(January 22, 1993) Already by 1987, according to the German magazine Psychologie Heute (Psychology Today), the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster were visible in western Turkey. This was the area of the country most affected by the accident's fallout.
(385.3760) WISE-Amsterdam -A large number of babies were showing deformities, especially those born to mothers who were in their second month of pregnancy when the accident occurred. Also, many miscarriages and abnormal births had been observed. One of the places the magazine mentioned was the village of Düzce, on the western coast of the Black Sea where, in November 1986, an extremely uncommon concentration of babies - numbering 10 in that year alone - were born with their brains outside their skulls. In the city of Trabzon, also near the Black Sea, the number of abnormal births has quadrupled since 1986.
A press report dated 13 March 1992 and based on a press release from the semi-official Turkish press agency "Anatolia" says that now, six years after Chernobyl, Turkey wants to bury an estimated 14,000 tons of radioactively contaminated tea "in appropriate areas". The report further says that more than 44,000 tons have already been buried. It sounds like the government is concerned with taking care of the Turkish population, doesn't it? But let's take a look at what happened right after Chernobyl, as well as some of the more recent government activities...
"I am sorry", the former Minister of Industry and Trade, Cahit Aral, meekly remarked recently, "but we couldn't protect the Turkish nation." After Chernobyl, the Turkish people were burdened with highly contaminated food. Information about the dangers, especially of the contaminated hazelnuts and tea from the Black Sea area, was deliberately held back by the government. Now, the ex-minister and chief of the "Committee for the Protection Against Radioactivity", a body created by the government after Chernobyl, talks freely about the days following the catastrophe. At that time, the government started a propaganda campaign whose purpose was primarily to misinform people about the consequences of Chernobyl. A month after the accident, the Minister of Industry referred to the people who pointed out the dangers of radio-activity as "godless persons". "A little radioactivity is good for the body", he said. Turgut Özal, the former Prime Minister and who is President of the State today, joked around in front of TV cameras, saying that radioactivity was good for male virility. Both politicians let themselves be photo-graphed while drinking (highly contaminated) tea, to show how harmless it was.
Now the consequences Chernobyl have had on Turkey are obvious. The leukemia rate is twelve times higher than before Chernobyl. "We looked at all potential reasons", professor Gündüz Gedikoglo from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Istanbul says. "The only reason for the increase is Chernobyl." Gedikoglo is also head of a foundation for children suffering from leukemia.
Really everything was tried to deceive the Turkish people. The state-owned tea company, distributor of the contaminated tea, printed 1985 as year of production on the packages containing tea that was harvested in 1986. "In tea that should not have more than 40-50 Becquerel/kilo we found 50,000-60,000 Bq/kilo", admits the head of the Institute for Nuclear Science at the University of Izmir, Selman Kinaci. That is 100 times more than the World Health Organization allows. Due to changes within the university system after the Turkish military coup in 1980, scientists were not allowed to publicize measurements about radioactivity and were threatened with disciplinary punishment.
But the Turkish government's irresponsibility not only affected the Turkish people. "We exported 4-5 tons of hazelnuts with more than 1000 Becquerel to the Soviet Union. I do not regret this at all, as they after all are responsible for the contamination", ex-minister Aral says in the Turkish daily Milliyet. One should not expect too much from someone like Mr. Aral, but he obviously knew who was going to eat contaminated hazelnuts n not the persons responsible for the disaster. Investigations are now being carried out to find out if the massive 1989/1990 distribution of hazelnuts in schools and to army inductees was a consequence of the Turkish government's inability to sell the nuts to foreign countries due to contamination.
As more and more about the whole scandal becomes known, hundreds of charges against the people responsible are being turned in. The current government is using Chernobyl against the "Mother Party", which was governing Turkey when the accident occurred. The board of the Turkish General Medical Council is also asking its members to turn in charges. A letter from the council refers to Aral's statement about selling contaminated hazelnuts to the Soviet Union, saying it "is comparable to poisoning the drinking water of a city or to a small nuclear attack". The General Medical Council of Ankara is examining whether it can withdraw the license to practice medicine from a professor Dogramaci. Dogramaci was the head of the university council responsible for the prohibition against publicizing radioactivity measurements. And when a demonstration to be held in Istanbul on 16 January is announced, its demand n "Chernobyl-criminals to court!" n appears in the headlines of the Turkish daily press.
Well, and what has the current government learned out of all this, besides how to use it to its political advantage? According to the Anatolia news agency, Turkey, until now with-out any nuclear power plant, plans to put its first plant into operation in the year 2002. This was announced in an interview with Yalcin Sanalan, presi-dent of the Turkish Atomic Energy Association. Said Sanalan: "It is important to eliminate the psycho-logical fears in Turkey caused by Chernobyl."
Sources:
- Süddeutsche Zeitung (FRG), 2 Feb. 1987, 14 Dec. 1992
- die tageszeitung (FRG), 13 March 1992, 9 Jan. 1993
Contacts: Unfortunately we do not have any contacts with anti-nuclear groups in Turkey. If any of our readers do, please let us know!