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Rick Rozoff wrote:



> http://www.tol.cz/look/BRR/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=4&NrArticle=8027

>

> Transitions Online (Open Society Institute)

> December 10, 2002

>

> Balkan Syndrome Resurrected

>

> -During NATO’s 1994 and 1995 bombings of Bosnian Serb

> positions around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used

> munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly

> radioactive heavy metal that is effective in piercing

> armor. Most of those bombs were fired in Hadzici. In

> one day in October 1995 alone, NATO planes fired 300

> projectiles into the Sarajevo suburb. According to the

> Bosnian government, NATO forces fired some 10,800

> rounds of 30mm armor-piercing projectiles during the

> war.

> -In her report, Jovanovic wrote that since the end of

> the war, 25 percent of wartime Hadzici residents have

> died of various cancers, tumors, and heart attacks. In

> Bratunac alone in the last four years, 500 of the

> 5,000 Hadzici refugees have died. One Hadzici refugee

> dies every three to four days, and every second one

> dies from cancer.

>

> The UN releases a study that lends credence to health

> experts’ cries that NATO’s wartime uranium-tipped

> weapons have left behind a deadly, cancerous legacy.

> by Anes Alic and Dragan Stanimirovic

>

> SARAJEVO and BANJA LUKA, Bosnia and Herzegovina--After

> two years of silence, Balkan Syndrome--better known as

> the depleted uranium affair--is getting its due

> attention. The United Nations Environmental Protection

> Agency (UNEP) in November confirmed the dangerous

> presence of depleted uranium in areas of Bosnia bombed

> by NATO aircraft in 1994 and 1995, which Bosnian

> officials say has led to a shocking increase in

> cancer-related deaths.

>

> UN experts confirmed the discovery of two locations

> containing a high level of radiation from depleted

> uranium from NATO bombings: the Sarajevo suburb of

> Hadzici, where a munitions warehouse and a tank-repair

> facility are located, and a Bosnian Serb army barracks

> in Han-Pijesak, also near Sarajevo. Investigators

> discovered uranium materials and dust inside the

> buildings.

>

> The UNEP task force says that depleted uranium can

> create an increase in uranium concentration 100 times

> the natural levels contained in groundwater.

>

> Upon the release of the November UN expert study on

> depleted uranium, health officials from Republika

> Srpska confirmed that uranium has indeed caused many

> civilian deaths in those two regions. Health officials

> say that civilian deaths in those regions are double

> what they are in other, unaffected regions.

>

> Earlier this year, the Bosnian government invited 17

> international experts to investigate rumors that

> depleted uranium is still present in the environment

> and may be adversely affecting the health not only of

> the local population but also of international

> peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia.

>

> The team of experts investigated 14 separate locations

> over a one-month period, finding traces of radiation

> in three places. Investigators were not able to

> examine eight other locations--four small towns near

> Sarajevo and four others in eastern Bosnia--deemed to

> be too risky due to the presence of land mines.

>

> Pekka Haavisto, who heads the UNEP task force, told

> the daily Oslobodjenje: “We are concerned about the

> situation at the Hadzici tank-repair facility and the

> Han-Pijesak barracks and the health condition of the

> citizens.” Haavisto said that after being analyzed in

> Western European laboratories, the final results would

> be released in March 2003.

>

> Recent years have brought growing concern among

> experts that shrapnel from depleted uranium-tipped

> weapons from could cause cancer or other

> radiation-related problems. According to health

> experts, dust particles from depleted uranium could be

> inhaled, or the substance could leach into the ground

> and the water supply.

>

> AFTEREFFECTS

>

> During NATO’s 1994 and 1995 bombings of Bosnian Serb

> positions around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used

> munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly

> radioactive heavy metal that is effective in piercing

> armor. Most of those bombs were fired in Hadzici. In

> one day in October 1995 alone, NATO planes fired 300

> projectiles into the Sarajevo suburb. According to the

> Bosnian government, NATO forces fired some 10,800

> rounds of 30mm armor-piercing projectiles during the

> war.

>

> Under the November 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, some

> Sarajevo suburbs held by Serbs during the war came

> under the control of the mostly Bosniak and Bosnian

> Croat federation entity of Bosnia. One of those

> suburbs was Hadzici. Most of the approximately 30,000

> Bosnian Serbs who lived there fled their homes and

> moved as refugees to other parts of the Republika

> Srpska entity of Bosnia and to Yugoslavia.

>

> Some 5,000 civilians from Hadzici fled to Bratunac, in

> eastern Republika Srpska. Medical analysis conducted

> by the local Institute for Health in 1998 showed that

> the mortality of Hadzici refugees was double the

> mortality rate for the rest of Bratunac’s residents.

> The study’s author, Dr. Slavica Jovanovic, told the

> SRNA news agency that she has no doubt that depleted

> uranium is responsible for the increased death rate of

> those people.

>

> “We can say that the mortality rate of the refugee

> population is greater because of high stress, poor

> nutrition, and bad living conditions. But we were

> shocked to discover that deaths among Hadzici’s

> refugees are much more numerous than [among] other

> [refugees],” Jovanovic told SRNA. She blamed those

> deaths on the fact that the refugees from Hadzici were

> exposed to radiation because they lived close to the

> bombed locations.

>

> In her report, Jovanovic wrote that since the end of

> the war, 25 percent of wartime Hadzici residents have

> died of various cancers, tumors, and heart attacks. In

> Bratunac alone in the last four years, 500 of the

> 5,000 Hadzici refugees have died. One Hadzici refugee

> dies every three to four days, and every second one

> dies from cancer.

>

> Jovanovic said that she could not say for sure how

> many Hadzici refugees have cancer because many do not

> check themselves into hospitals since they cannot

> afford medical treatment. The doctor said she is

> hoping that the international community will step in

> and find some way to examine the town’s refugee

> population and help provide treatment.

>

> After the UNEP report was released, the Republika

> Srpska army evacuated soldiers from its barracks in

> Han-Pijesak. Officials say that organized medical

> exams will soon begin for soldiers who were in the

> barracks during the past seven years.

>

> At the same time, medical workers from the federation

> entity are also sending out warnings to people still

> living in Hadzici--but they are expanding their

> warning to the general public, which they fear could

> also be affected by the presence of depleted uranium.

> Federation health officials say they are also worried

> that that radiation has caused an increase in the

> number of diseases such as cancers--especially

> leukemia--tumors, cerebral palsy, and others.

>

> After the reintegration of Hadzici into the federation

> entity, prewar Bosniak and Croat workers began

> cleaning out the munitions warehouse and tank-repair

> facility, removing more than 1,000 truckloads of

> garbage and munitions

>

> Now those workers fear they too have been

> contaminated. Unfortunately, they will have to wait to

> find out. Workers have begun undergoing medical

> examinations, but the results will not be available

> until April 2003. What’s more, despite UNEP warnings

> to immediately evacuate all workers because of danger

> of inhaling depleted uranium dust, some workers from

> Hadzici are still on duty.

>

> “Believe me, I am very afraid. But if I have been

> inhaling radiation for the past seven years, I can do

> it until they publish the final results,” Zijad

> Fazlic, director of the Hadzici tank-repair facility,

> told TOL on November 24. “All we can do now is to wait

> for the results. I don’t know what we are going to do,

> but if I had known this, I would never have come here

> to work. Families of workers also live here,” he said.

>

> Soon after the UNEP report was published, federation

> medical officials started to speculate that it is

> possible that depleted uranium is the cause for the

> shocking jump in cases of leukemia in children.

>

> “It has not yet been proven, but we cannot see

> anything else except uranium,” Edo Hasanbegovic,

> director of the ontological department in Sarajevo’s

> Kosevo clinic, told the daily Oslobodjenje on 21

> November.

>

> Hasanbegovic said that research is set to begin soon

> to find out whether a connection can be made between

> the increase in diseases and depleted uranium. But he

> said he is certain that depleted uranium is one of the

> elements that causes leukemia in Bosnia. “That we can

> claim without medical research. Every year we have a

> 50 percent to 70 percent increase in the number of new

> underage patients,” said Hasanbegovic.

>

> PLAYING CATCH-UP

>

> Lejla Saracevic, chief of radiobiology at Sarajevo

> University, told TOL on 29 November that before the

> depleted uranium affair was made known to the public,

> local experts had asked the government to allow them

> to conduct research in potentially contaminated areas.

> The government, however, refused, saying there was

> insufficient money in the budget for such

> research--research Saracevic said costs little.

>

> Saracevic said that once the most critical locations

> have been decontaminated, it is necessary to find out

> how much of the rest of the region is radioactive. “It

> has been a long time. In seven years the uranium has

> migrated into the ground and through the water. It is

> very possible that it now exists in our vegetation and

> possibly in our food. Our priority is to check that

> now,” she said.

>

> Before the war in Bosnia, the annual number of new

> cases of children with leukemia was never greater than

> 13. Since the end of the war, that number has grown

> every year: Last year it was 26. The situation is the

> same with other cancers: Every year the number grows.

> And almost 80 percent of those new cases are coming

> from areas that were exposed to the radiation of

> depleted uranium--areas that were bombed during the

> war.

>

> The so-called Balkan Syndrome affair first aroused

> attention in early 2001, when Italian media published

> reports that one Italian soldier who had served in

> Bosnia had died of leukemia and that five more were

> very ill. The Italian media blamed the sicknesses on

> NATO’s use of depleted uranium in its weapons.

>

> At the time, all governments denied that NATO was

> using uranium-tipped munitions. Nonetheless, medical

> examinations of soldiers were promptly begun, with

> many being diagnosed with leukemia and other forms of

> cancer.

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Anes Alic is TOL’s correspondent in Sarajevo. Dragan

> Stanimirovic is TOL’s correspondent in Banja Luka.

>

> __________________________________________________

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