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Previous on war and eco-damage

The author believes it is not possible to completely separate segments of life and study them separately. Private life, wars and ecological damage can not be spoken of as separate happenings. That is why the author did not try to cut out the political parts of the txt, which seemingly have little to do with ecology.
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Generally, wether people in Austria had supported or opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, none of them deny that the bombing has heavily damaged Yugoslav industry and infrastructure. This was not the only consequence of the bombing. It has also caused an ecological disaster, whose effects can be felt not only in FR Yugoslavia, but in the entire region. To a small extent, even in Austria. This article tries to show some changes to the environment and also to remind people of some less known aspects of the bombing and of everyday life in FR Yugoslavia. One of the most known stories about ecological damage, is the one about oil refineries. There are two oil refineries in Yugoslavia, in Pancevo and Novi Sad cities. Novi Sad is the third biggest city in the country and Pancevo is 19 kilometers from the capital and biggest city of Belgrade. All the three cities are on the Danube river. Both the oil refineries got bombed, resulting with a lot of oil burning away, creating huge clouds of very toxic smoke. Also a lot of the oil got spilled into the Danube, slaughtering the river wildlife. As I was in Belgrade during the bombing, I did not know what was done concerning the clouds of smoke in Novi Sad and Pancevo, but when it happened in Pancevo, residents of Belgrade were warned to close all windows and stay listening to radio, because the cloud might go in the direction of Belgrade. The cleanup of oil spills in the Danube was made difficult by the continuous bombing. NATO didn`t just bomb the refineries once, to set them on fire. They were bombed frequently, especially the one in Novi Sad. On time, there were 5 or 6 missile attacks on the Novi Sad refinery, each comming an hour or so, after the last one. In practical terms, that meant the fire department and first aid would come to quell one fire and carry off the wounded and then a missile would be shot right into them, or into some explosive thing next to them. I remember hearing of attacks on the Novi Sad refinery, in at least 7 different days, but I didn`t think about counting. I do not know if anybody had measured the river pollution after those oil spills, but nobody published any results. Many cities downriver, on the Danube, are supplied with water from it. Not just in Yugoslavia, also fairly large cities in Romania and Bulgaria, possibly in Moldavia and Ukraine, as well. The refineries did not contain only fuel tanks which were bombed. NATO tried to destroy all the stationary fuel tanks, so "we will see how well Serb tanks can run without fuel". Every destruction of a fuel tank naturally produced a cloud of very toxic smoke. When the missile fuel depot in the Belgrade suburb of Zeleznik was bombed, all the people from Zeleznik and Zarkovo were evacuted and radio stations transmitted an order for all citizens, to close their windows. The normal thing with windows, during a bombing is to keep them open. If there is an explosion nearby, the wall of air which is created by the explosion blasts closed windows into the room, shattering them into small pieces. Most injuries from artillery fire in Sarajevo, were from closed windows getting blasted in. But, if the windows are open, then they are just blown fully open and bumped a little. An alternative is to put a sticking tape on the windows, so if it gets blown out of it`s layer, it won`t get crushed into micropieces and the pieces will keep together and fall straight down. The night when the Zeleznik depot was hit, residents were ordered to go to their shelters and be ready for evacuation, should the cloud go their way. The US-promoted strategy of an oil embargo, although expensive for Milosevic, was entirely unsuccesful in every war he was involved in. Simply, every neighboring government, especially the NATO member Hungaria, is more than ready to smugle gasoline or anything else into Yugoslavia, for the proper fee. I remember stories of Jugopetrol cisterne trucks being filmed in Romania and shown on some TV station, after which the Yugoslav import of oil stopped for a week and then resumed. There are other, casual smuggling routes on the Danube and elsewhere. The border police of all countries involved, are more than happy to accept bribes. This statement could actually be applied on border police anywhere, but I am getting off the subject. The only thing fuel embargos have succeeded in creating is expensive fuel for ordinary citizens. The government had introduced cupons, so there would be enough fuel for everybody, but there were very few gas stations, which would sell gasoline. The oil company orders not to sell. There are only two gigantic, state-owned oil companies and only they get import permits. The smaller buisinessmen can only sustain themselves by keeping close to the government and bribing all the right people. So, if an oil embargo succeeds only in raising the price of gasoline for ordinary people and strenghtening the economic monopoly, held by Milosevic`s people, the only defence which NATO could put use, to justify this embargo, would be saying that the strongest secret services in the world have no knowledge about the situation. So far, I have mentioned river pollution. One other big source of river pollution was the bombing of chemical industries and tanks containing chemically dangerous substances. The biggest pre-bombing center of chemical industry in Yugoslavia, was Pancevo, the same city that has an oil refinery and is near Belgrade. In Pancevo, NATO bombed several industries and depots, either working with or containing dangerous chemical substances, mostly in the same style as with the refineries. The Yugoslav media reported very little about this, due to censorhip. In effect, the chemical devastation of Pancevo should had caused an evacuation of the population. Such an evacuation order was indeed carried out one day, by the VJ (Vojska Jugoslavije - Army of Yugoslavia), but the next day, they were given orders to let everybody back inside. Most people had no other home to go to and they had no financial and other resources, to start a life elsewhere. I read an article on email, from some journalist who had been to Pancevo in July or August, after the bombing. He interviewed fishermen and they said the few fish, which are caught alive in the Danube are seetruish, their colour redish or yellowish and their eyes "boulging, like the eyes of junkies". His guide took him to some chemical factory, where they saw several unmarked and unguarded pools of chemicals, mostly of yellow colour. The article further says that the stench in the city is strange. It says Pancevians were used to a different kind of smell - the smoke that comes from burning, not the smell of weird chemicals. Pancevo is not just on the Danube, but also has two small rivers going through it and into the Danube. It`s ground waters are not far below ground surface. From all of this and from the cofusing media reports, it seems obvious that some chemical spills did make it to the river, which supplies countless thousands with drinking water and contains/ed large numbers of endangered flora and fauna. One more spill that went into the Danube was the Baric thing. Baric is a suburban village of Belgrade, approximately 20 kilometers to the south-west of it. In it is the "Prva Iskra - Baric" factory. The factory contained tank/s with combat poison/s of the Yugoslav Army. A tank containing combat poison was bombed one night. More truly, a missile was fired directly next to it, so it would get scratched and cause a panic, contaminate or immediately kill a few technicians and fire department people. With the wind normally blowing straight into downtown Belgrade, if the tank was hit directly, the chemicals would had turned into a cloud and killed or heavily contaminated over a half of Belgrade`s one million population. A similar tactic of scratching very dangerous things was applied in Pancevo. The leak in Baric was stopped the same night, but the people in charge decided it was much safer to dump the thing into the Sava river. About 15 kilometers downriver are the mighty pumping stations, which provide Belgrade with drinking water. Maybe 5 kilometers more is the confluence of Sava, into the Danube. The thing that was realesed into the Sava was not possible to reckognize by taste and smell and was not possible to purify from the water, in such instalations, as existed. The important people were warned and allowed to warn their families and close friends, not to drink the pipe water or to bathe with it, for one week. They were instructed to buy mineral water. The information was witheld from the public. The people did not know what kind of water they were drinking. This was in the second half of May. What I`ve heard from other people about their pets, the dogs survived, although at least some of them had big pains. All the people I know, who had birds or fish, their birds or fish died during that one week. For the fish, it is sure that they died after their water was changed. Two people I know, who have sensitive stomachs, had stomach akes during that week. A couple days after the week was over, a ruling party "Belgrade city board", issued a press release, condemning all claims that the city water was poisoned with chemicals, as unfounded. The press release said, the party had a measurement, from an institution, dealing with this, to prove it. The date of the measurement was after the one week was over. Even so, they did not show this measurement to anyone, nor was it published anywhere. In this situation, the only chance to check if they were lying or not, was to go to the instituion and ask there. I didn`t. It was enough knowing that important people were told they can drink the water again. I wonder if people downriver knew of this. Especially people in Romania, Bulgaria... The biggest river in Yugoslavia is the Danube, second is the Sava and third is the Morava, made by the joining of the West Morava and South Morava rivers. On the West Morava, there is a small town called Lucani, between Uzice and Cacak. Some industry in Lucani was bombed and this resulted in a chemical spill. A lot of the spill made it into the river. I know very little of this and I have never been to Lucani. What I do know is that some people in villages along the West Morava died from drinking the normally almost clean water. After these deaths, some officials went around, warning the village populations not to drink it. My grandmother has a farm in a village near the river, so she was also told. In the bombing, NATO relied heavily on laser-guided weapons systems and satellite information. The precision of laser-guided weapons in conditions of rain or fog go is highly reduced. The signals are bumped around and become very uncertain. This is why a lot of the NATO strategy revolved around choosing a good time for the attack, so bad weather doesn`t get in the way. That is probably one of the reasons why the bombing didn`t start in October of 1998., although NATO representatives had frequently threatened that it would. When I read the articles about leaked ground invasion plans, I am amazed how much emphasis is laid on weather, as a precondition for using the overwhelming air superiority and quick advancement. Without the powerful air support, NATO troops would had been left to fight against an enemy, which, although outnumbered, possesses lots of ground weapons of good quality. Yugoslavia was not just a huge weapons&training exporter in the 80s. It also had a strong army, to back up it`s non-aligned policy against threats from both NATO and the Warsaw pact. A lot of Yugoslav army weapons are products from the old Soviet block and the advanages of Kalashnykovs and T-72 tanks, over Thompsons and MI1 tanks, has been proven time after time. NATO understood that, to achieve a satisfiable victory, it would have to have good weather. But the clouds of dust and smoke from their bombings, the weather was getting unusually cloudy, although with less fog, than expected. To set off rains, thereby dispersing the clouds, NATO aircraft threw wires made of silver and some other mateial/s into the clouds. It is yet unknown what they used exactly and they refuse to say. Another aspect of the weather changes was the constant hovering of hundreds of airplanes in the skies. The fuel combustion gasses, released during the flights, have created an ozone whole (part of the sky with no ozone, through which dangerous solar radiation reaches the earth) over the entire Balkans. The last I heard, this ozone hole was moving northwest - towards EU. In late May and the first half of June, I witnessed very strange weather. It was no longer just the unusually high cloudiness, there were also flashes in the cloudy sky. Normally, when there are lightnings around Belgrade, I can see them or guess where they are. But these flashes didn`t seem like lightnings. At least 4 times, I remember flashes comming from an undefined place, attributable to a good half the sky. At least half the sky was flashing. Sometimes, I remember hearing very strong thunders sometimes. The only logical justification for lightning flashes comming from so much of the sky, would be powerful lightnings at a great distance. But then, the thunders couldn`t be so strong. Then again, sometimes, there was no audio. I remembered it, because it felt completely spooky. Most of August, I stayed in Romania, at the Ecotopia camp. See my Ecotopia article, for more weather stories. In the bombing, NATO freuently used Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons. Depleted Uranium is used not because it is the best solution to increase the penetrability of weapons (there is a better one), but because it allows nuclear power plants selling nuclear waste to governments of their own countries, instead of having to pay the governments of some other countries, for disposing of the waste. Nuclear power plants use enriched Uranium for the production of electricity. Depleted Uranium is a by product, or in other words, waste they can`t use, but have to store somewhere. This system also means that dangerous radioactive particles are dispersed into the ground, air and water, with every DU warhead explosion. DU ammunition is so far being used for tank shells and missiles. NATO has done it`s best to raise suspicions over Yugoslav army tanks also using DU ammo, but no such information has yet been confirmed. Major uses of DU weapons have so far been seen in the wars NATO had waged against Iraq and Yugoslavia. In Iraq, the consequences of such weapons use were not very visible at first. After the DU warhead explodes, the microskopic radioactive particles are taken away by the wind and the rivers, the wheels of a passing car on a nearby road... They enter the ground and thereby they also enter the food. Bigger particles possibly can be filtered, but some, no matter how small, will enter the pipe water in the cities. People will drink the water and eat the food. The entire consequences are immeasurable. As has been learned from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tchernobyl and other places, radiation does not take it`s full toll in one generation. Since the US bombing, the amount of cancer, especially among children, has been increased more than tenfold. I still remember some photographs, shown to me by a DU weapons expert at Ecotopia. Especially two photos of children, who had introduced such particles into their bodies somehow. One had something resebling a huge tumor on his stomach, with an infected red dot signifying the location of the particle. Against Yugoslavia, Kosov@ included, aircraft of NATO countries had used more DU weapons than they can count. Somebody mentioned a number of 37 000 thousand DU warheads. When asked for information on where the warheads had been used, US officials at least, refused to say, claiming that they used those weapons frequently and nobody was keeping track of the locations. It seems the Yugoslav government is trying to keep everything quiet. It had made a big media fuss, about the use of Du weapons, but also none of the media in Yugoslavia had published what DU weapons were or what their consequences might be. People in Yugoslavia were systematically scared with the prospect of these weapons being used on them, but were kept in the darkness, about what that might mean. It was published when the first baby deformed due to DU was born, but after that came a practically complete silence. The fuss was raised to do damage to NATO public relations, but not to inform anyone in Serbia what the real consequences of the bombing were. As for measurements of radiation after Du weapons use, the Yugoslav government had allowed a UN team inside and this team had measured Beta and Gamma radiations, after which it declared the radiation was "tollerable". They did not measure the alpha radiation, which is the biggest danger with DU weapons. The same UN commision also said the chemical situation was "tollerable", although their report says some chemicals had been found, both in the Danube and in the soil, in concentrations more than 10 times over the UN-designated severe helth risk limit. A big environmental problem is also with wildlife. As every Zoo employee in Belgrade had noticed, bombings make animals berserk. This war has caused thousands of wild animals to flee Yugoslavia, especially Kosov@ and it seems many of them had gone to Bosnia and Macedonia. Many animals in the Belgrade and Nis zoos had inflicted injuries upon themselves, even killed themselves. Or they just died. River wildlife was slaughtered and all the damages still haven`t been counted, nor will be, as it seems. Now, there is a big media fuss about the fuel embargo against Yugoslavia and the offer of EU to supply heating fuel for some cities in Serbia. Belgrade is not included in the "Energy for democracy program". One good reason is that the NATO bombing had destroyed the public heating plant depriving almost a half of the city, of the mere possibility for gas heating. Officially, Belgrade is not included, because in Belgrade the Serb Renewal Movement of Vuk Draskovic rules the city, with support of Milosevic`s parties and has kicked out the other Zajedno coalition partners. But then, there is the question why EU keeps calling Draskovic an opposition leader, even after Draskovic officially announced on his television station, that the Serb Renewal Movement is not in the opposition. The fact that much more people there voted for the "democratic opposition", than in Pirot, which is first on the list, is not important. In Pirot, the "democratic opposition" won a very tight majority, but it remained united and Zajedno coalition still runs the city. The statement is clear - "if the people want heating, the democratic opposition must unite". How the people can force the "democratic opposition" to unite, remains as unclear as why the "democratic opposition" would want heating for the people. Claims that attracting this gift could improve their status with the population are highly questionable, to say the least. Simply, if you bomb a country to pieces, impose sanctions, strenghtening the regime, all of that under the pretence of fighting the regime and not the people, which of those people will want to vote for political parties you are openly financing and supporting? There are people, yes. Especially people who do not want to get bombed again. People who are afraid and hopeless. But from that side, keeping the people without heating and threatening to bomb them again works much better. Actually, the way it looks like now, such a strategy could very probably come to life, in the first half of the year 2000. All the prerequisites are there. Using the last war, NATO, as a EUroamerican alliance headed by the USA, has established a strong territorial base, consisting of the protectorates called Albania, Kosov@ and Macedonia. Unlike the protectorate of Bosnia, which has an official governor but is otherwise very insecure, these protectorates are stabile and under much more direct control of NATO. I am not sure if replacing Milosevic soon would be a desirable strategy, because he is the best excuse for war around. If he is replaced, it could become rather difficult to find excuses the next time NATO needs to bomb someone. Much more logical would be to see a conflict and a civil war in Montenegro, including US/NATO involvement. Djukanovic`s government has already acquired anti-armor weapons and has had a standoff, with the Yugoslav Army, over Pogorica airport. The plan of manufacturing such a war, demands maximum cooperation from Milosevic. Since Milosevic has always given support to such efforts before, there is no doubt that he will again. We now hear reports of pro-Milosevic paramilitary deployments, in Montenegro. Milosevic could quite easily charge his loyal troops into Podgorica and Cetinje, take over Montenegro and throw out or integrate what is left of Djukanovic`s supporters. However, such a plan would not include a long war, with plenty of killing and destruction. It would actually end with few casualties or economic damage. Therefore, such an action is undesirable. What is wanted is a long, bloody war and such a war must happen. One possible alternative would be a change of government in Serbia, but I think that none of the social acters really wants that to happen. Wars are needed, because if the US government doesn`t spend all the DU weapons it is warehousing, there will be less and less need for new ones and more and more expenses will go into expensive maintenance sallaries. A possible removal of the intervention scene, from the Balkans to the Middle East, could allow for a peaceful Balkans, but that is very uncertain. The US, for one, have shown that they want a destabilised Balkans. Since their complete support to Milosevic`s comming to power (SV:who brought Sadam Hussein to power) More logical would be to incite a war in Montenegro and further support Vojvodinian separatists with a lot more money and with weapons. The human sufferings and US support to armed separations could finally provide popular support to separatism, in Vojvodina and the money and weapons could do the rest. Pro-independence demonstrations could get beaten... And if the bridges on the Danube are destroyed, the Banat and Backa regions could be most literally cut off from Serbia, with nothing but boats and ferries to cross the rivers. This plan might had been in option in 1999., since only one bridge was left standing over the Danube - the Pancevian Bridge in Belgrade. So, maybe it could all be done in one war, with Montenegro and Vojvodina being taken away and Serbia finally smashed to pieces. What would be left of Serbia, would be in no position to oppose foreign dictates. Or it could, leaving Milosevic in power and continued economic sanctions. Such a Serbia would be economically insignificant, except for it`s control of a major trade route. Western economic power could try to buy off Milosevic`s people and take over the rest of Serbia. In such a case, Milosevic could be spectacularly taken to the Hague and tried as war criminal, by NATO country judges, on NATO country soil. Milosevic`s trial in Hague, inteviews with Clinton and NATO generals and the publication of the jumping stock market values would seem as a no less pompous tripumph than the ones led by leaders of victorious Roman armies. To make sure that nothing is missing, CNN crews would run around, filming the poverty of the workers in Serbia. This part can be judged as an equivalent of showing the newly-acquired slaves, remnants of a defeated enemy army. By Mihajlo Acimovic