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BELARUS REPRESSION CONTINUES
While the Belarus government has once again pointed out that far too
little international aid is being given to deal with the consequences of
the Chernobyl disaster, it continues to repress some of the organizations
giving practical help to Chernobyl victims in Belarus.
This repression is not new. Professor Vasily Nesterenko is a physicist
who flew with a helicopter crew fighting the Chernobyl reactor fire. He
survived, though his three crewmates died. After the disaster, he was involved
in drawing up a map of radioactive contamination in Belarus. He was subsequently
sacked from his position for being "alarmist", and in 1990 founded "Belrad",
an independent institute to monitor radiation and help Chernobyl victims,
with the help of charitable foundations. Professor Yuri Bandazhevsky was
imprisoned from 13 July to 27 December 1999. He was also sacked from his
position as rector and researcher at the state medical institute in Gomel.
In 2000, government institutions in Belarus directed their attention
once more to Nesterenko. Following Nesterenko's appearance on a TV talk-show
on 20 April 2000 in which he stated that official radiation monitoring
and radiation safety standards in Belarus were inadequate, Belrad received
a letter from the Ministry of Public Health Services demanding that they
stop radiation