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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

War in Yugoslavia Destroys Biosphere

18 May, 1999 - 00:00

By Yaroslav TSVEY, senior research fellow at the Institute
of Agroecology and Biotechnology, Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences,
Candidate of Agrarian Sciences

The hostilities occurring on our planet are nothing but the tragic syndrome
of human civilization throughout all its history. This has come to a head
today, following NATO's military actions in Yugoslavia.

The detrimental effects of the war as an ecological factor have a multiple
negative impact on the environment. These are, above all, the material
vestiges of war: land and sea mines, unexploded shells, bombs, and other
ammunition stay behind in the soil and the sea. All this presents a real
danger for humanity in general and agriculture, mining, and fisheries in
particular.

Thus we can say the military conflict in Yugoslavia turns into ecocide,
a crime against the biosphere.

For example, the bombings of chemical, oil-refining, and pharmaceutical
facilities on the outskirts of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Pristina, Subotica,
Smederevo, Cacak, and Krusevac have caused considerable emissions of hazardous
and noxious substances.

As a result of missile strikes on the nitrogen fertilizer plant in Pancevo,
potable water contains a critical number of nitrogen compounds, while poisonous
vapors long hung over the town. Following the bombings of chemical facilities
in Yugoslavia, thousands of people had to seek medical assistance, for
they had been poisoned with noxious gases based on chlorine and nitrogen
compounds and the products of oil combustion.

The bombings damaged oil terminals, which created and sent adrift a
fifteen kilometer long and 400 meter wide oil slick. This led to the destruction
of aquatic flora and fauna, and water-supply outages in several states
have posed a threat to the Black Sea itself, including Ukraine's territorial
waters.

The total explosive power of bombs and missiles fired at Yugoslavia
exceeds 2.5 times the yield of nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In a mountainous country, this can trigger erosion, destruction of a
great quantity of soil in the valleys, and disfigure the natural beauty
of landscapes. If  the thin layer of humus is ruined, the land could
remain dead for a long time. Bomb craters upset the level of ground waters.

Considerable damage is being done by fires which reduce the amount of
organic matter and biomass; scorched earth is very sensitive to natural
cataclysms and requires much time to be revived.

Special damage to people and the environment has been done by NATO's
depleted-uranium-tipped missiles. These missiles were also used, sad to
say, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They can be called a satanic
weapon, which slumbering European democracy allowed into NATO arsenals
at the end of the century and be deployed in the Balkans, as if it were
a proving-ground.

According to tests done by the British COCHILL Laboratory, the use of
depleted-uranium missiles caused various forms of leukemia and infant abnormalities
among the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it seems strange that
the Western democracies, demanding to decommission the Chornobyl nuclear
power plant, should at the same time allow the deployment of depleted-uranium
missiles. Double standards, indeed!

In this war, the NATO countries do not respect international law, the
UN Charter, and the Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural
Heritage. Nor do they observe the principles of the Declaration on the
Environment and Development adopted at the UN conference on the environment
and development in 1992, especially Item 24 which says that "war, by its
very nature, has a destructive effect on development, and a state must
respect international law and ensure environmental protection in case of
military conflicts."

The deployment of weapons of mass-destruction in the late twentieth
century means that Western civilization has learned no lessons from either
the First or Second World Wars.

 

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