AP Report about Chernobyl Sparks Denials and Allegations of Provocation

The report “Test finds Cher­nobyl residue in Belarus milk” authored by Asso­ci­at­ed Press cor­re­spon­dent Yuras Kar­manau was released in AP Exclu­sive on April 25, on the eve of the 30th anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear dis­as­ter. The report went viral in world and Belaru­sian media; on the first day, it gath­ered 43 thou­sand views from mobile devices only, head­ing the AP Mobile Top Ten.

The report says about a dairy farm near the Pole­sie Radioe­co­log­i­cal Reserve. Cor­re­spon­dents took a probe of milk from the farm. A test made in the state-run Min­sk Cen­ter of Hygiene and Epi­demi­ol­o­gy revealed that “the milk con­tained stron­tium-90, a radioac­tive iso­tope linked to can­cers and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, in quan­ti­ties 10 times high­er than Belaru­sian food safe­ty reg­u­la­tions allowed”. Prod­ucts from the farm, how­ev­er, go to a dairy com­pa­ny Milka­vi­ta, which most­ly caters for the Russ­ian mar­ket. The farmer does not have his own devices to mea­sure radi­a­tion, mean­time, Milka­vi­ta offi­cials “insist that their own tests show their milk sup­ply con­tains traces of radioac­tive iso­topes well below safe­ty lim­its”.

The reac­tion to the report, how­ev­er, was even more stun­ning, as on April 26 the Min­sk Cen­ter of Hygiene and Epi­demi­ol­o­gy dis­put­ed the tests. The deputy of the doc­tor-in-chief of the Cen­ter Piotr Amvrosyev told Bela­PAN that the report was a pure provo­ca­tion, the milk in the test met the norm in the quan­ti­ty of cesium, and it had not been test­ed for stron­tium at all, because the milk was not enough for the test. The head of the Paliessie pro­duc­tion depart­ment of Milka­vi­ta Albert Drav­i­la said in an inter­view to the Radio Svabo­da that  the report was total non­sense.

The note in the register of the Minsk Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology on April 13 when the product was provided for the test. Photo by BelaPAN.

On the evening of April 26, Yuras Kar­manau pro­vid­ed the con­clu­sion of the test to Nasha Niva: the sec­ond line from the bot­tom says about the quan­ti­ty of stron­tium.

We can only guess how the scan­dal will unfold fur­ther. Mean­time, BAJ press ser­vice asked Yuras Kar­manau about prepa­ra­tion of the mate­r­i­al.

Yuras Karmanau

The reporter says that the trip to the Pole­sie Radioe­co­log­i­cal Reserve took three days in the first half of April.

“The edi­to­r­i­al office of AP ordered us to write a sto­ry for 30^th anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter. Before that, we pre­pared mate­ri­als from the Ukrain­ian side, now it was time for the Belaru­sian one. We wait­ed for the per­mit to enter the zone quite long, we were giv­en an accom­pa­ny­ing per­son. Entry to the reserve is across gates, pass points, every­thing is very strict…

But near the bor­der of the reserve we saw a herd of cows and we decid­ed to find out details. It turned out that the herd belonged to a farmer who did not fear radi­a­tion and was proud to pro­vide two tons of milk to the local dairy fac­to­ry.

We act­ed accord­ing to the clas­si­cal inves­ti­ga­tion scheme. We took the milk for a probe, vis­it­ed the fac­to­ry. We act­ed quite open­ly. Our report is in fact a reflec­tion of what is going on now in the Cher­nobyl zone.”

But it is not a closed way, any­one could fol­low it. Why the farm had not been revealed by jour­nal­ists of Belaru­sian mass media?

“This has been my first time in the Belaru­sian Cher­nobyl zone, I’ve nev­er been there before. I don’t knw why it had not been revealed (ear­li­er). Per­haps, some­body had not got the idea. It is eas­i­er to write about tears of the liq­uida­tors, about aban­doned vil­lages, about the ghost town than about what is actu­al nowa­days…

First­ly, jour­nal­ists are used to write for the dates, in a cliché way. Here is the date today, we’ve got to work it out. Sec­ond­ly, inves­ti­ga­tions in Belarus are in trou­ble at all. We only know about loud inves­ti­ga­tions made by non-state mass media – Nasha Niva, TUT.by, Nar­o­d­naya Volya… But we prac­ti­cal­ly don’t hear about inves­ti­ga­tions of state-run mass media. It is a huge trou­ble of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism.

More­over, the prob­lem of food con­cerns every­one. A cit­i­zen might buy for one­self “a piece of haz­ard” in the shop. The state must deal with it. And jour­nal­ists have to ask the ques­tions that are inter­es­timg for every­one. This is what we call pub­lic inter­est. The main func­tion of the press is to serve to the pub­lic inter­est, to speak about such things and to help change the sit­u­a­tion.”

Can we talk about a pos­si­ble change in pol­i­cy towards the Cher­nobyl issue in Belarus?

“We sure­ly hope for a change. But, we must at least ques­tion the “return to the Cher­nobyl region”, about the active re-pop­u­la­tion. We must admit the grav­i­ty of the prob­lem of people’s health­care – and not only of those who live in the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area.

As for AP jour­nal­ists – I can say that the genre of inves­ti­ga­tion in our agency is in high demand. This year, the team of AP received a Pulitzer Prize for inves­ti­ga­tion about the use of slave force in South-East Asia which helped to free hun­dreds of peo­ple.”

Попадает ли на стол белорусов молоко с радиацией?