Global Reflexion-Special on Environment #2 (pt 2) 5/20

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

source - Foundation Global Reflexion <[email protected]>

Special Info nr. 2 on environment; 2/2
Thu, 20 May 1999


International Action Center
39 West 14 St., #206  New York, NY  10011
(212) 633-6646   fax: (212) 633-2889
email: [email protected]   web: www.iacenter.org

For immediate release
May 14, 1999

Contacts: Deirdre Sinnott, Brian Becker
(212) 633-6646

NATO BOMBING UNLEASHES ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IN EUROPE

Spokespeople for the International Action Center announced in New York
today that their group was taking actions to document NATO's bombing
as a war crime against the environment of the Balkans and Europe
especially in light of the Pentagon's recent admission it was using
depleted uranium weapons against Yugoslavia.

The Pentagon and other NATO armed forces use the extremely dense
depleted-uranium to reinforce large-caliber bullets and shells. This
element increases the shells' ability to penetrate armor, but it
leaves toxic and radioactive particles of uranium oxide that endanger
humans and pollute the environment.

IAC co-director Sara Flounders was heading to Yugoslavia May 14 to
investigate and bring back first-hand evidence and documentation
involving NATO's use of DU weapons and its attacks on chemical and
pharmaceutical plants, plastics factories, refineries and other
targets. This bombing creates environmental devastation that will
impact on millions of people and for generations to come. 

The delegation will be led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark, who traveled to Yugoslavia in the first week of the bombing
with videographer Gloria La Riva, whose videos on Iraq have won
international awards.  La Riva is currently working on a video on
NATO's war on Yugoslavia.  Jeremy Scahill of Pacifica Radio's national
program Democracy Now, also part of the delegation, will provide daily
news coverage on NATO bombing targets.  His coverage will particularly
focus on the long-term environmental disaster that is unfolding.

Flounders is a co-editor of Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, a
1997 book exposing the dangers of DU-reinforced shells and its link
with Gulf War Syndrome. Metal of Dishonor's other co-editor, John
Catalinotto, will be speaking at forums on Yugoslavia in The Hague,
Netherlands on May 15, and Bonn, Germany, on May 17 about these
environmental issues and their link to NATO's war against Yugoslavia.

These issues have gained importance due to the turmoil within the
European Green parties whose leadership has abandoned its traditional
pacifism and defense of the environment to support NATO's war. This is
especially seen in the German Greens, which form part of the current
government. On May 13 in Bielefeld, Germany, rank-and-file Greens at a
party congress were accusing their leader--current German Foreign
Minister Joshka Fischer--of betrayal and demanding an immediate end to
NATO bombing.

Flounders discussed the NATO strikes that did the most damage to the
environment. "NATO planes bombed the pharmaceutical complex in
Galenika, the largest medicine factory in Yugoslavia. This attack on a
vital civilian target released dangerous, highly toxic fumes
immediately, and will undermine the ability to provide medicine in the
future.

"On April 15, NATO forces bombed plants of the petrochemical complex
in Pancevo, directly hitting installations and equipment of the Vinyl
Chloride Monomer plant and Ethylene plant and damaging others.
According to a report from the plant's director, Dr. Slobodan Tresac,
fire broke out and huge quantities of chlorine, ethylene dichloride
and vinyl chloride monomer flowed out. Workers at Pancevo, fearing
further bombing attacks that would blow up dangerous materials,
released tons of ethylene dichloride, a carcinogen, into the Danube.

"That same night, NATO also hit the Ammonia and Power Supply divisions
of HIP-AZOTARA Fertilizer Company and completely destroyed them, also
in Pancevo. 

"In a May 7 news release, the Worldwide Fund for Nature warned that an
environmental crisis is looming in the lower Danube river and the
Black Sea due mainly to oil slicks. The river is a source of drinking
water for 10 million people.

"Of course NATO bombing is also the cause of immediate human suffering
in Yugoslavia," said Flounders, "but we don't want to neglect its
long-term criminal impact on the environment.

"In an open letter from Belgrade, the Yugoslav minister of
agriculture, Nedelijko Sipovac, wrote in early May that these bombings
have caused ecological catastrophe `not only on the territory of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but on the territories of all Balkan,
Danube basin, Mediterranean and European countries as well.' Sipovac
noted an increase in radioactivity which he attributed to the use of
depleted uranium bullets."

Catalinotto said Pentagon spokesperson Major-General Chuck Wald
finally admitted to BBC news on May 7 that its A-10 "Warthog" planes
were firing depleted uranium ammunition. "These planes fired almost a
million 30 millimeter DU rounds during the 1991 war against Iraq," he
said.

"DU is one important aspect of a looming environmental disaster for
the region," Catalinotto added, "that will harm all the different
nationalities of the former Yugoslavia and could spill over into
Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak
republics.

"The environmental arrogance of the NATO generals exposes their
original `humanitarian' excuse for starting to bomb Yugoslavia as a
fraud," he said. "They are making the whole region unfit for human
habitation. And they will wind up poisoning their own soldiers as they
did with Agent Orange in Vietnam and with DU in Iraq.

"We in the International Action Center will spread this message far
and wide in Europe and North America and expose anyone who defends
NATO's war as a killer of the environment. We hope this will bring the
Greens where they belong, side by side with anti-war forces that
demand NATO end the bombing and get out."

The IAC is part of a coalition of anti-war organizations in the United
States who are organizing a national demonstration expected to bring
tens of thousands of people to the Pentagon in Washington DC to
protest the war on Saturday, June 5.

The second edition of Metal of Dishonor was just released. Since the
first edition came out in 1997, this issue has gained international
attention and the book has been translated into Arabic and Japanese
editions.  

                               --30--

**********************************************************

German Greens 'Disappointed' with German Brothers
            5/15/99  
News Release
            FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
            May 15, 1999

            Contact G/GPUSA Media Group:
            Howie Hawkins (315) 425-9602
            Starlene Rankin (515) 233-9654

The Coordinating Committee of The Greens/Green Party USA issued
this statement today.

GPUSA REJECTS GERMAN GREENS' COMPROMISE;
RENEWS CALL FOR "IMMEDIATE AND FINAL STOP" TO NATO BOMBING

May 15, 1999

The Greens/Green Party USA would like to express our support and gratitude
to the German Green Party anti-war resisters and especially the 43% of the
delegates who voted for an "immediate and final stop" to the NATO bombing at
their party congress yesterday. However, we are extremely disappointed that
the majority of the party congress adopted the compromise resolution, which
called for a "unilateral pause" in the bombing to open the door to possible
negotiations. The compromise is better than supporting NATO's current policy
of bombing until Yugoslavia accepts a NATO-led military occupation. But it
is not enough. The bombing must stop without conditions. We can only hope
that the Green Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, will pursue the temporary
bombing halt with every means at his disposal.

The Green/Green Party USA believes that US-led NATO bombing campaign has
been a disaster in every respect: for the Kosovar Albanians it was
presumedly supposed to protect, for democratic anti-nationalists in both
Kosovo/a and Serbia, for progress toward demilitarization and peace in the
post Cold War world, for the environment of the Balkans and beyond, and for
the rule of international law which the US-led NATO bombing campaign has
flagrantly violated.

It is our strong view that the US and NATO are pursuing this disastrous
policy of bombing primarily to establish NATO as the world's military
enforcer of the geopolitical and corporate interests of the US and its
junior NATO partners, with little regard for the Albanian, Serb, and other
victims of ethnic cleansing by Balkan nationalists and of so-called
"collateral damage" from NATO bombing. We are outraged that Greens in the
German, French, and Italian NATO governments have become party to this war
policy and to NATO's recent official expansion of its mission to include
"out of area" military intervention.

As Greens in the United States, we will now focus our attention on the US
Congress to stop this immoral war. On April 28, the U.S. House of
Representatives defeated a resolution that would have authorized the use of
military force in Yugoslavia, satisfied the conditions War Powers
Resolution, and enabled the Clinton Administration to wage the war without
further Congressional approval. Consequently, the President must now end the
use of U.S. military force in Yugoslavia by May 26, unless Congress
explicitly authorizes the use of force. We intend to do all we can to insure
Congress does not allow a continuation of this war.

The alternative to US/NATO acting as the "rogue superpower" and destroying
Yugoslavia with its bombing campaign is to pursue negotiations backed by
international consensus through the United Nations. The Greens/Green Party
USA calls for a United Nations mandate to demand a cease-fire by all sides,
to restart negotiations, and to quickly authorize an international
peace-keeping force independent of NATO.

The US and NATO countries should provide aid and admittance of refugees
sufficient to meet the immediate need. A U.N. mandate should support the
right of Kosovo/a refugees to return home as soon as possible in security
and with sufficient aid for reconstruction. The US and NATO countries should
donate reparations for the infrastructural and environmental damage they
have caused by the bombing. They should provide the resources needed for the
post-war reconstruction of prosperity in the Balkans. Spending US resources
on economic and environmental reconstruction will do far more to create the
conditions for peace and multicultural democracy in the Balkans than wasting
US resources on bombs, violence, and war that destroys those conditions.

Coordinating Committee of the Greens/Green Party USA:
Marc Loveless (member)
Starlene Rankin (member)
Nancy Oden (alt.)

G/GPUSA Clearinghouse Contact information:
P.O. Box 1134
Lawrence, MA 01842
978-682-4353
[email protected]

***********************************************************

AGRESSION ON YUGOSLAVIA
INDIRECT CHEMICAL WAREFARE

The fear that the conflict in Yugoslavia could take on the characteristics
of chemical warfare due to indirect use of extremely toxic chemicals has
proven justified after several weeks of NATO strikes.

Few were those who believed that NATO would dare strike or cover with bombs
chemical plants producing exclusively for civilian production (such as
chlorine and ammonia reservoirs, and the like).

When it became evident that anything and everything in the country was good
enough target, Yugoslavia has tried to prevent chemical accidents by closing
the plants, removing chemicals, neutralizing or leaking of the chemicals
into surface flows and the ground. Such preventivc actions were based in
concerns about possible side-effects of acute nature and immediate, but they
could not have dealt with long-term consequences.

Fear and anxiety in the Yugoslav population due to the release of poisonous
chemicals, explosions, or fires, have resulted in emptying of cooling
systems within great cooling plants, which some institutions have decided to
do for safety reasons. Others have moved or leaked huge quantities of
ammonia in the waterflows out of fear of chemical hazards.

Bombing of the town of Pancevo (pop. 150,000) is perhaps the best example:
it is located 15 km NE of Belgrade. At one point (the night between April 14
and 15, 1999) the NATO aggressor bombed three industrial complexes
simultaneously: the Oil Refinery, Petrochemical Plant, and the Nitrogen
Processing Plant. All three plants are within the industrial zone of the
town (ca. 8 km2), bordering on the residential area. The nearest residential
buildings are less than 150 m away the Nitrogen Processing Plant. After the
strike on the Refinery Complex, several reservoirs were set on fire. These
had not been hit by previous NATO attack of April 12, 1999. The reservoirs
contained raw oil and derivatives. A huge cloud of thick smoke was formed
above the reservoirs, about 1.5 km wide and 3 km high, leaving sediment of
soot, ashes and dust. The last part of this cloud was carried by the wind
westwards, where it came down to the ground at about 15 km from the
explosion spot. This cloud was changing direction in the 10-day period to
follow (during the brush fire that lasted for 10 days with various
intensity), so that at one moment had to be evacuated a part of the town. In
the first five of these 10 days, concentrations of sulfur-dioxide, soot and
total chlorocarbons increased by the 4-8 times in relation to the referent
border values. This was especially the case with unburned contents of the
oil: benzene, toluene, xylenes etc., carbon-monoxide, mercaptanes,
formaldehide and the like.

At the same time Petrochemical Complex was attacked: its reservoirs were hit
by bombs; they contained vinyl-chloride-monomer (VCM - 1,200 tons), chlorine
in residues, ethylene-dichloride (EDC-1,500 tons), NaOH (40%; 6,000 tons),
HCl (33%; 800 tons). About 1,400 tons of EDC, 3,000 tons of NaOH and 600
tons of HCl leaked into the Danube.

A large quantity of oil also leaked into the Danube (about 50 tons of the
emulsion) and derivatives, through a common equipment for the treatment of
wastewaters (which was not working during the NATO agression).The VCM
reservoir burned for hours, creating a whitish smoke and a cloud that was
moving westwards, toward the outskirts of Belgrade (Borca, Ovca, Padinska
Skela). The cloud was carried by low air currents, and merged with another
cloud that had been formed when the storehouse full of fertilizer NPK was
hit of the Nitrogen Processing Plant. The VCM concentrations measured in
those clouds were 3,000-4,000 times higher than the allowed values.
Increased concentrations of NOx (10 mg/m3) and phosgene (2 ppm) were also
registered. About 250 tons of liquid ammonia leaked from the Nitrogen
Processing Plant.

After the situation had been proclaimed stable (two days later) teams from
the Institute of Public Health of Belgrade and of Pancevo started
examinations and measurements of concentrations of certain matters in the
soil, surface waters and nutritive plants that were in the territory which
surrounds the targeted zone. The soil at the Petrochemical Complex was
soaked with EDC. All the chemicals that had been released in water, was
present in the surface waters, as well as the compounds resulting from their
reactions.

 What is most important, concentrations of several grams per liter of EDC
were found in the deep of the river. As the result, fishing was forbidden
downstream from the town of Pancevo. According to the examinations performed
by the Institute of Biology "Dr Sinisa Stankovic" from Belgrade, there is a
decrease in the activity of the river flora and fauna at the penetration
point of the chemicals into the Danube. A large quantity of dead fish was
observed in the area 30- 40 km downstream from Pancevo.

Pancevo is only one among the locations where a unique experiment with the
human population has been performed in vivo.

Just a few days after the Pancevo accident, NATO planes bombed a great
transformer station in Belgrade. On that occasion, the quantity of 150 tons
of the special transformer-plant oil leaked from. Through a canal system,
the oil reached the Rakovica Stream and the Topcider Rivulet, the right
tributary to the river Sava. Being aware of the chemical dangers of this
type of oil, professionals fought for seven days to collect the oil from the
surface of the river and to prevent the contamination of the Sava River.
Their success was, unfortunately, only partial.

The bombings of the Baric industrial zone caused the Sava river to
accumulate great quantities of hydrogenfluoride (HF; 99.9%), HNO3
(concentrated) and about 200 tons of liquid ammonia. All this necessitated
regimen perforation of the Belgrade Waterworks.

 The consequences of NATO attacks on the Pancevo Refinery and other
industrial complexes are still being examinad detail in the days to come. An
curions aspect of the NATO agression was the striking of the LPG spheres in
Novi Sad, where it was obvious that the aggressor had wanted to provoke the
explosion of gaseous substance, thus causing as severe ecological damage as
possible.

Finally, the majority of the chemical plants not related in any way to the
military production of any kind has been damaged or completely destroyed.
The Yugoslav population is wandering how to chlorinate drinking water if
they are forbidden to start the production of chlorine? They would like to
know how the cooling plants are supposed to operate without ammonia.

The examination of the consequences of the heavy strikes by NATO on the Novi
Sad Refinery and other chemical plants will be the subject of our further
communications.

Dr Slobodan Tosovic, Senior Specialist Head of the Department for
Ecotoxicology  Institute of Public Health of Belgrade

Professor Dr Bogdan Solaja
Co-Chairman of the Serbian Chemical Society

************************************************************

Catherine Euler <[email protected]> wrote:

In your new newslist, PLEASE do not forget to mention the now confirmed NATO
use of 'depleted' uranium in Kosovo/a.  Aerolised ceramic DU is an alpha,
beta and gamma emitter which can travel up to 20 km. and has a half-life of
4.5 billion years. This is a major nuclear disaster not only for the people
of that region but, eventually, for the rest of all living things on earth. 
The people of Iraq are already suffering the terrible consequences of DU
weapons use - birth deformities, cancers and 'lesser' illnesses.  American
GIs serving in the Gulf War (and their children) have also experienced the
horrors of this kind of ionising radiation.  Those wounded with DU shrapnel
still had uranium in their semen, nine years later.

Uranium oxide crosses the placenta and is carried throughout the body in the
blood system.  Once ingested in air, food or water it is quite capable of
shredding DNA strands or doing other genetic damage if one of the particles
hits reproductive cells.  This is what the United States wants the Albanian
refugees to return to!  These military men are totally insane.  Don't
believe their lies about how 'harmless' it is because it is classified as
'low-level' radiation.  These are weapons of mass destruction, and we in the
peace movement have enormous responsibility for trying to get an emergency
UN ban on their use as quickly as possible.  Illuminating US congressmen
wouldn't hurt, either, since the United States is totally ignoring the
authority of the UN.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Rosalie Bertell, the respected epidemiologist, writes that:

"In 1996 this issue was brought before the Human Rights Tribunal in Geneva
and the Tribunal condemned it as warfare. They actually called Depleted
Uranium a weapon of mass destruction. I think it might be better called a
weapon of indiscriminate destruction but they didn't really have a term for
it. I say indescriminate because it will by choice affect women and
children.  Women have tisses that are more radioactively sensitive like the
breast and uterine tissue. Children are closer to the ground; they're
growing; they'll incorporate more uranium into their bones when they grow
and they also have a longer life span so that the cancers that have a longer
latency can be expressed. So it selects out women and children.

"Anyway it was condemned by United Nations  Human Rights Commission and they
have appointed a rapporteur to prepare a brief for the United Nations. It's
not completed yet.

"The World Health Organization has  sent a team into Iraq to look at the
aftermath of war but they just went in last fall and they expect to spend
two years in study.

"So I think you can see that the forces for good here are slow compared to
the extent at which this is being used and the rapidity with which it is
being used not only in Iraq but Bosnia and Kosovo .

"So I would call this to your attention- and I would ask you to make this
known."

Source: Transcript of audio tape of Dr. Bertell's presentation at the
University of Tornoto, 6 May 1999.[
http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11531]

*******************************************

ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT  OF THE NATO BOMBING IN YUGOSLAVIA

Nato bombing inYugoslavia started 24, 1999. Up to now, 9000 missiles and
bombs have been fired at various targets, an expenditure of more than 12
million kilograms of explosives. Many of these guided devices have been
targeted at the Yugoslav infrastructure, the destruction of which has caused
serious environmental problems in the region. The main causes of the
pollution in the area are:

-The destruction of:
  chemical and petrochemical plants
  fertilizer factories
  oil depots and refineris 
  pharmaceutical plants

-Use of depleted uranium

-Burned aircraft fuel

DESTRUCTION OF THE CHEMICAL AND PETROCHEMICAL PLANTS

In the city of Pancevo, 15km northeast of Belgrade, there are located
combined petrochemical and fertilizer factories and an oil refinery. A VCM
(vinyl chloride monomer) plant was targeted two times in april. Vinyl
chloride is used principally for the production of polyvinyl chloride, a
synthetic resin. VCM is known to cause cancer and has a damaging effect on
liver and kidneys in humans. This factory produces 300 tons of VCM per day.

NATO airforce hit production facilities and storage depots of the VCM while
the plant was in regular operation. This resulted in a huge explosion. A
toxic cloud of smoke and gas, hundreds of feet in hight was produced
containing phosgene, hydrochloride acid, ethylene dichloride and VCM. 20
tons of luiquid chlorine was released into the atmosphere. This threatened
Pancevo urban area of 120,000 inhabitants and indirectly Belgrade with its
population of 2 million. After the bombardment the amount of the toxic gases
in the air above Pancevo were 1000 times above the permitted level, reported
Violeta Orlovic from the Institute for the Protection of Nature of Serbia.
Many people were affected by the gas. Several thousand reported feeling
nausea and vertigo. Residents were told to breathe through scarves soaked in
sodium bicarbonate. Plants of chemical process industries of this type have
never been military targets or subject of strikes.

On april, 15 NATO airforce bombed a fertilizer company in Pancevo. The
ammonia division facility, the power supply division and the units were
destroyed.

The municipality of Baric was also hit. There is in Baric a large complex
for the production of chloride.

On the second day of bombing, a chemical factory in the Belgrade suburb of
Sremcica was also targeted and hit.

Other facilites for the production of potentially hazardous material that
have been damaged are: the pharmaceutical factory "Galenika" in Belgrade, a
plastics factory in Pristina, a chemical industry "Milan BLagojevic" in
Lucani and a factory for the production of prharmaceutical products
"Zdravlje" in Leskovac.

In addition, several transformer stations were destroyed in NATO attacks
which resulted in the leakage of highly toxic pyralene.


BOMBARDMENT OF THE OIL DEPOTS

NATO military jets repeatedly target dozens of the country's major oil
refineries. NATO reported the destruction of the 70% of the refineries and
30% of the counttry's capacities. Such installations were hit in the cities
of Novi Sad, Pancevo, Belgrade, Nis, Pristina, Sombor, Smederevo and
elsewhere. Power-heating plants with their oil reservoirs were destroyed in
Novi Sad and Belgrade.


WATER POLLUTION

Serbia has one of the most extensive underground water systems in Europe.
The contamination of these vital water sources will be felt in the whole
surrounding area and all the way to the Black Sea.

Oil and petrol from the damaged refineries area has flowed into the Danube,
forming slicks 15km long and 400m wide.

Workers at the Pancevo petrochemical complex decided to release ethylene
dichloride into the Danube to avoid the risk of an explosion. The engineers
of this plant have recently reported that in total 1400 tons of this
carcinogenic matter, 800 tons of 33% hydrochloride acid, large deposits of
mercury and 3000 tons of lye flowed into the river. The pollution is
expected to go downstream to Romania and Bulgaria.

Bombing at the Zastava car factory in Kragujevac has caused several tons of
pyralene to leak into the Velika Morava river, one of the major tributaries
of the Danube in Serbia. Even a small amount of this carcenogenic material
can poison one million litres of water.

About 10 million people in Balkan region depend on the Danube for drinking
water.

USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM

At a US Defence Department briefing held on May 7, 1999, Pentagon has
confirmed the use of depleted uranium (DU) in the conflict with Yugoslavia.
This is the third time in history that this dangerous metal is being used in
weapons.

Bullets being fired by A-10 anti-tank aircraft and probably all Tomahawk
Cruise missiles in the campaign Allied Force contain DU.

The Coghill Research Laboratories from UK cite eminent radiation physicists
who calculate that unprecedented use of DU inserts in Cruise missiles in
Yugoslavia will have the same effect as Chernobil and the Three Mile Island
disaster.

DU is a waste product of the enrichment of uranium for military and civilian
use. It is 40% less radioactive than natural uranium.

The half life of this sort of uranium is 10 billion years. It pollutes the
environment for a very long period of time. That's why it has a nickname
"metal of dishonor".

DU is used in shells because of it's low price and because of it's extreme
density (1,7 times as dense as lead) which penetrates targets better.  The
U.S. stockpile exceeds a billion pounds of this heavy metal. DU was used,
for military purposes, for the first time during the Gulf War in the 1991.

The estimated amount of DU left around the Gulf War zone is between 350 and
750 tons.

As the shell hits its target, it burns and releases uranium oxide. This
aerosol contains particles of DU 0.5-5 microns in size which, once they are
in the air, can be carried by the wind and inhaled or ingested. DU is both
radioactive and toxic. Once in the lungs, one such particle is equivalent to
having one chest X-ray per hour for life. Because it is impossible to
remove, the victim is gradually irradiated. There extensive reports from
southern Iraq about a large increase of stillbirths, birth defects, leukemia
and other cancers in children born since 1991. Some scientific researches
indicates that DU could be responsible for the Gulf War syndrome from which
thousands of US veterans suffer.

AIRCRAFT FUEL

More than 1,100 military aircraft are being used in the bombing of
Yugoslavia. NATO claims it has carried out around 21,000 sorties so far. Jet
fuel exhaust releases toxic and cancerous gases into the atmosphere such as:
ammonium-perchlorat, polyvinyl-chloride, lead-stearate, polybutadie,
polyethan etc. Ivan Grozdanov, a chemist at the Centre for Radioisotopes in
Skopje said that the burning aircraft fuel is a primary source of
stratospheric nitrogen oxides which are severely damaging the ozone layer.
In combination with other sources of pollution, this has caused acid rains
which have already occured in northern Serbia and that will affect
agriculture and forest regions.

AFFECTED COUNTRIES IN THE REGION

"By burning down enormous quantities of naphtha and its derivatives more
than a hundred highly toxic chemical compounds that pollute water, air and
soil are released endangering the entire Balkan ecosystem", said New Green
Party scientist Luka Radoja. The chief inspector of the Macedonian Ministry
of environment, Miroslav Baburski, claims that furans and dioxins released
by bomb explosions are being carried over very long distances. The pollution
is entering Macedonia by air and by the river Lepenec which crosses the
border between Yugoslavia and Macedonia.

The toxic products in the air which are spreading in the Europe, have
already reached Poland. Depending on a weather conditions they could also
affect Hungary, Greece and Italy.

CONCLUSION

The NATO campaign in Yugoslavia is exposing hundreds of thousands of
citizens to various sorts of poisoning. This will have serious short, medium
and long term consequences to the health of the inhabitants and the
environment of the southeast Europe. Long lasting toxic, mutagenous and
cancerous effects of the released chemicals will increase malign, lung, skin
and other diseases.

Over 20 international treaties and conventions are being violated by this
agression.

Pollution on such scale deserves greater attention of the world's public and
direct actions of all those who are commited to protecting the natural
environment.

Dr. Bora Cvetkovic
Amsterdam, May 19, 1999

************************************************
Global Reflexion - Foundation for International Cooperation
P.O. Box 59262 - 1040 KG Amsterdam - The Netherlands
At:
Center for International Cooperation
Sloterkade 20 - 1058 HE Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Ph. ++ 31 20 615 1122 / Fax: ++ 31 20 615 1120  
e-mail: [email protected]

 
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