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Radioactive weapons backfire
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NEWS of suspected health and environmental hazards in Bosina, Croatia and Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, caused by Nato's depleted uranium (DU) shells have sent shock waves across Europe and the world as a whole.
Spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo acknowledged in March 2000 that Nato warplanes fired 31,000 rounds of DU ammunition during the seven-week attack on Yugoslavia, 90 per cent of them on Kosovo.
Earlier, during the Bosnia and Herzegovina War, the United States dropped over 10,000 DU-tipped warheads on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The consequences of using the allegedly radioactive weapons have become increasingly clear: Among the local residents and soldiers participating in the Nato military actions, more and more people are being diagnosed with leukemia and other forms of cancer.
DU is a by-product left over from the extraction of U-235, the core material used to make atomic bombs. It is called depleted uranium because its main ingredient, U-238, emits less radioactivity.
Although DU-tipped warheads are labelled conventional and used by several nations, such as the United States in the 1991 Gulf War and Nato's 1999 air strikes in Kosovo, U-238 is an intrinsically nuclear material.
With a longer half-life than uranium, DU may have long-term impacts on the environment and the food chain.
Because of the indiscriminative harm it causes to all lives in the hit areas long after combat, random use of such munitions amounts to a crime against humanity.
European Union has announced that it would conduct an “informal investigation” of the radiation pollution possibly caused by Nato's DU shells in the Balkans. The UN Environment Programme is also evaluating the jeopardy caused by such ammunition.
It will take time before Nato reports its investigation and research findings. But the fact that Nato's top brass have caved in by promising a probe shows that they lack evidence to support their previous denials.
Several questions deserve careful pondering.
First, as the producer and user of depleted uranium bombs, the United States has not shown a responsible attitude. It does not publish the truth about the use of DU shells, but instead indicates that it will not stop using such ammunition.
The outgoing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright even called the public's justified concern “hysteria”.
Second, European media's coverage of the matter is concentrated on the fate of the soldiers participating in the “peace-keeping action” in the Balkans, but in fact, the greatest victims of depleted uranium bombs are the Balkans, particularly the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
“People are born equal.” This should be the universal norm of human rights in today's world. However, Western media seemed to demonstrate they are only concerned about the human rights of their soliders.
Third, why did the United States use the weapon that caused serious consequences in the Balkans? Americans refuse to give explicit explanations. It seems there is no sufficient reason and necessity for using this weapon even from general military perspectives. During the Kosovo War, some people criticized the United States for using Yugoslavia as “the site for arms sales” and the “test ground of weapons”. Today, the DU “hysteria” and the US response may serve as a clear proof.
Nato, which used the DU shells, has also contracted the “DU phobia”. With the exception of the United States, many other countries have begun conducting physical check of soldiers then in action.
At present, only the United States is still holding on firmly despite wide criticism, categorically denying the potential jeopardy of DU bombs to humans. European countries have expressed their dissatisfaction over the response of the United States.
In fact, there is also much talk about the harms done to American soldiers, but the United States refuses to face the reality and tell the truth. Perhaps the proverb “Harm set, harm get” will illustrate the consequences of its inaction.(SD-People's Daily)
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