Yugoslavia and the "Balkan Syndrome"

Fearing the Response

Only after soldiers from NATO countries began dying and the "Balkan Syndrome" become the No. 1 topic in the international news media, the Yugoslav public is discovering details of what it was exposed to and what it is yet to experience

AIM Belgrade, January 16, 2001

During the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, especially when graphite filament bombs were used to disable the country's power grid, Belgraders used to joke by saying that they don't really mind the blackouts because depleted uranium helps them glow in the dark. They showed, on the other hand, a great inclination to not really trust reports on environmental pollution, risks and dangers, or played down their importance by deluding themselves that they were part of the anti-NATO campaign concocted by the Milosevic regime. Following a similar pattern, the Yugoslav public in 1994, and especially in 1995, was prone to partially or even wholly dismiss claims made by the Bosnian Serbs that NATO was using DU munitions, as well as later alarming news of the consequences this had on the health of the population.

Since 1999, to a number of convictions and opinions circulating in the public, another element has been added, much more comprehensible to ordinary people: the visible danger of "regular" pollution caused by toxic chemicals from damaged power sub-stations, chemicals that leaked from military facilities in Trstenik, vinyl-chloride and mercury from chemical factories in Pancevo, oil from the refineries and storage facilities in Novi Sad, Pancevo, Belgrade, Smederevo... A ban on fishing on the Danube that lasted months was a much clearer sign of the real danger than a handful of experts warning of the health hazards posed by the DU munitions, meant mostly to pacify the public. Finally, there was a widespread conviction that the most dangerous events were taking place far off, "down there," in Kosovo.

Since the end of December, the Yugoslav news media have been closely monitoring and extensively reporting on events linked to the "Balkan Syndrome." Speculation about their political motives ranged from the belief that it was yet another instance of Europe's haggling over the cost of NATO's intervention with the U.S. as well as over who was going to foot the bill for eliminating its consequences -- "depleted uranium is the best means of political pressure" -- to wise observations that this is what this New World Order is all about: it notices and recognizes a problem only when it affects its own.

The right question, however, is what is actually going on and what is the situation in Yugoslavia. The state-run TV showed during the New Year holidays samples of DU ammunition and an expert who said that such fragments posed a limited danger only at the site of impact. The first official information was given on Jan. 3 by Dr. Dragan Veselinovic, Serbian deputy environment minister. According to him, during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, 30,000 to 50,000 projectiles containing DU were used. Eight locations targeted with such munitions were registered in southern Serbia (without Kosovo and Metohija) and one in Montenegro.

The statement was based on data supplied by the Yugoslav Army to the Federal Ministry for Development, Science and the Environment. The alarming (or comforting) part of it said that "certainly there are problems, or they will be created unless measures are taken," that is, that "for the time being, there is no information on certain health-related consequences." Pictures of marked contaminated sites in the vicinity of Presevo, Bujanovac and Vranje, however, were accompanied by a note saying that the local population mostly disregards the ban imposed on cattle grazing near the area.

The uncertainty and distrust of the initial official statements grew proportionally with the number of reports on cases of death and illness of NATO soldiers. On the other hand, later information and estimates said that the quantity of DU munitions dropped on the FRY exceeds 10 tons. Most of it was used in Kosovo and Metohija, where, according to Yugoslav army sources, some 110 locations were targeted, mainly in southwestern and western parts of the province.

It seems that except for marking and fencing off those eight sites in southern Serbia, not much else was done to decontaminate the terrain. In any case, no convincing proof in that regard was offered. It was announced that the only known location where DU munitions were used in Montenegro -- the Lustica Peninsula at the entrance to Boka Kotorska Bay -- a complete decontamination will be carried out by the end of April, that is to say, exactly two years after the projectiles hit the area and a year after the former federal authorities finally decided to inform Montenegrin authorities of the nature of the munitions used. According to Dr. Miodrag Gomilanovic, Montenegrin environment minister, the exact location is the Arza Promontory, where contamination has been detected in a 3,500 square meter area (in southern Serbia the size of the endangered land amounts to dozens of hectares). The costs of decontamination, the removal of soil and possible DU particles, equipment and medical checkups of the inhabitants of Lustica are estimated at some DM400,000.

The pieces of DU munitions gathered so far are stored at the Nuclear Science Institute in Vinca, near Belgrade, but according to Dr. Veselinovic, "the question remains whether all the fragments have been located. Depending on the type of soil, some might have penetrated deeper into the ground and will not be easy to get hold of; more should be done to facilitate their discovery and removal."

In circumstances of mounting tension, once again the issue of whether DU munitions were used in Belgrade and its vicinity has been brought up. This particularly involves the bombing of the Chinese embassy and the determined, three-month long bombing of Strazevica Hill, on the outskirts of Belgrade. Experts from the Belgrade Industrial Medicine Radiological Protection Institute Dr. Dragomir Karajovic, denied any signs of increased radioactivity, simultaneously warning of possible long-range effects in southern Serbia and Kosovo where, according to the head of the science institute of the Bezanijska Kosa Clinical Center, an increased number of cases of "solid tumors," which affect tissue and organs such as the thyroid gland, ovaries and breasts, can be expected. Two Belgrade clinical oncologists, Miodrag Djordjevic and Darinka Bozovic, say that according to their forecasts, the number of cancer cases will increase in the following five years by 30 percent. Over the next year, most cases are expected to emerge, because the disease takes about two years to develop. The first to be affected will be children, as the most vulnerable group. What we can expect is an increase in the number of cases of leukemia and malignant tumors.

Dr. Dragan Veselinovic also expects future health risks to be greater than the immediate, because DU can endanger people by entering the food chain, after circulating for a shorter or longer period in the soil, water, and flora and fauna. Even experts who are not normally prone to panic do not deny this: depleted uranium falls into the category of heavy metals, whose toxic features have been confirmed long ago. Despite expert reserve towards the methods of gathering relevant data, the link between the DU munitions used in 1994 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the increase in cases of leukemia and cancer (cancer cases increased from 152 in 1999 to 230 in 2000 per 100,000 inhabitants, and of leukemia from 6.2 to 10.4) has not been convincingly denied. The quantity of DU munitions used in Bosnia was three times less than in Yugoslavia. The fact that NATO failed to warn its member countries of the use of such munitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina makes all official claims by the Pentagon that it is "harmless," or that its adverse effects "have not been substantiated," additionally conspicuous. Swift medical checkups of KFOR, UNMIK, Red Cross and humanitarian organizations' personnel in Kosovo and Metohija indicate that the fear is spreading, particularly in the light of the fact that abnormal radiation levels were detected at eight out of the 11 sites in the province that were checked.

Serb sources in Kosovska Mitrovica claim that in the region of northern Kosovo, the number of malignant tumors in 2000 has increased 200 percent compared with 1998; a similar upward trend has been registered in premature births, miscarriages, and newborns with birth defects.

In the ensuing flood of information it also turned out that the Yugoslav army had also carried out some surveys, until then not known to the public. Namely, the head of the army's Medical Department, General Momcilo Kragovic, revealed last week that not a single one of the 1,080 Yugoslav army soldiers who, during the NATO bombing, were deployed in the areas targeted by DU munitions were found to have any disorders caused by exposure to radioactivity. The survey was carried out in 1999, the medical tests were done last year, and the condition of the soldiers' and officers' health is constantly being monitored.

In southern Serbia where certain areas were hit with three (according to some sources), or slightly less than two (according to other) tons of DU munitions, no effects on the populations' health had been determined. Local experts, however, warn that "adverse effects have been noted to the environment that could pose a health hazard in 2004 and 2005, if immediate steps are not taken to decontaminate the terrain." So far, 500 people received medical examinations, in the territory of four villages in the affected zone. The number of new cases of malignant tumors was similar to that of previous years.

The Yugoslav authorities, that is, the authorities of Serbia, Montenegro, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, have found themselves in the same situation as NATO as far as the DU issue is concerned. Confirmation that the danger is real and its actual proportions could endanger expected future investment -- or at least interest in it -- by the West. It is interesting that Bodo Hombach, coordinator of the South-East Europe Stability Pact, pointed out precisely that aspect of the affair. On the other hand, it is necessary to reduce the potential risks to a minimum -- for which, again, international assistance is needed. The cooperation that was recently established with KFOR in the buffer zone is highly unlikely to be substantially upgraded if the Serbian side begins to make serious accusations, or even goes public with the data on the targeted locations which the Yugoslav army certainly has.

Certain non-government organizations in Serbia have already demanded that a map of the sites hit with DU munitions be published. The Yugoslav army expressed its readiness to cooperate in resolving the problem with KFOR in Kosovo and Metohija. Last week Ibrahim Rugova expressed his fear that the uproar over "the so-called Balkan Syndrome" could cause the withdrawal of international forces. It remained unclear on the basis of what he claimed that among the Albanian population "there were no cases of diseases caused by DU munitions." According to Rugova, the uproar was in fact "propaganda against Kosovo on the part of those who opposed NATO's intervention."

Given typical interests, be they of the U.S. or of the "Great Powers," and the habits of all armies of the world, it could well turn out that the least pleasant question concerning the Balkan Syndrome has yet to be asked. This could be the following: why were DU munitions used by NATO in the first place?

Sub-caliber shells, bullets or projectiles were widely used as early as World War II. Back then, ammunition whose core was made of steel, tungsten or alloys of similar properties was used to destroy tanks, armored vehicles or fortifications. The small but dense core of the projectile, depending on the speed of impact, transformed kinetic energy into heat energy that would burn the target or make it explode. Depleted uranium is denser and, in this sense better, material for this type of ammunition, and has been much more accessible since the start of the Nuclear Age in the form of nuclear waste. The question of why DU munitions were used at all, thus, brings up a number of additional queries. How come it was used to destroy obsolete tanks that could have been "eliminated" without risk of creating a "Balkan Syndrome"? Why is it that the almost 30,000 DU projectiles fired in the 78-day campaign managed to destroy less than a dozen Yugoslav army tanks?

Aleksandar Ciric

(AIM)