Chernobyl's "cloud
The Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine is 80 miles from Kiev (pop. 2½ million). It is situated on the banks of the river Dnipro which flows the rough some densely populated and industrialised areas and is set in a town of about 50,000 people.
It consists of 5 operational 1.000 megawatt reactors and is the largest nuclear plant in the USSR. The accident occured reactor.
At the moment the share of nuclear power in the USSR's total output of electricity is 10 per cent, and planned to rise to 20 per cent by 1990 - according to the 5 year plan devised in 1985.
Chernobyl is a water-cooled grahpite moderated used only in the USSR. It is also designed to produce plutonium for military purposes (i.e. for nuclear weapons).
The Chernobyl occurred on April 26. It took 3 days for Moscow to admit the accident. It took Il days for Soviet press reports to give any details at all.
It took 7 days for the people of Chernobyl to be evacuated, and 9 days for the peasants in the surrounding area to be avacuated. The people of Kiev and Minsk were not told of the dangers of consuming milk or any tresh produce.
Gorbachov himself was silent for 18 days, and then blamed local officials for the disaster. Clearly the new "openness' in government is determined by the convenience of bureaucracy, not by the needs and demands of the people. The whole media manipulation was designed to avoid protest and criticism at all costs.
The process was one of silence at first, then bland denials, then admissions.
Experts at the post mortem on
of friendship" Chernobyl at the internationa Atomic Energey Agency HQ ir Vienna spoke of between 20,000 dying from from radiation Others claim nuclear conservative estimate. In addition in No. 4 with unknown children yet to be born. land the Ill contaminated to farm for 10 years at the minimum — at the worst it could be too dangerous to grow crops for 3 centuries. gave design how the disaster occurred and the experts and "badly shaken". disaster the belated
By DAVE SPENCER the "deliberate numerous effects the A Chernobyl. that this is a the radiation creates a "genetic time bomb" (March 27). effects on The Observer also reported on Ukraine too "slackening supplies" of an Soviet Academician Legasov a 5-hour presentation on emerged "ashen faced" industry, adds to Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p33
Apparently a main explanation he gave was over-confidence in
safety of nuclear reactors which led the operators to lose all sense of danger and. to make
systematic and procedure, Violations of safety
much more likely explanation however was given by a Ukranian woman engineer exactly one month before the accident in Literatura Ukraina
Here she complained of the bureaucratic bungling in the construction and development of the Chernobyl plant. She spoke of
standards", "deficiencand "an accumulation providing basic
enormous number of unresolved problems."
Here we see the result of the lack of workers' control over
Othe lack of accountability to democratically elected Soviets.
The absolute mainpulation of the media by the bureaucracy
Othe alienation and confusion of the people.
This bureaucratic system must
ecological increasingly worsening situation.
Boris Komarov in his samizdat book The Destruction of Nature in the USSR details a frightening
"More than 85 per cent of the population have no means of getting any • real information about pollution. If they think at all about ecology it is probably only after they have contracted some form of living cancer."
On this later point he reports on Donetsk in the Ukraine, where deaths from lung cancer are times higher than the average elsewhere in the USSR.
speaks of a nuclear disaster in 1957 in the Urals which wiped out 30 villages.
Another subject for concern is
"unbelievable carelessness" of the Soviet authorities disposing of nuclear waste. Apparently several workers were recently killed by radiation only 10 miles from Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, whre nuclear waste taken from Soviet nuclear submarines was being kept in primitive conditions.
This is all a far cry Trotsky's famous speech workers' audience in 1918, dynamic of workers' democracy is missing from industries in the bureaucratised
All of the dissident groups in Eastern Europe who have spoken out on the issue (e.g. Soldiarnosc, Charter 77, the Group) have all stressed the link between the Chernobyl disaster and the absence of democratic rights — to reliable information to organise to control your own life, or to protest.
The enormous frustration and anger that has been built up in the Ukraine and the surrounding areas can only be imagined - at the moment there are few visible outward signs of its expression.
On April 28, geiger counters in a monitoring station in Mikolajki (N.E Poland) recorded 2.5 millioetgens — 500 times higher than normal. The army arrived and took the place over.
Warsaw Radio and TV on May 3 complained of "exaggerated reports" of the Chernobyl disaster, isod attempts by subversives the political atmosphere."!
On May 7 they were still talking of "malicious rumours" bureaucracy's reaction to the biggest Solidarnosc, the Independent Peace
"Freedom and Peace" their underground press information, to organise protests, to
There were 2 protest demonstations in early May, in Wroclaw, organised by Freedom and Peace and another in Krakow on June 1 with participating. A petition of 3,000 was organised in demanding a halt to the construction of the Zarnowiec nuclear plant.
The Committee of the Malopolska available to their uncensored press.
also reported that 5,000 workers demonstrated at the Nowa Preta stel workres see or othe loud of friendship' from Chernoby]
sarcastic reference to the relationship between Poland and the Czechoslovakia released document 10. 15,86, complaining about the | Road, London SW17 7BN). Ireland More Cracks in the Accord
By DAVID MOSS The primary objective of the Anglo-Irish Agreement solate Sinn fein politicali ind militarily defeat the IRA has patently failed. Sinute Dares a trea
RUC barracks spectacularly state's resources have been further tied up by effective threats to kill
supplying or servicing the security forces.
The claim that the threats against civilian personnel are motivated by sectarianism ignores the nature of the six county state as a garrison colony, workforce is linked to the military in some capacity.
Nor does the claim that it is a carry much weight in the light of the Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p34
misinformation given out officially by
whole disaster was played down and referred to only as a
slight increase in radioactivity
They see the key issue as that of the right to information and independent organisation. On May 6, Soviet Independent Peace Group the Moscow Trustbuilders, circulated an open letter.
They declared that after a series of reports and discussions on Chernobyl in their Group they had decided to add opposition to nuclear power to their peace programme. hey insist on the whole truth being told to the Soviet public. affected the whole of Europe. clear that nobody has been told the whole truth - East or West - about the dangers from radiation as a
In the West we have to demand an end to nuclear power installations. At the same time we have to support those groups in eastern Europe demanding essential democratic
- without those, another Chernobyl or worse will occur and it (Source of much of the information Voice of Solidarity, 215 Balham Higł IRA's continued ability to attack armed Army and RUC patrols, as the daring daylight killing of RUCmen in Newry demonstrated. Unionist camp however. So far their campaign against the agreement has government. The war against the nationalists has been stepped up by increasing sectarian attacks, which took on a more alarming aspect with Swatragh by hundreds of Loyalists. Clontibret in the Free State and the subsequent deonstrations at his court appearance at Dundalk, despite its resemblence to a black comedy, has
Loyalist paramilitaries have often made clear that all "Republicans" are previously on occasion carried the Robinson into a crusading martyr will