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From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN!" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Daily Star (Lebanon)
January 31, 2001
UN agencies are assisting a cover-up
by Najib Saab
The United Nations has always been exploited by
superpowers as a cover-up for political schemes.
While this obvious statement is not news, we have been
witnessing another form of abuse, using certain United
Nations specialized agencies as accomplices to
environmental extermination.
A few weeks ago, NATO Secretary-General George
Robertson announced that the World Health Organization
(WHO) and the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) have both confirmed that there was no proven
connection between leukemia and depleted uranium (DU),
thus the shells used by NATO in Bosnia in 1995 and in
Kosovo in 1999, and earlier in Iraq, were not
particularly hazardous and did not represent an actual
health threat.
The UN has not, as yet, denied Robertson?s statements,
even though it is clear that at least a part of what
he said was not true. UNEP had published a report in
1999 in which it requested that ?highest priority
should be given to finding pieces of depleted uranium
and heavily contaminated surfaces, and measures should
be taken for the secure storage of any contaminated
material recovered.?
The report urged that measures be taken to prevent
access to contaminated sites, and ?local authorities
and people concerned should be informed of the
possible risks and precautionary measures.? Early
laboratory results from 340 samples of DU found at
sites targeted by NATO during the 1999 Kosovo conflict
contain Uranium 236, which indicates that at least
part of the material comes from reprocessed uranium.
It is hoped that the findings won?t be watered down by
the time the final report is published in March.
However, how could NATO interpret UNEP?s reports on
the issue since 1999 as indicating that the remains of
DU shells are not a health hazard?
The case of the World Health Organization, on the
other hand, is an entirely different matter. The media
quoted ?experts affiliated with the WHO in Geneva? as
being skeptical regarding whether or not DU shells
used in the Balkans had actually caused cases of
leukemia among NATO forces. However, those same
experts had warned in an earlier and less publicized
report that children playing in war zones where
bombing had occurred could be in danger.
Yet for years the children of Bosnia and Kosovo, and
the children of Iraq before them, have been using the
remains of tanks and military vehicles destroyed by DU
shells as toys, and demolished factories as
playgrounds, while those are the most hazardous sites
according to UNEP.
The dubious silence of WHO over NATO?s statements was
interrupted by another ambiguous announcement from WHO
headquarters in Geneva, saying that it was ?unlikely
that depleted-uranium ammunition used by NATO troops
could have caused cancer.?
It further concluded that it was ?unlikely? that
exposure to NATO weapons containing
DU ?could have led to a higher risk of cancer among
military personnel who served in the Balkan conflict.?
After this conclusion, which sounds like a bill of
clean health to NATO, absolving it of responsibility
for health hazards associated with DU, WHO announced
that it was ?planning a study to assess whether there
has been an increased rate of cancer amongst military
personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans.? It
also called for the cordoning off and cleaning of
sites in Kosovo where depleted-uranium ammunition
landed during the NATO air campaign.
WHO?s ambiguous position on DU, however, seems to be
typical for that organization. When Environment &
Development magazine launched a campaign three years
ago to ban the use of asbestos, some of those
benefiting from the hazardous trade relied on a 1993
WHO report which stated that there was no proof that
asbestos in drinking-water constitutes a health hazard
to the digestive system, in order to justify using it
in public water networks. Again, no one in the
organization objected to this selective use of the
report.
The organization?s report had refrained from saying
that there was proof that asbestos does not harm the
digestive system either, but purposely used ambiguity
in the negative form. Those relying on WHO?s report to
promote asbestos ignore the fact that the problem is
not restricted to manufacturing, but also includes
moving, cutting and then disposing of the pipes years
later. All asbestos products, including asbestos
cement, that are considered safe unless fibers are
produced as a result of friction from drilling,
scratching or breaking, will eventually reach the end
of their life cycle.
Despite a pictures of children playing with fragments
of asbestos pipes near water network construction
sites, which Environment & Development published, no
explanation was forthcoming from the WHO. Do they want
to apply their assumption that asbestos is safe in
drinking water by asking people to stop breathing and
dilute asbestos fiber in water whenever they come
across its remains in construction and dumping sites?
Do we blame NATO, which is a military organization
with no claim to humanitarian interests, or an
international organization, whose existence revolves
around people?s health, when it provides, through its
silence or intentional ambiguity of its reports, a
suspicious cover-up for killing human beings?
Could the health authorities of the US Army have been
more concerned for health than WHO, when it warned in
1992 of the possibility of being more susceptible to
cancer after being exposed to DU shells? Another
report by a medical specialist in the British Army had
warned in 1996 that soldiers who had been exposed to
dust from depleted-uranium shells may be susceptible
to cancer, as the percentage of radiation around
bombed vehicles could exceed, by eight times, the
allowed average, which makes soldiers susceptible to
lung cancer, brain cancer and leukemia.
Ironically, the recently leaked reports only warn of
dangers to NATO soldiers! Is it a lucky strike to the
environment and humanity that growing numbers of
European soldiers are showing now what is being called
?Balkan Syndrome,? and some of them died of leukemia
and other strange diseases? If it hadn?t been for the
attention given to those, the whole issue would have
been swept under the ambiguous statements of WHO and
NATO, similar to what happened after the outbreak of
the ?Gulf War Syndrome.?
What about thousands of children, and others in Iraq,
Kosovo and Bosnia, who died or are living ill with
leukemia and a variety of cancers, assorted diseases
and birth defects? What about the environmental
destruction in these countries caused by
depleted-uranium shells?
The United Nations Environment Program should take the
initiative to ensure that the role of international
organizations is to protect people and the
environment, at least through clear and honest
statements that cannot be used as a cover for
oppressive military superpowers. UN agencies will,
otherwise, lose any remaining credibility.
Najib Saab, editor in chief of Environment &
Development magazine, wrote this commentary for The
Daily Star
DS: 31/01/01
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