Yugoslav Uranium Said Dangerous

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Yugoslav Uranium Said Dangerous

VINCA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Snezana Pavlovic's gloved hand opens a 
jar filled with a soil sample from just outside of Kosovo. 
Immediately, the Geiger counter in her other hand bleeps, 
throbbing faster and faster. 

Pavlovic is among the top Yugoslav scientists convinced that the 
dirt offers proof that NATO contaminated Kosovo with toxic levels of 
depleted uranium during its bombing campaign in 1999 - no matter 
what the Pentagon may say. 

``Just because people can't see it and it's difficult to detect doesn't 
mean the depleted uranium is not a killer,'' Pavlovic said. 

Yugoslav authorities have charged that the NATO alliance 
contaminated large swaths of southwestern Kosovo during the 78-
day bombing campaign. Their data was widely dismissed, however, 
because it was seen as part of a concerted propaganda effort by 
former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime. 

Now a new, pro-democracy government is in place, and state 
scientists and Yugoslav army experts are eager to present their 
data once more. Hoping to show legitimate science backs their 
claims, they opened the country's sole nuclear laboratory for a rare 
tour Friday. 

NATO admits it targeted Yugoslav army positions in the bombing 
campaign last year using ammunition containing depleted uranium, 
an extremely dense metal used against armored vehicles because 
of its high penetrating power. But the United States, which used 
the ammunition in the Gulf War as well, has denied any link 
between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium. 

Depleted uranium, the spent fuel of nuclear reactors, is 40 percent 
less radioactive than uranium in its natural state. 

Its use came under renewed scrutiny in recent days, after Italy 
noted about 30 cases of serious illness involving soldiers who 
served in missions in Kosovo or Bosnia. Twelve of them developed 
cancer, and five have died. Four French soldiers who served in the 
Balkans are being treated for leukemia. 

A number of European nations have begun screening Balkan 
veterans. 

Scientists at the Vinca nuclear laboratory, five miles from Belgrade, 
say the examination is long overdue. Since the first days of 
NATO's 1999 bombing, Pavlovic's team has been busy testing 
samples at the institute, a sealed-off and guarded compound of a 
dozen buildings spread over several acres. 

Many medical experts are skeptical that the depleted uranium 
caused cancer and other illnesses reported by veterans. They say 
depleted uranium vaporizes instantly and a person would have to 
be very close to an explosion and be there within seconds to be 
affected. But others argue that not all the depleted uranium 
vaporizes immediately and radioactive derivatives can linger in the 
air for months. 

The head of a U.N. environmental task force said Friday that 
remnants of ordnance containing depleted uranium are littering the 
ground in Kosovo. 

``It was surprising to find remnants of DU (depleted uranium) 
ammunition just lying on the ground,'' nearly 1 1/2 years after 
NATO's bombing campaign, said Pekka Haavisto, head of the U.N. 
Environment Program's depleted uranium assessment team. 

In November, the team of U.N. scientists toured 11 sites in Kosovo 
targeted by ammunition containing depleted uranium. They 
collected hundreds of water, soil and vegetation samples. 

At eight of those sites, team members found slightly higher levels 
of radiation, or pieces of ammunition, Haavisto said. Five of the 
sites visited were in the Italian-patrolled sector of the province, 
while six were in the German-patrolled sector. 

The uranium now is concentrated along a belt of land stretching 
from just outside of Kosovo's southwestern city of Prizren, along a 
route connecting the towns of Djakovica and Decani to the north. 

The metal will filter into ground water and ultimately move into the 
food chain, said Col. Milan Zaric, a Yugoslav military expert on 
radioactivity. 

Zaric points out that while withdrawing from Kosovo, Yugoslav 
troops left behind tanks and armored vehicles destroyed by NATO 
ammunition containing depleted uranium. Ethnic Albanian children 
posed for cameras amid leftover ordnance. 

``Because NATO used this ammunition, it has a moral duty to 
clean up the sites in the peace mission that followed the war, 
however costly such a procedure is,'' Pavlovic says. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.			E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 				                           
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Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net
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