| 21th February 2001 |
DU: New NATO Members
Piotr Bein, piotr.bein@imag.net,
Vancouver, Canada
The critical mass of depleted
uranium [DU]-poisoned
soldiers, left without help from the new NATO members'
governments that sent them to contaminated areas to
introduce democracy, is not large enough yet to arouse
domestic public opinion.
With one foot in the Western system, the institutions
in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have to do
as they are told by the civil and military
headquarters in Brussels. The soldiers themselves
would rather not jeopardize their well-paid jobs in
the Balkans- until they get sick.
Nukes
Everywhere
Polish President Kwasniewski faced nukes from the
south, north and ... from inside his own country in
January 2001. Given Western Europe's outrage over
contamination of the Balkans with DU, he had to
assure the nation that their sons were not at risk
from DU while keeping peace in Kosovo. The President
flew south to shake hands with Janeks and Wojteks in
Kosovo, who, smiling into the TV cameras, re-assured
us that nothing bad was happening to them, that they
trusted their commanders, and would stay on for their
full tour of duty.
At
about the same time, an American “intelligence source” warned from the Washington
Times (the usual outlet for Pentagon’s so-called Public
Affairs propaganda spin) that Russia had moved
nuclear weapons into its enclave around Kaliningrad, a
Russian Baltic port between Poland's northern pristine
Green Lungs region and the Baltic state of Lithuania.
The dismantling of the Iron Curtain left Poland in a
non-nuclear zone. By joining NATO, just days before
the pact's barbaric attack on Yugoslavia in 1999,
Poland found itself "unsettled at the prospect of
being on a front line," as Agence France Presse
suggested. Poland was the only Nazi-occupied nation
beside Serbia which did not capitulate to the Nazis,
but inflicted painful losses to Hitler's forces
through protracted resistance and guerrilla warfare.
Russia flatly denied the nuke allegation. "This report
can only be a political provocation," said Anatoly
Lobsky, a spokesman for Russia's Baltic Fleet.
Observers wondered why Russia would need to deploy
nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad if they could do it
safely a couple hundred kilometres east. Also striking
was a half year delay in announcing the alleged
Russian
deployment, and this belated announcement coinciding
with the DU scandal.
President Kwasniewski called international inspectors
to check out Kaliningrad. Kosovo's DU already stamped
"safe," there remained only one more nuke source to
check: Possible use of DU weapons by and on Polish
shooting ranges. In Eastern Poland's Orzysz range and
one at Drawsko Pomorskie not far from my beloved city
of Szczecin, NATO tanks practice conditions titled
"Russian winter." Both ranges are in the midst of lake
country where DU contamination could easily spread
through the lake systems. If Western
navies had more DU ammunition tainted with uranium 236
and plutonium, as was confirmed by the UK, Canada,
Australia, Israel and New Zealand, Polish Baltic
ranges would be an ideal dumping ground, too.
Several participants of the anti-DU conference in
Manchester, England last November expressed concerns
that, given growing public protests in their own
countries, NATO may move DU exercises, and eventually
production, onto the territories of its new members.
This writer sent an alert to this effect to
independent Polish publications, and it remains to be
seen whether and how the descendants of Polish World
War II guerillas would peek under the tarpaulins
hiding German Leopard II tanks on rail cars heading
for Drawsko and Orzysz. Certain Polish ladies who work the
streets in
Germany were obliged to find out at which German military bases soldiers monkey
around with DU bullets.
Health-for-Bread
Programme
Soldiers from post-communist countries went to the
Balkans to make extra money that would be impossible
to earn in their own ruined economies. Some 2,500
Polish soldiers are participating in the KFOR mission
in Kosovo.
On
January 4th, 2001, my confidential journalistic
source in Poland e-mailed me. "Our KFOR boys are
fantastic people, always eager to help, but they
know the limits. A tour of peacekeeping duty is a
distinction and ... a privilege. Staff soldiers in
Poland make some US$300 per month, compared to
US$900 when on a tour of duty in Bosnia or Kosovo.
Their families' welfare is more important than their
own health. One considers whether it was worth it or
not after a medical diagnosis has been rendered. For
the time being, despite efforts to get information out
of them, military secrecy and loyalty keeps their
mouths shut.”
“Today the Bulgarians are examining their soldiers. A
Bulgarian friend told me that the area along the
border is closely guarded. No mention about it, either
there or on Polish TV. Once again I suggested
producing a program about it, but the editors are
silent. Some time after, a decision was made.
Someone somewhere decided that the DU topic is not
interesting enough and there is no need to panic since
'experts' maintain that everything is OK.
Just a moment ago I watched the government network TV
news. They said a Pentagon spokeswoman assured that
independent experts tested Kosovo and concluded
everyone was safe, there were no proofs for the risks
of DU.”
The next day Agence France Presse reported from Warsaw
that Poland sent six military chemists and doctors to
investigate the Balkan syndrome. Polish experts were
to examine sites that might have high radioactive and
chemical pollution, and areas where a joint
Polish-Ukranian battalion was stationed, said Colonel
Mieczyslaw Splawski, the head of Poland's
anti-chemical warfare unit. The AFP dispatch ended
with a compulsory dislaimer stuffed with words like
"may," "suspected" and "no link": "Fragments or dust
from the weapons, which soldiers may come into contact
with or inhale after they have been fired, are
suspected of being highly toxic. The US and NATO
however have said there is no link between exposure to
the weapons and the illnesses.”
Czech
and Slovak Fears
Radio Prague reported on January 8th, 2001 that up to
10,000 Czech soldiers who have served in the Balkan
region over the past ten years now faced medical tests
for signs of illness. An anonymous high-ranking Czech
officer told the newspaper Pravo that if it was proven
that DU could have adverse health effects, the Czech
army would have to pay its soldiers dearly for risking
lives in this way.
A Czech helicopter pilot died of leukemia a year
earkier, after returning from a mission in the
Balkans, but the defence ministry which confirmed this
information refused to link his death with his stay in
Bosnia. Apparently the Czech military health service
has not discovered a single case that could be linked
in any way with service in the Balkans.
Then
on January 14th, 2001, the Czech News Agency
reported that another Czech soldier was affected. With
Jan Valo, former commander of the Czech anti-chemical
unit in the Persian Gulf War, doctors detected retinal tumors in both eyes before he had surgery performed in
2000. "Doctors asked me whether I had been exposed to
radiation or toxic substances," Valo was quoted as
saying. Some veterans of NATO's Balkan missions
reportedly suffer mainly from leukemia and cancer, but covered-up
cases from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia include eye problems.
By
January 22nd, 2001, Radio Prague said that the Czech
Republic was sending 8 experts to Kosovo. Members of
the group included nuclear experts equipped with
devices able to measure very low levels of
radioactivity. "Although no link had been
established...," said Radio Prague as if under
dictation from the Pentagon, the Czech army was
nevertheless about to carry out "thorough
medical check-ups" among its KFOR contingent.
On
February 15th, 2001, Reuters wrote from Prague that
a Czech army mission to Kosovo detected no threat of
uranium contamination to the country's peacekeepers.
Results in progress proved "no evidence of unusual
levels of radiation among either Czech troops or in
the air, water and food tested in areas where they
were based." The Czech army planned to send another
mission to Bosnia later in February.
Neighbouring
Slovakia used to be in one country with the Czechs in the Soviet bloc, but now
has its own statelet in which its trains have to reduce speed so as not to shoot
across foreign borders. From there, the Czech News Agency wrote on January 11th,
2001, that Slovak KFOR soldiers
were to undergo checks at a military hospital. "We
will do an overall internal examination of the
soldiers, with a focus on signs of tumor, blood
creation possible failures, the function of kidneys
and skin diseases," said the hospital head Igor
Combor.
Some of the 127 Slovak soldiers mistrusted the
military, so "the hospital will cooperate with civil
clinics in Kosice [eastern Slovakia] and Bratislava,"
said Combor. Probably in an “issue
management” move, the Slovak authorities sent military doctors to
Slovak and Czech civilian clinics to prepare the ground for testing to
government and military standards. "We have also sent our specialists
to leading clinics in Hradec Kralove, eastern Bohemia, and Prague, which are
interested in cooperation," said Combor.
Widow
Maker
January
22nd Budapest Sun reported the deaths of
four Hungarians who served in the Balkan wars.
Sergeant Istvan Kormendi, a 39-year-old father of
three, died in September 1999, possibly from exposure
to DU or other toxic materials during tours of duty in
Bosnia in 1996 and 1999. One other Hungarian Balkan
veteran died of colon cancer since returning home; and
one other of a pulmonary embolism, according to Gabor
Borokai, spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office.
The cause of the other death has not yet been
published.
Zsuzsanna Kormendi, who had been demanding an
explanation for the cause of her husband's death for
over a year, informed the Budapest Sun that her
husband told her he had never been warned by his
superiors of any risk of exposure to dangerous
substances. He drove an ambulance all over Bosnia in
summer 1999, became ill in Sarajevo, returned and died
a month later. Defense Minister Janos Szabo said the
soldier had been in the region only a month and in
areas where no such weapons had been used, so the
illness was unrelated to DU.
Circumstances of Kormendi's 1996 tour of duty are
still foggier when described by the military. The
army's Chief Medical Officer, Laszlo Sved, told the
press that Kormendi did not die of leukemia, but of
internal bleeding from an infection from rodents and
insects. The widow said her husband's death
certificate clearly states that although causes
similar to those cited by Sved contributed to her
husband's death, leukemia was the primary cause.
DU
in Polish Sauce
If DU is so vigorously covered up in the US, UK and
Canada, how much easier it must be in the European Economic Community [EEC] countries
where, for example, the tobacco companies bribed a professor with a trip to
Hawaii for lying about the effects of nicotine, and reporters were paid off to
write lies about cigarettes.
It is no surprise that NATO PsyOp recently enlisted
top nuclear and medical experts from Central and
Eastern Europe as witnesses for the defense in the DU
case. In Poland, the servile and undoubtedly very well
rewarded contribution started with statements of
Polish nuclear "scientists" in the domestic media
before going global.
One of those professors with ambitions of
holding up NATO loudspeaker's to the world, Professor
Zbigniew Jaworowski of the Central Laboratory for
Radiological Protection in Warsaw, went to great
lengths to discredit himself more than helping NATO in
the coverup of DU.
Having teamed up with one Dr. Roger Bate from
Cambridge (veterinary clinic?), the duo falsified data
on DU exposure and doses in Kosovo. They distributed
the amount of DU uniformly over Kosovo's 10,000 km2,
then applied this miniscule amount to the mass of all
viscera inside our bodies, and - "no danger, just
hysteria from ignorants, alarmists and enemies of the
good old NATO." The NATO "scientist" duo drew on a
decades long cover-up from the International
Commission on Radiological Protection and like bodies
serving humanity with ...increasingly higher incidence
of leaukemia and cancers from nuclear production,
accidents, weapon tests and, recently, low-level
nuclear DU wars.
Jaworowski is known for his message that most
incremental "industrial" risks of radioactivity
exposure are trivial compared to the natural
background." To prove it, he imprisoned laboratory mice in the
depths of medieval salt mines near Cracow, to prove
that the lack of cosmic radiation was not good for
their well being. The poor creatures died... of "lack
of cosmic radiation" according to the prof. "This
experiment does not convince me, since I would not
like to be imprisoned several hundred meters below
the sea level in the dark," I was written by another
Polish professor - of economics. But what would he
know about radiation?
Disarmed
Uranium
Amazed, I read the same propaganda tricks in the
Polish press that I knew from the Western media. A
linguistic genius likely commissioned by PsyOp Poland,
tried to introduce a new name for DU, "disarmed
uranium", to hint that the name is faulty rather than
the metal.
Polish nuclear "experts" convey NATO scripts like, "DU
has nothing to do with the Gulf War illness" instead
of their own scientific opinions. They, or editors and
reporters in NATO's service, broke the code of ethics.
The "experts" had strong opinions about DU effects on
health, but neither participated in any studies of
this kind, nor are they professionals in this field of
science. It is plain that they must be hired
mouthpieces of NATO and nuclear lobbies.
The chairman of the Polish Nuclear Agency, Professor
Jerzy Niewodniczanski, insulted the public with
irresponsible statements about DU. The few Poles
who can read English and have access to the Internet
know that DU is not about gamma and beta rays, but
mainly about alfa radiation, heavy metal toxocity, and
minute particles taken in with food or breathing.
Shortly, "the prof made an ass of himself," as kids on
my block would say. He probably got away with his
crime, for an average Pole gets information from the
TV, billboards and tabloids.
A "NATO expert," Professor Zbigniew Zagorski from the
Institute of Chemistry and Nuclear Technology in
Warsaw, compared the radioactivity from 300 tonnes of
DU in the Gulf War to 1953-1977 emissions of "natural
uranium" over the entire area of the USA, implying
that since it did not harm Americans for so many
years, why would it be dangerous in the Persian Gulf
region! The same "professor" insisted that one can
safely sit on intact DU rounds for 2000 hours! DU is
known to give out on contact - in one hour - a
radioactive dose comparable to the annual allowable
limit!
Predictably, tests conducted at the Army Institute for
Chemistry and Radiometry in Warsaw (Zagorski's
institute?) concluded that there was no elevated level
of radiation in Polish peacekeepers from Kosovo. Hair
and urine samples from 54 soldiers revealed nothing
suspicious. Also tested were soil and water samples
brought back from "former Yugoslavia," reported
Witold Zygulski for Warsaw Voice on January 23rd,
2001. If for Zygulski Kosovo is "former Yugoslavia,"
then "nothing suspicious" in his report may very well
mean "severe DU contamination."
A
Voice of Truth
In contrast with the above propaganda from the region,
here is the anonymous voice of a medical doctor from
one of the countries concerned: "Even a low dose of
radioactivity at the right place (for example next to
a quickly dividing cell) has a much greater effect
than a higher ammount of radioctivity that is, for
example, applied to a less-sensitive tissue. [...]
A man living in an area contaminated with the
radioactive aerosol cannot avoid it (unless he wears a
protective mask), because he does not detect the
hazard with his senses."
"DU ammunition is made of radioactive waste [...]
Caesium, Strontium, Iodine, Barium [...] are an
integral part of the biological metabolism and
get nested in an organism (for example, natural iodine
selectively accumulates in the thyroid gland). DU
ammunition [includes] a long line of isotopes that are
highly directly toxic (Plutonium, Strontium, etc.)
and/or get nested into the organism [...] exerting a
permanent effect."
"To properly assess the health hazards of DU
ammunition, we must therefore take into account all
the components of the ammunition that are released
anew at the impact on the target. The radioactivity of
uranium U238 or U235 is only a fraction of the hazard.
NATO experts are arguing that the cumulative
radioactivity of the DU ammunition is relatively low
(also because it is spread across a wide geographical
area) and that the radioactivity does not surpass the
amount of radioactivity we are exposed to annually
from the cosmic emissions."
"DU includes a myriad of other toxic substances, in
comparison with which Uranium is a pure joke, for
example, plutonium. In addition, an explosion of
DU ammunition produces [...] toxic gasses and new
isotopes that did not even exist before the impact
with the target. Moreover, the isotopes get built
into the food chain [...] The effect on an organism is
cumulative and [practically unchanged] over time."
Some real professionals from the CEE region seem to be
more up to date on the subject than so-called NATO
experts. This despite the difficulties presented by
the fact that most of the scientific references are in
Western languages.
(copyleft: reproduce and acknowledge the source)
This page: http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/bein/neo-nato.htm
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