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Presentation |
Nuclear
Production Victims
My name is Milya Kabirova I have come from Russia. It the
first time that I am taking part in the work of the
International Symposium, and I would like to thank the
organizers for the invitation and the opportunity to present
my report here.
The topic of this conference is "Chief Justices of the
World". I think it is fair when people who live near us are
well-fed, have a job, have good living conditions, clean
environment, are sure of the future of their children. This
is all real if there is peace in the world, if there are no
wars.
We are all so different but one wish unites us all. To live
in the world without nuclear weapons so that our future
generations will not be hostages for nuclear production and
will never experience the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In 1945 Japan lived through a terrible tragedy – an atomic
bombardment, that was the beginning of the atomic era, but
didn’t become a lesson for others.
Nuclear arms are a tragic paradox of modern civilization!
First, two great powers, straining the best minds of
physics, chemistry specialists, engineers and thousands of
workers, spending gigantic resources, made the first atomic
bombs and the rivalry of fear began: which has more
powerful, more modern and more deadly weapons and means of
delivery. The crazy arms race conquered the whole world;
three more countries – Great Britain, France and China –
became the owners of the military atom. At the end of the XX
century India, Pakistan and Israel joined the ominous
“nuclear club”. From the weapons of mass destruction the
nuclear arms has become the evil force, capable of
annihilating everything alive on the Earth
After the Second World War in the Urals, the heart of
Russia, unique enterprises of the new for the country and
the whole world nuclear industry were built and put into
operation.
The first-born of the nuclear industry, its leader is
considered to be the nuclear enterprise “Mayak” which was
put into operation in 1948. It was there under conditions of
strict secrecy that the production of military plutonium –
the main component for nuclear bombs was carried out. This
major scale work was performed in the extremely unfavorable
conditions of after war period, of the period of arms race.
The limited terms of creating nuclear arms, the severe
secrecy, the constant rush resulted in neglecting the
people’s health. The imperfection of technology and
equipment, lack of knowledge about the impact of radiation
on people and environment also contributed to this. In order
not to lag behind the USA in the arms race they paid little
attention to creating safe technologies of the nuclear
production, to storing and reprocessing radioactive waste.
At that time the problem of storing radioactive waste seemed
less important than the task of producing weapon-grade
plutonium. The increase of production output of the “Mayak”
facility with not enough storage space for liquid
radioactive waste, and the imperfection of storage resulted
in the fact that a great number of lakes and a great
territory in the vicinity of the plutonium enterprise were
contaminated with radionuclides.
This facility has brought much suffering to the population
that lives in the vicinity of it. Three very grave accidents
have taken place at the facility “Mayak”.
The first catastrophe was the discharge of liquid
radioactive wastes without purification into the river
“Techa”, more than 3mln cuties of radioactivity have been
discharged into the river system; 124 thousand residents
from 41 settlements have been exposed to radiation.
The second radiation catastrophe was the explosion of the
tank with liquid radioactive wastes, more than 20mln curies
of radioactivity were discharged into the atmosphere. 335
thousand residents in 391 settlements were exposed to
radiation.
The third catastrophe was caused by the wind fallout of
radioactive dust from the shores of the lake Karachai that
served as the storage of liquid high level radioactive
wastes. More than 1mln curies were spread; 24 thousand
people in 68 settlements became victims of radiation
exposure.
As the result of these three accidents the territory of our
region was exposed to the amount of radionuclides that
exceeds the discharge from the reactor of the Chernobyl
nuclear station.
Now, when there have passed 59 years since the nuclear
production at the “Mayak” facility started to operate, it is
obvious that nuclear specialists have two different faces.
One is heroic, symbolizing the self-sacrificing labor to
crate nuclear weapons. The other is tragic, connected with
the ecological disaster, resulted in damaging health of many
thousand people.
For 62 years the people of Japan have remembered the horror
of the nuclear bombardment, for 59 years my people have been
suffering from radiation exposure. We, who live in the
“nuclear” regions of the nuclear super-power, have no right
to stand near and watch as observers and wait while our
destiny will be decided by political and military elites. We
have to take part in the processes of preparing and making
decisions in the sphere of nuclear policy. We have the right
to do so.
This is our common problem. We are all different but one
desire unites us. This is the desire to live in the world
without nuclear weapons for future generations not to be
hostages of nuclear production. The young generation faces a
noble mission of drafting and passing international laws and
conventions that ban the production and usage of nuclear
weapons. It is necessary to break the vicious circle: power
– money- weapons- power that leaves the society no hope for
the world free from nuclear threat.
We are told that we created a nuclear shield that saved the
world from nuclear war. These are the same words that
Americans hear at home from their own nuclear heroes. Both
Americans and Russians are asking them one and the same
question: “How were you going to use 30 thousand American
and 40 thousand Soviet nuclear bombs?”
We are asking a question: «has it been worth for five
nuclear, three on the threshold and a number of “about to
become nuclear” states to have been engaged in creating the
weapons the usage of which was stated to be criminal by the
International Court in Hague in 1996?”
If all unbelievable human and material resources, which
burnt in the furnace of the nuclear arms race, had been
spent on solving worldwide problems, we wouldn’t be
suffering from the problems of climate changing, ozone layer
destruction, deforestation, desert advance, wastes,
biodiversity destruction, fighting hunger and drinking water
shortage, illiteracy and diseases. These means would have
been enough to succeed in solving all world wide problems
and there would have been left enough means for space
flights to the Mars, for pioneering the Moon and the deep
bottoms of the ocean and for other similar projects that
would have improved the world civilization.
The way that was chosen by the precious generations of the
leaders has led the world and our country into the
nuclear-radiation dead alley. Let us not repeat the mistakes
of the past, let us not allow our current leaders to
continue mad nuclear race in order to make profit and to
achieve mythological political aims.
We are sure that it is high time the world political leaders
learn the art of coexistence and start competing in the
effectiveness of peaceful solution of the problems instead
of creating more and more sophisticated nuclear weapons of
mass destruction. This is the main lesson of the nuclear
weapons race that started 60 years ago.
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