Melting moments, Chernobyl

NB. The ominous threat of such a disaster occurring again seems to have diminished ... so maybe this item is too late, but it was certainly topical in 1997 when I wrote it.

The UN committee for the Control and Regulation of Nuclear Power in Commerce was meeting for the fifth session that year, yet they were still no nearer to a conclusion to bring about greater safeguards to prevent another Chernobyl accident, the main object of their meetings, some years after the event.

At one point in their proceedings with minor arguments raising the temperature and blood pressure of various members, an elderly lady walked with some difficulty made her way to the podium. She placed some notes on the stand and then seated herself on the chair beside it and waited. It took a little time before the chatter and general hubbub gradually ceased and with all eyes directed at her, they waited. The chairman was puzzled, the agenda had no one scheduled to speak at that time but decided that since the members had reached another impasse, a speaker might just be the break they needed. He looked over at her and indicated that she should begin.

Madame Balashov was nervous as she rose to speak but gained a measure of confidence as she went along, her voice quiet but firm with conviction. “An event has happened about which it is difficult for me to speak ad yet impossible for me to say nothing.” She paused, an unusual silence had fallen on the assembly. “The event to which I refer is of course Chernobyl. I was there a few days after the event and therefore speak from personal experience.

“Most of you are familiar with many technical notes on safety precautions to be observed where nuclear reactors exist. There is much talk of level playing fields if all countries observe the same precautions. Don’t fool yourselves!” The conviction with which she said this made most look up with renewed interest in what she was saying. She went on, “To be perfectly blunt, you’ll be living high on nothing if you believe that every country will. Precautions? Chernobyl officials took precautions but most of their decisions were made while dosed up on valium. The Peter principle held sway you see. The principle that states that individuals will rise to the level of their incompetence.

“What incompetence are we talking about here? The incompetence of setting in motion an experiment which was poorly planned and badly carried out. The incompetence of workers, apparently skilled, who shut down the reactor’s regulating systems. Then their incompetence when they withdrew most of the control rods from the reactor core. Let me repeat! They removed most of the rods controlling the reactor’s core. The result? Well, most of you know about that.”

She took a sip of water before continuing. “To acknowledge that 30,000 of the inhabitants of the nearest town, Pripyaf, were evacuated from their homes, and that’s all, is to acknowledge that you know nothing at all of what followed those evacuees. Each person was contaminated. I was contaminated. Our bodies had absorbed constant doses of radioactive iodine and strontium whilst we remained in that vicinity. I want you to think about that. Imagine yourself the parent of a son or a daughter who was there. Now that brings it home, makes it more personal doesn’t it? Makes it more urgent!

“Will you please think about the fact that even when the general level of contamination is low, radioactive iodine and strontium can cause real damage to human tissue? Damage to all the cells that make up flesh and blood and bodies. I don’t know how or why I’ve survived until now. I won’t bore you my problems but I want to tell you that my friend’s son was born with spina bifida. Plus he has no palate to the roof of his mouth, and he has no feet, just stumps. This boy is as bright as he can be in the times the drugs blot out the interminable pain which robs him of his sleep and the ordinary pleasures of life. Although he’s lucky compared to some.

“The thing is, my friend’s son creates a kind of guilt in me every time I see him. He didn’t have a say in what went on in our country, whereas I and millions of others did. That is what made me speak today. That, and for five days now I’ve sat and listened to speaker after speaker give facts and figures and information which takes you round in circles, dulls the senses and arrives at nowhere. I’ve listened to group argue over the simplest decisions to make, and I have to say this, you have lost the bloody plot. There is no urgency in your talks. No sense of horror, no understanding of what you could achieve if you had the will. Don’t forget, you speak for the contaminated young and innocent who cannot speak.

“I didn’t know that there’d be a time for me to speak and for you to listen but when found myself in Pripyaf in early May, I received a sentence. My sentence is that my body is being slowly consumed from inside. Do I have the right to speak after such a sentence? I leave that for you to judge. But the most important thing left for me to say is, have you listened and will what I have said make any difference?”

Then Madame Balashov picked up her notes and left.

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpess.com 2013)