements of the quantities of caesium-137 incorporated into the body and ensure that the people take a pectin-based food additive regularly to reduce the level of accumulated radiation and annual radioactive load;
• train teachers, parents and schoolchildren in methods of food preparation in order to reduce their levels of radionuclides (separation of milk, soaking of mushrooms, meat, etc).
Since then, everything has stalled. Pierre Frigola, McSweeney’s Assistant in the Directorate General for External Relations (DG RELEX) at the European Commission, confided to me at the end of the year, unofficially, that not everyone was in favour of the project, but that the directors of JRC had finally obtained from DG RELEX of the EC a million Euros for the programme TACIS for one or two “environmental” projects “without specifying the beneficiary”. The JRC provides expert scientific assistance to the EC, but “other services” he told me “have a different opinion from the JRC”.
A further request, no doubt more insistent, resulted in the following correspondence, transmitted on 22nd April to Solange Fernex from the office of Marie Anne Isler Béguin, a Green Deputy and a colleague of Piétrasanta. In substance, I was to advise Nesterenko to seek the support of a ministry (a procedural requirement for EC financial support) and to make contact as quickly as possible with Norbert Jousten, EC representative in Kiev, referred to below.
Dear Mr Piétrasanta,
I have just received a copy of an internal note addressed by our representative in Kiev to the director of finance of the TACIS nuclear programme.
This note specifies that a sum of 6 million euros is to be attributed in the 2003 budget to the “social consequences of the closure of down of Chernobyl”, of which 1 million euros must be devoted to combating the effects of the accident in Ukraine and Belarus[…] It would be desirable if Professor Nesterenko made urgent contact with our Delegation in Kiev and I suggest that you write to our Ambassador, Mr Norbert Jousten.
P. Frigola
From Mr Yves Piétrasanta,
European Deputy
Vice-President of the Commission on Science
and Research of the European Parliament
To Mr Norbert Jousten
Head of Delegation of the
European Commission,
Kiev
Dear Sir,
As part of the European Union’s management of the social and health consequences related to the Chernobyl reactor, a budget of 6 million euros has been granted for 2003, as a continuation of the regional project entitled TAREG 7/03/97, initiated in 1997.
Last year, under my direction, the Joint Research Centre at the European Commission approved a cooperative project with Belrad, the independent institute in Minsk directed by Professor Nesterenko, which specialises in the study and prevention of the health impact of radioactive contamination in Belarus. We were recently informed that a budget of 1 million euros had been allocated to fund this project.
Belrad’s scientific and humanitarian activities, undertaken in the difficult political context of Belarus and in the face of an extremely alarming health, medical and economic environment resulting from the Chernobyl disaster, require the full assistance and support of the European Union and so I welcome the signing of this agreement. All the more so as Belrad is facing a critical financial situation today, resulting from the explicitly independent stance of its research and activities.
It is therefore of great importance to me to ask for all your support and diligence in implementing this cooperative project as soon as possible and ensuring the delivery of 1 million euros from the Community budget to Professor Nesterenko’s institute.
This letter clarified a confusing situation. It stated explicitly that the million euros, from the “Community budget”, had been obtained by the JRC for Belrad’s TEST project. It seemed to me that the least we could do was take this statement at face value, partly out of respect for Piétrasanta, the politician who had promoted the project, and partly in the spirit of citizen control of public European funds destined to mitigate the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
On 22nd April 2002, I passed on to Nesterenko, Michel Fernex’s suggestion that he should not be afraid to present to Mr Jousten, a series of sections of the overall budget, of which Ispra was only the central scientific part, the essential objective being assistance to children.
The Belrad institute prepared a project for around 1 million euros, organised in four chapters around TEST, which Professor Nesterenko sent to Jousten on 24th April. The progress of this dossier “through the corridors” should have been followed closely before it disappeared into thin air.
On 30th June 2002, Nesterenko wrote to Piétrasanta:
Following your instructions, we sent the 4 projects on 27th May 2002 to the head of the European Commission delegation in Ukraine, Mr Norbert Jousten, at the Representative Office of TACIS in Kiev, through the Representative Office of TACIS in Minsk (Mr Raoul de Lusenberger).
We do not know what action has been taken in their regard.
I have learned that letters were addressed to Mrs Isler Béguin between January and April 2002, from the leader of the Spanish government, José Maria Aznar, the President of the European Commission, Mr Romani Prodi, and Commission member, Christopher Patten. All these letters expressed the wish to see TACIS provide support to programmes designed to mitigate the human consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and to encourage civil society through the support of NGO projects.
In Belarus, the government and administration give absolute priority to international projects submitted by research institutes that form part of government structures. Because of this, our projects, which emanate from independent structures, are a priori, disadvantaged.
Dear Sir, Member of Parliament, we draw your attention to the fact that our first TEST project, despite having been approved by the JRC of the European Commission, has still received no funding
I would be extremely grateful if you could help to speed up the implementation of the 4 projects that we have submitted.
On 7th July 2002, the president of Comchernobyl, Vladimir Tsalko, sent a letter of support to the head of the European Commission delegation in Minsk, for the four projects:
1. “TEST”
2. “Rehabilitation”: radioprotection of children and rehabilitation of the population’s local environment, in Narovlia district in the Gomel region.
3. “Radioactivity in food products”: “radiological monitoring of food products in the Belarus territories contaminated by Chernobyl through the establishment of 20 Local Radioprotection Monitoring Centres and provision of information to the population on required radioprotection measures.
4. “Children’s health”: “monitoring of children’s health”. Project prepared jointly with Professor Michel Fernex (France).
The Castle remained silent.
On 4th April 2003, after more than a year had gone by (almost two years since Ispra) I prepared an interim summary of the facts which I sent to Marie Anne Isler Béguin, the Green MP
and a colleague of Yves Piétrasanta, the politician who was promoting the project.100
100 To properly understand the chronology of what follows, note that Kozyreff works for TACIS in its Brussels office; Norbert Jousten is the head of the European Commission delegation in Kiev, and he represents TACIS in the three countries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. He has a Ukrainian colleague, a Mr Konstantinov; Raoul De Lusenberger represents TACIS in Minsk, and the name of his colleague in Belarus is Mikhnevich.
Following Yves Piétrasanta’s initiative in October 2000, Belrad committed itself fully throughout the spring of 2002 to the preparation of the four projects, which were duly submitted, within the time frame, to Mr De Lusenberger in order to receive funding from TACIS in 2003. To date, these projects have still not been registered in Brussels.
This fact has only recently been discovered by Mr Charles Deleuse, who works with Belrad in Belgium welcoming contaminated children from Belarus. Nesterenko asked for his help in finding out why the expected funding had still not arrived. Mr Deleuse contacted Mr Kozyreff who, after some research, found nothing either among projects that had been rejected or in the register of mail received in Brussels. However, at a reception in December at the French Embassy in Minsk, in response to a question about the Belrad projects, Mr Jousten said that they had been in Brussels since September and that in his opinion, a reply should arrive shortly.
Following regulatory procedure, resumes, or abstracts as they are known, of the project were sent by Mr Mikhnevich to Mr Konstantinov in Kiev, who was supposed to send them to Brussels. After approval, a dossier number should have been attributed and communicated to Belrad, who would then send the projects in full directly to Brussels. As the abstracts never arrived at their final destination, Mr Jousten owes an explanation to Mr Piétrasanta. European funding is of interest to the three countries contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster and it is in Kiev that the progress of the dossier has been interrupted . . . An entire year has been lost. At this stage, the question is political.
Nesterenko confronts financial problems daily. Some of his scientific collaborators have had to leave because their salaries are too low. He was very much counting on this European funding which would have allowed him a breathing space. His health (he has a heart condition) is also affected by this continual worry and stress.
Jeff Rivalain, assistant to Marie Anne Isler Béguin, replied to Solange and Michel Fernex and myself, on 22nd April 2003.
I have just called V. Kozyreff, of EuropAide A3 TACIS at the European Commission in Brussels (Public Health group). He was aware of this issue concerning the four TACIS dossiers from Nesterenko. And indeed, he has never seen a trace of them. From our telephone conversation, I gather that it seemed to him that the projects submitted by Nesterenko had not respected the strict and transparent framework of TACIS. The Commission works with this organisation through a bidding process after it has decided its priorities in projects in such and such an area. According to Kozyroff, Nesterenko was relying more on his political support in the European Parliament (letter from Piétrasanta, conference at PE) but could not provide answers regarding the precise tender to which his TACIS projects would have corresponded.
Mr Kozyroff also emphasized that the Commission only uses TACIS in partnership with government authorities and not directly with civil society actors. Belrad is not on good terms with the government, and neither is Brussels with Minsk. The community budget for this country, already derisory, will be even more restricted. Few of the next tenders would suit Nesterenko’s work. The most promising would be CORE (I have sent this to you by post), where Belrad is already a partner.
A meeting has been fixed with Kozyroff at the European Parliament, this Thursday, the 24th. He is Russo-Ukrainian by origin, born in Belgium and convinced of the importance of increasing exchanges and projects between the European Union and the countries of the former Soviet Union. But he is well aware that among the leaders of the European Commission, this feeling is not shared.
I replied by return email.
Dear Jeff,
Nesterenko has followed the instructions given to him by TACIS officers strictly and professionally. He mobilised his entire institute who worked intensively for a substantial period in order to complete procedures in time and in due form. No one at TACIS mentioned anything about tendering. Mr Jousten did not question the regularity or conformity of the four projects when he met Nesterenko at the French Embassy. On the contrary, he told him that the dossier had been sent by his office in Kiev to Brussels, where Kozyreff now says they never arrived. The person who needs to be questioned, in fact, is Mr Jousten who is responsible for TACIS in Kiev, for the three countries concerned—from whose office Nesterenko’s dossiers disappeared. Nesterenko did not “rely on political support”: he did what TACIS told him to do and he thought, indeed, that he had the political support of Mr Piétrasanta. But after all, it is not this political support, that explains the disappearance of the dossier in Kiev. Who are we kidding?
As for the fact that the Commission only uses TACIS in partnership with government authorities and not with civil society, I seem to remember that President Aznar had written exactly the opposite. No doubt this is a mistake as Aznar is only a “politician” and, no doubt, naïve. “Coincido con Ud en utilizar el programa TACIS con el fin de paliar las consecuencias de la tragedia del accidente nuclear de Chernobyl. Estas acciones deberían realizarse siempre a través de la sociedad civil, ya que el estado actual no permite la puesta en practica de acciones o programas de cooperación que incluyan al Gobierno o la Administracion bielorusos” (“I agree that you should use the TACIS program in order to mitigate the consequences of the tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. These projects should always be undertaken by civil society, as the current situation does not allow any cooperative initiatives or programs that include the government or the administration in Belarus “
(Jose Maria Aznar to Hon. Mrs Marie Anne Isler Beguin—Madrid, 30th April 2002).
Who are we kidding? Aznar, Prodi,101 Patten, Piétrasanta, Marie Anne, all “politicians” and then Nesterenko.
101 Romano Prodi replies on 8th April 2002 to the letter sent by M.A. Isler Béguin on 7th February 2002: (...) I completely agree with you, Madame Deputy, that we must continue to support aid programmes whose aim is to mitigate the human consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, and to support civil society”.
What seems clear from this dismal story is that the interaction between politicians and the Commission is virtual and schizophrenic. They act and talk as if their actions and their words had any importance. In reality they are not the ones who determine policy. Are they unaware of this or do they just pretend? What comes to mind in relation to the European Union is De Gaulle’s reference to the United Nations as “the thingamajig”.
A study by Dr Raoul Marc Jennar, The European Community: should the Bastille be stormed?, published in The Ecologist, Vol. 1, No. 2, winter 2000, describes the impenetrability of this “new centre of power, disconnected from citizens” very well. I will end with some excerpts from his text, which shed light on the Kafkaesque forest through which Nesterenko is forced to march aimlessly with his troop of sick children:
The 23 Directorate-Generals responsible for specific policies undertake their activities as if, in terms of the impact of those policies, there were no interaction. […] It can be stated, without fear of contradiction, that what is done, for example, by the DG in charge of development aid is destroyed (and even if it was possible, several times over) by the activities of the DG responsible for commerce, that competes globally with the USA in its zealous support of TNCs. Despite protestations to the contrary, the political manipulation going on here has reached unprecedented heights. Is it surprising then, knowing that the EU is the largest funder of development aid—that hunger in the world and underdevelopment are not decreasing? […] In fact, there is no formal structure, before the
decision making process, to coordinate the proposals put forward by each DG. This makes it easy for pressure groups who are skilled at exploiting the divergent interests of different DGs.[…] Every one knows about the 3000 lobbyists working in Brussels, a majority of whom are working on behalf of industry. They may extol the merits of texts submitted by the Commission or they may propose amendments that the Commission is only too willing to adopt.[…]
The real decision makers that determine the choices of the European Commission are hidden by the latter in a category where one would not expect to find them. Pressure groups representing the business world are categorized as NGOs, non-governmental organizations. Everyone knows that this label usually refers to humanitarian or development aid organizations, associative movements in general, where the pursuit of profit is the last thing on their agenda.
The CEPN is one of these NGOs and is the subject of the following chapter.
Chapter II
AN INCOMPETENT FRENCH TEAM OCCUPIES THE TERRITORY
In 1996 a group of French researchers, named ETHOS, entered the vast and unique laboratory provided by the contaminated territories of Chernobyl, with the purpose of collecting radiological data and to receive training in radioprotection, from the local Center of the Radiological Control (LRCC) 102 created by Professor Nesterenko in Olmany village. The ETHOS consortium is part of the CEPN (Study Centre for Evaluation of Nuclear Protection) established by Electricité de France (EDF) and the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The French nuclear lobby is actively and amply represented here! The health of the population does not figure in the statutes of this organisation, so what is it doing here?
102 The creation of the LRMCs is mentioned in Part Two, Chapter III, “Citizens unbowed”, p.109.
One of ETHOS’ objectives is to prepare a document for the European Union on the management of nuclear accidents and of regions that have been contaminated by long-lived radionuclides, by establishing “guidelines on sustainable management of radiological quality and public confidence”.103 For two years, from 1996 to 1998, ETHOS made full use of Olmany’s LRMC data and of its personnel, trained and equipped by Nesterenko, to measure radioactivity in food, milk, etc—with no thought to reimbursing the technician for the extra work that this involved. It was a happy and fruitful collaboration until one day in January 2001, when ETHOS, through the Belarusian authorities, succeeded in expelling Nesterenko from Olmany and from four other villages in the Stolin district.
The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag Page 36