reprinted with permission from
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 261-262

In a period of ten months, 30 deformed children were born to 200 healthy women, because women who had any sort of problems had to go to other hospitals in regional centers or in Minsk to give birth. Now, what does this rate mean today? Six and a half years later, we now know that it is because strontium came down, and in large quantities. We only had a vague idea of what was happening, but for four years, we did not know. And above all, the children suffer. The children are still in these terrible areas. . . .
. . . the children are getting more and more sick, that they all suffer from immune deficiencies. The children have leukemia, but that's just the beginning, it's only the tip of the iceberg. It's like a pyramid with its tip pointing downward. The farther away, the worse the effects. 27 cities, 3,142 settlements, where more than two and a half million people live, are so contaminated that the radiation is one Curie there. But what lies between this number and the normal, let's call it usual, radiation cannot be data-processed by any computer. We did not know what was happening to us. We see ourselves as Guinea pigs used in a giant experiment.
Yes, the protest grew. Four years after the event, this seed began to grow, and today we have called into existence a large Chernobyl movement, both among ourselves in Belorussia as well as in foreign countries. Our initiative has found many friends in the two years since the truth has come out, and these friends try to find any way of helping that they can. I believe that this Hearing here is also a very important event in our realizing that we must all work together, and then we can beat this force called atomic energy. I think that everybody here has understood. But all of us here are multipliers, and we see that we all represent only a chain. We see that this chain can also beat the atomic lobby and the atomic mafia if we consistently and courageously fight against it.

---

Irina Grushevaya

Irina Grushevaya, White Russia, CIS. Medical doctor, co-founder of the Foundation for the Children of Chernobyl.
(This speech was held originally in German)

I have here in my hand a drawing by a child, perhaps not everyone can see it, but you can see it later. This drawing actually contains all the facets of this catastrophe that happened to us. In this picture, the 13-year-old child -- and this was three years ago -- draws not nightmares, but his actual life, and we shudder at the image it presents. A barbed wire fence, that is the prohibited zone, that is everyday life for many children in Belorussia, the zone, 30 kilometers long, which is thoroughly arbitrary, one could have just as easily blocked off 70 kilometers. But behind the barbed wire, there are many children, Chojnike, Bragin, the village Cedany, Majskij, the Mogilova area, where the radiation exceeds 150 Curie per square kilometer. One year ago, there were still almost 200 Curie on the grounds of the kindergarten in the village of Bartolomeevka, that's what we measured, and the children were there, too. And only after half a year, in 1991, the villagers have been relocated. But still today, you'll find about 50 to 60 people who still live in this deadly radiated area.

Andrej, the name of this child, also painted the houses here, the nailed-up houses. That is also our reality. We have many villages where the people had to leave everything, also the graves of their ancestors. The children were relocated, but the relocation was carried out criminally. That is, the children were taken from these highly radiated areas, but nevertheless moved to contaminated areas with less radiation. And what will happen to these children or to the old people? It doesn't matter. I know of several families myself who have already had to move three times, but they still don't live in an uncontaminated area. There are many new settlements built nine kilometers -- just not very far away -- from the locations, and there has also been a lot of money invested by the locations that have been highly contaminated.

What do we mean by "highly"? Belorussians know very well now what "Curie", what "Becquerel" means. They know very well that one Curie per square kilometer is the same as 37,000 Becquerel per square kilometer. They know that their children have taken in so-and-so many. It's common knowledge now because it has simply entered our lives. But Gernadij also said everything was being kept secret. The people didn't know anything, they believed, they believed the government, and they also believed the scientists from politics. They couldn't get hold of any information.

And in this picture, the child draws the monstrous creations that we also have in our lives. In 1990, our initiative led the gathering of all the peoples affected by Chernobyl. These people are still affected today. And in this gathering, in this social tribunal, we showed how our initiative had secretly photographed the deformed children in the hospitals in Chojnike in the contaminated areas. We showed these pictures. We also had lists, for example, in the village of Chojnike. In a period of ten months, 30 deformed children were born to 200 healthy women, because women who had any sort of problems had to go to other hospitals in regional centers or in Minsk to give birth. Now, what does this rate mean today? Six and a half years later, we now know that it is because strontium came down, and in large quantities. We only had a vague idea of what was happening, but for four years, we did not know. And above all, the children suffer. The children are still in these terrible areas.

I can tell you that directly after the catastrophe, the plan for the production of milk and bread was not reduced, but rather, on the contrary, it was increased one and a half times. That means that the contaminated products were produced in greater amounts. Who ate these products? Naturally, those who lived there. I was in the villages where the kolkhozes [collective farms] received the milk for four years, and everyone was allowed to drink this milk. And only after four years, when the truth came out, was it established that the milk was undrinkable. And this collective farm received a special award for the best milk production in the area, two and a half kilometers away from Chernobyl; it's called Reshitza.

More such examples could be cited, and there are also people who say that all this is exaggerated. But they can also look at the pictures; they come from our areas and they show our daily lives. They show that the children are getting more and more sick, that they all suffer from immune deficiencies. The children have leukemia, but that's just the beginning, it's only the tip of the iceberg. It's like a pyramid with its tip pointing downward. The farther away, the worse the effects. 27 cities, 3,142 settlements, where more than two and a half million people live, are so contaminated that the radiation is one Curie there. But what lies between this number and the normal, let's call it usual, radiation cannot be data-processed by any computer. We did not know what was happening to us. We see ourselves as Guinea pigs used in a giant experiment.

Yes, the protest grew. Four years after the event, this seed began to grow, and today we have called into existence a large Chernobyl movement, both among ourselves in Belorussia as well as in foreign countries. Our initiative has found many friends in the two years since the truth has come out, and these friends try to find any way of helping that they can. I believe that this Hearing here is also a very important event in our realizing that we must all work together, and then we can beat this force called atomic energy. I think that everybody here has understood. But all of us here are multipliers, and we see that we all represent only a chain. We see that this chain can also beat the atomic lobby and the atomic mafia if we consistently and courageously fight against it.

Therefore, our initiative proposes to hold the second international congress in April of next year, on the seventh anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe. We led such a congress in April of this year with our own, not too great powers. There were representatives from 15 countries, 250 participants. We drew up resolutions and an appeal. Everything can be found on the table outside in the hall. But we ask that this series of events not be interrupted. We must add two more words in the name of the congress: "The World after Chernobyl, the World Without Atomic Risk." We must all gather together again to carry on this series of events, so that the international atomic authorities can no longer get a sure foothold, so that our children, who share a common fate and a common future, may live on in peace.

It is no coincidence that the symbol of our citizens' initiative has become a symbol of childhood damaged by radioactivity. It is a flower on which not all the petals are colored, from which three petals have died off because of radioactivity. And I call on all of you to unite our efforts and do everything we can to allow this flower to grow full of color again, and that it stays that way, and that the earth has only colorful flowers and gives birth only to healthy children. We are all children of this earth, and we must fight for that.

Thank you.



Joanna Macy (Moderator)

We now hear from Mr. Ostrogsky from Russia.