Italy Asks NATO To Explain Ammo Use
Thursday January 4, 2001 12:30 amROME (AP) - Italy, where at least six
soldiers have died of cancer since serving in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia,
is demanding that NATO explain its use of armor-piercing ammunition
containing depleted uranium. Italy's Green and Communist parties, both
opponents of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, have long claimed
that the ammunition was sickening peacekeepers in the Balkans. Last week,
Italy announced it was investigating illnesses among soldiers deployed in
Kosovo after airstrikes there in 1999. Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Finland
followed suit by screening their Balkans veterans. NATO scheduled top-level
discussions on the ammunition Saturday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said
Wednesday. ``The issue has taken a serious turn and the alarm caused is more
than legitimate,'' Italian Premier Giuliano Amato said in an interview
published Wednesday in La Repubblica newspaper. Depleted uranium, a dense
metal with low levels of radioactivity, is used in artillery because of its
ability to penetrate armor. But some believe the dust created upon impact may
be harmful. The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, SFOR, acknowledged
using depleted uranium ammunition in Bosnia in the fall of 1994 and in the
fall of 1995. But SFOR rejected the theory that depleted uranium was making
soldiers ill. In Kosovo, U.S. warplanes used armor-piercing rounds containing
depleted uranium mostly in the central, western and southwestern parts of the
province - areas where Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese peacekeepers later
were deployed. A U.N. team that went to Kosovo in November is doing a study
and is expected to report its findings in February. Amato suggested he did
not believe NATO's assurances. ``Now we fear things may not be so simple,''
he said of the possible health risk. He said Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini
would press NATO to ``assume its responsibility.'' Amato also seemed to
suggest that Italy was deceived about the use of depleted uranium ammunition
in an earlier Balkan conflict, the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. NATO member Italy
takes part in every military meeting and is entitled to whatever information
it is seeking, a NATO spokesman said in Brussels, Belgium. Italy's study will
concentrate on the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, including the six who
have died of cancer. About 60,000 Italian soldiers have served in Bosnia,
Kosovo and Macedonia since 1995. Defense Minister Sergio Matarella leaves
Thursday to reassure Italian peacekeepers in Bosnia. ``This is not a subject
for politicians or even the military,'' he told the Corriere della Serra
newspaper in an interview published Wednesday. ``Science needs to tell us
what really happened.'' Other European countries were checking their troops
as well for radiation. Portugal and Turkey were screening soldiers in Kosovo,
and Spain said it would examine all 32,000 troops who have served in the
Balkans since 1992. Initial tests have come back negative, Spain's Defense
Ministry said last week. Portugal's Parliament held an emergency session
Wednesday after the father of one deceased Kosovo veteran demanded that his
son be exhumed for a radiation exposure test. The head of the army, Gen.
Antonio Martins Barrento, dismissed the father's concerns as a ``paranoid
fantasy.'' Finland, which is not a member of NATO but contributed 2,000
soldiers to the peacekeeping force, said spot checks of urine samples from
veterans so far have revealed no radiation exposure. Greece said it was
monitoring radiation levels in the parts of Kosovo where it has troops.
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/breakingnews/International/0,3561,650239,00
.html
