What are the prospects for implementing President Yushchenko’s initiatives regarding a special UN session dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy and recognition of the 1932-1933 Holodomor as an act of genocide? What is the UN’s evaluation of the new Ukrainian government’s efforts in the economic sphere? The Day discussed these questions with Francis O’Donnell, the head of the UN Office in Kyiv. (the UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine)
WHY WASN’T THE HOLODOMOR RECOGNIZED AS GENOCIDE?
“One of the initiatives that President Yushchenko mentioned in his speech at the recent UN General Assembly was the call to recognize the Holodomor, the manmade famine, as an act of genocide. This idea has long been discussed in Ukraine. In your view, why hasn’t this been done yet?”
“I don’t have an answer to this question. When I first learned about the famine, I was quite surprised, because I was completely unaware, as was the rest of the world, of the scale and significance of what happened to this country. My own country also experienced a famine in the 1840s, and some kind of recognition and apologies came from the authorities only in recent years. You could say that it took Ireland 150 years to recover from that famine. Before that our population was 8 million, now it is only 5 million, and our numbers only started to increase again in the 1990s.
It is worth noting that the World Summit 2005 endorsed the collective responsibility to protect people from genocide and to take actions to prevent such things from occurring. Since such terms as genocide have a particular legal interpretation and consequences, some countries are reluctant to recognize something as genocide, because it entails the question of individual or collective responsibility and, therefore, compensation.
“Many Ukrainian and foreign experts have testified that the famine resulted from political decisions and police actions. These actions were committed by the Soviet Union, whose legal successor is the Russian Federation. Maybe this is where the problem lies. For instance, Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin advised Ukraine to turn to Georgia, since Stalin was a Georgian.”
“This is a touchy issue. It closely concerns the Secretary General’s initiatives regarding the prevention of genocide and collective international responsibility for it. I think there is a profound understanding of this problem and support for Ukraine’s efforts to resolve this issue.”
“WE NEED TO TURN THE ‘CHORNOBYL PAGE’”
“Another of Yushchenko’s initiatives is to convene a special UN session dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy. What is your estimation of the probability that such an event will be organized? What decisions could be made?”
“It’s difficult for anyone to say beforehand what to expect from such a meeting, but it’s a very timely initiative. I recently attended the Chornobyl Forum in Vienna. I think the important thing that we agreed upon at that conference is that we need to turn the Chornobyl page. One of the issues is the real gulf between the actual level of risk for people and their attitude toward these risks. The radiological reality is much better than people think. People are tremendously anxious about Chornobyl, and therefore they need to get beyond the psychological tendency of vulnerability and start to rebuild their lives. Just to take one quote from the report, the average dose received by the residents of the territories contaminated by fallout from Chornobyl is actually lower than that received by people who live in areas with a naturally high level of radiation: Brazil, Iran, or China. Therefore, Ukrainians should change their attitude to those radiation doses that affect the population. At the same time, the UN is continuing its work on the Chornobyl question. For example, there is a UNDP community-based development program which offers social and economic assistance to the population in affected regions: the creation of an attractive investment climate, which leads to new jobs and a rise in the level of economic development. The three countries most affected — Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus — have spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting the consequences of the fallout. Ukraine has to spend 5 to 7 percent of it’s yearly budget on Chornobyl-related issues. Thus, UN experts recommend lowering this budgetary burden: to realign expenditure with national priorities including remaining Chornobyl related problems, but also larger problems in the health arena such as HIV/AIDS, cardio-vascular disease, and so forth.
“But there are many other problems connected with Chornobyl, like the construction of the Shelter. Does this mean that after “turning the Chornobyl page,” Ukraine will be left on its own to deal with its problems, which require huge investments? Were Ukrainian experts involved in preparing the report? Immediately after the Vienna Forum, critics of this document said that it was simply aimed at preparing international public opinion for a reduction of assistance programs.”
“There is no intention to reduce international assistance. One of the big problems that we have with nuclear power throughout the world is that there is an entire generation of nuclear power plants that were built many years ago, which have exhausted their resource and must be shut down. When a nuclear station is shut down, nuclear materials have to be disposed in a safe way. So there is a huge issue here, the effectiveness of the nuclear reactor decommissioning process. This is a very sensitive issue in all countries with nuclear power plants. We have to view Chornobyl as a challenge not only to Ukraine but the international community. It is a very good step that Units 1, 2, and 3 have been decommissioned, but the situation with Unit 4 is not fully resolved. It is not functioning as a reactor to generate energy, but neither is it decommissioned because there are still hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel that must be removed and safely stored. This fuel represents a number of risks, particularly the contamination of water supplies. It is still hot, and there is a risk that the whole Shelter will collapse, leading to local contamination. Therefore, it is extremely important to complete the Shelter project successfully. It is also necessary to remove tons of nuclear fuel and dispose of it safely in a geological storage facility. All this has to be carefully implemented within the framework of a special strategy for nuclear waste disposal that Ukraine still doesn’t have. Nineteen years have passed since the tragedy, and I do not know how you can explain to the younger generation in Ukraine and other European countries why we still have not resolved the problem of reactor number 4.”
“However, the Chornobyl station was decommissioned several years ago under pressure from the global community. Then President Leonid Kuchma did this in exchange for the promise of assistance in constructing the Shelter.”
“I believe that the international community is committed to supporting Ukraine in resolving the Chornobyl problem. But this hasn’t been fully achieved yet. I think that Ukraine and the international community have to apply the utmost effort to conclusively resolve this question. In particular, we should have a nuclear waste disposal strategy; we need to have a geological disposal facility for nuclear fuel. The latest report goes into these details. It certainly does not say that there will be no further international support. Quite the contrary, it identifies specific ways to solve many problems with the participation of the international community.
“This report is a 600-page document prepared by several UN agencies including WHO, UNDP, FAO, UNEP, OCHA and IAEA, containing chapters on various issues: healthcare, environment, etc. Ukrainian scientists participated in the report’s preparation. We had broad consultations involving scientists from many countries: Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. We also carried out comparative studies of the Japanese, American and other experiences of overcoming the consequences of nuclear tragedies and accidents, of which Chornobyl was the worst accident. The international community is financing some of the activity, but priorities have to be changed with respect to the conditions that have emerged today and will emerge in the future. I think that we should draw some lessons from cooperation of the last 20 years. We need to organize serious political mobilization in order to decommission the Unit 4. This, in turn, will depend on transparency, the struggle against corruption in Ukraine, and active cooperation with the IAEA. Clear-cut political responsibility must be taken to resolve this issue.”
“NOT ALL OUR RECOMMENDATIONS WERE ACTED ON BY THE GOVERNMENT”
“Immediately after the Orange Revolution the UN Development Program presented the first report of the Blue Ribbon Commission for Ukraine, which issued concrete economic recommendations to the new President. Incidentally, this past July you predicted in an interview with our newspaper that economic growth in Ukraine would reach 8 percent. What are your current estimates?”
“The Blue Ribbon Commission was initiated by Kalman Mizsei, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations in July 2004. I came to Ukraine just before the Orange Revolution. We presented the new President elect the commission’s report on Jan. 15. We were pleased to see that many of our recommendations were incorporated into the government’s program Towards the People. From that time a dialogue began with the prime minister and certain other ministers. Many experts from inside and outside the country offered concrete recommendations on various spheres: privatization, taxation, fiscal policy, social policy, etc. During the so-called mini-Davos forum in Kyiv we were still optimistic about the good level of cooperation by continuing the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission. According to its forecasts, annual economic growth of 8 percent was expected. However, it is very disappointing to see that in reality it is much lower and stands at a mere 4 percent. Although some progress was made, not all of our recommendations were acted on by the government for various reasons. One of them was the lack of time to implement the reform initiatives.”
“Maybe everything is not lost yet and the new government will still take advantage of your recommendations.”
“The Blue Ribbon Commission has prepared a second report. We hope that representatives of the commission and the government will thoroughly analyze these recommendations and create a national strategy that will complement the EU- Ukraine Action Plan. We are ready to help with international expertise for Ukraine’s economic development and to create an attractive investment climate.”
