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COMMENTARY By Ihor Gawdiak, President
Ukrainian American Coordinating Council (UCCA)
Washington, D.C., New York, NY, Monday, April 26, 2004
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Every year at this time, Ukrainians the world over recall and mourn the epic
tragedy of the Chornobyl disaster. For those in Ukraine who were directly
affected, Chornobyl is not just a sad anniversary, but an ever-present
shadow that continues to loom over their lives because of its devastating,
long-lasting effects.
The world has basically forgiven or forgotten about Mykhail Gorbachev,
who chose not to inform the public about the meltdown until it was detected
by sources outside the Soviet Union. The West seems content to gloss over
Gorbachev's culpability and to allow the much-vaunted mantle of his glasnost
legacy to settle comfortably about the man's well tailored shoulders.
Instead of a wakeup call concerning the tremendous dangers of nuclear power
stations, Chornobyl has become for the West an afterthought. Instead of
thoroughly investigating and reporting on accurate health, social,
ecological, and financial effects of the Chornobyl disaster and its
aftermath, the Soviet authorities covered up the subject and farmed out the
investigation to the International Atomic Energy Agency which produced
shamelessly shallow, incomplete, and dismissive findings in its report.
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A file picture shows an aerial view of the ruined fourth reactor of the
Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Photo taken April 1986
(REUTERS/Vladimir
Repik)
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We in the diaspora can hold memorial services, erect monuments, and give
speeches about Chornobyl, but to truly honor and memorialize the victims of
Chornobyl and those who continue to suffer, we need to continue helping not
only with material resources, but we should strive to see to it that:
---the history of what happened at Chornobyl is not only dealt with but
accurately described in school and university textbooks around the world,
---humankind learns the lesson of Chornobyl, i.e. that nuclear power
plants--no matter how "clean" the energy they provide in the
meantime--present colossal dangers which we are unable to completely
and forever prevent, and
---Ukraine becomes a truly free, open, and democratic society where
accidents and disasters are not covered up, where people can vote freely,
where diversity of opinion is not punished and freedom of expression is a
right everyone shares.
The horrific explosion at Chornobyl spelled the beginning of the end of the
Soviet Union. There is no better way for the leaders of the Ukrainian
people to commemorate the many victims of that disaster than to truly commit
themselves to complete the process of desovietization and to help Ukraine
reach its democratic potential so that 2004 will go down in history as the
beginning of a new era in the life of Ukraine, a turning point to be
celebrated and not mourned in the future.
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