Статья на тему, сильно взбудоражившую общественность в Европе и России в начале 2001 года. Я сам столкнулся с тем, когда РИА "Новости" активно разжигало интерес к этой теме, чтобы хоть чем-то уязвить натовцев. Написана в рамках курса о рисках.

This article deals with the issue, which shook the public opinion in Europe and Russia in early 2001. I had faced the situation when Russian News Agency RIA "Novosti" actively warmed up the interest to this problem to injure NATO. It was written for the Risk Reporting course.

by Alexander Smotrov
aleksmot@yandex.ru



The “Campaign Against Depleted Uranium” – this is the name of the organization located in Manchester, UK, which is working for ban of the depleted uranium weapons. But it is also the term with which we can describe the public debate in Europe early this year concerning the use of these weapons and their alleged harmful influence on human organism.

Depleted uranium (DU) is a substance which is left over when most of the highly radioactive isotopes of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. Now it is given practically free of charge to the military and arms manufacturers and is used both as some Abrams tank armour and in armour-piercing munitions.

Over 15 countries in the world are known to have DU weapons in their military arsenals. Depleted uranium was first used on a large scale in military combat during the 1991 Gulf War and in Bosnia in 1995 and again in the Balkans war of 1999.

Most scientists say the level of radioactivity in depleted uranium is lower than naturally occurring uranium in the environment, and large exposures would be needed to cause a significant increase in the risk.

However, DU can be dangerous once it has been used on the battlefield. Then DU can be seen both a chemical and toxic waste hazard, and a radiation hazard. The DU can be either absorbed by breathing or ingestion causing heavy metal chemical toxic effects in the kidneys. The hazard also comes from inhaling the uranium oxide dust. The dust could be deposited in the lungs and could, over a long period, be a cause of lung cancer. There has been neither scientifically proven evidence nor militaries’ acknowledgement that there is a direct links between DU weapons and so called “Gulf War syndrome” and “Balkan syndrome”.

But the veterans point out that absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence, and they believe their own experience means there is serious cause for concern.

The scandal broke out after the UN experts figured out that in some places the radiation level was 3,000 times as much as maximum permissible concentration. And all the deaths of NATO servicemen began to be linked with the DU weapons use in Iraq and in Yugoslavia.

Eight Italians, five Belgians, two Dutchmen, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech national have died after serving in the Balkans.

Italy – following the deaths from leukemia of its Balkan veterans – asked NATO to start an investigation. Germany accused the US of misinforming about the DU weapons saying that there should had been clear instructions and precautions about how to handle with such munitions to avoid harmful consequences.

NATO denied the fact that DU caused health problems, but in the face of mounting public fears decided to set up a special committee to investigate the concerns raised in several European countries which, in their turn, launched their own investigations.

The media coverage of this problem looked like a burst. It hadn’t been breaking news for quite a long period though the problem had been exist since early 90s, but suddenly it began to be covered on everyday basis in all the countries around the world. Press-conferences were organized, hundreds of experts were interviewed, life-stories of war veterans were put on the front-pages, but after some time public interest for this topic decreased as fast as it rose. I found using the searching machine the number of news items about DU-topic published by the Russian second biggest news agency RIA “Novosti” – the trend is almost the same in all world media:



But it doesn’t mean that the problem hasn’t disappeared. Now the US wage new war in Afghanistan. Who knows, maybe in several years we will hear about “Afghan syndrome”…

Комментарии преподавателя:

• Very good paper