April 5, 1991
About this issue
It seems that every time we prepare for each new WISE News Communique, we receive more news of the after-effects of the Chernobyl disaster - or what many are calling the "Chernobyl inevitability".
But each time, also, we receive news of new campaigns addressing the problems presented by this disaster. Many of the people involved in these campaigns have turned to us for information, especially over the last six months as people geared up for the 5th Anniversary. For this reason we decided to do this special edition. We feel these campaigns are very important and we want to be able to support them.
But we have other reasons for wanting to respond to do this issue. Many of these campaigns are focusing on medical aid to victims, most especially children. The sort of aid generally being asked for is in terms of medical equipment, money, food, doctors, etc. While this is important, we think it is also important to remind the people involved in these campaigns, and the people who will respond to these campaigns, of what led up to this "inevitability" and that, should things continue as they are, many more of these "inevitabilities" will occur.
In addition, as the focus is primarily on the victims from the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl, we hope to use our information to remind people that not only were the people of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia effected by the disaster, but people all over the world were effected and are still being effected, for all sorts of reasons, whether because the winds carrying the lethal cloud didn't respect borders, or because families in the so-called "Third World" in need of scarce food are unwitting recipients of powdered milk and other foodstuffs contaminated by the accident, packaged as "aid" and shipped off because "First World" countries don't want to put it on their own markets.
About the Cover: The cover of this issue is a black and white reproduction of a painting by one of the children living in the Chernobyl-afflicted area of the Ukraine. It is part of an exhibition and sale of paintings by children from that region called "Five Years After Chernobyl" which opened in Amsterdam on 26 March. The money from the sales of these paintings will go for direct help to the "Pripyat Union an organization of Chernobyl cleanup workers from Pripyat now suffering from the after effects of their work.
If anyone wants to set up a similar exhibition and sale, please contact the organizers of the Amsterdam exhibition: Larissa Beckering-Tsjernina or Onno Bosma, Pieter Jacobzstraat l0G, 1012 HL Amsterdam, the Netherlands, tel: (Larissa) +31-20- 6460495 or (Onno) +31-20-6260142.