CRYING FOREVER

From 4th –11th August last year, I led a high-level team on a visit to Semipalatinsk in East Kazakhstan from. It was my third visit to the region, where I have campaigned vigorously to expose the legacy of the Soviet nuclear testing programme in the vast area – the size of Wales - called the Polygon, around the city of Semipalatinsk. I was accompanied by humanitarian and international TV celebrity - Kimberley Joseph - star of ‘Home and Away’, ‘Gladiators’ and ‘Cold Feet’.

Back in 2002, I successfully amended the European Commission’s Budget to allocate £2 million to the victims of radiation in Semipalatinsk under the EU’s TACIS Fund. I am currently endeavouring to ensure that at least half of that money is used to build a new breast cancer unit at the Semipalatinsk Oncology Hospital. I have also launched an international photo exhibition of photos taken by myself and by Kimberley Joseph during our visit to Semipalatinsk last year. The exhibition opened in the Scottish Parliament on March 22nd 2004 and will travel to the European Parliament in Brussels in July, Westminster in London and Congress in Washington DC during September and finally to the Kazakh Parliament in Astana in October 2004. Raising public awareness of the horror suffered by these people at the hands of the Soviet Empire is our main objective and through raising awareness we hope to raise funds to help the children and to pay for much-needed medical equipment through Aid International / Mercy Corps Scotland at 10 Beaverhall Road, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH7 4JE, where they have set up a special “Mercy Corps Semipalatinsk Fund.

Here is my account of what we saw last year in Kazakhstan:

CRYING FOREVER

Kizat Kuzembayev stands proudly to attention as we enter his tiny cancer ward in the hospital in Semipalatinsk. Medals are pinned to his dressing gown indicating his status as an important war hero. He is 79 years old and suffering from terminal stomach cancer. In front of two other elderly cancer patients who share his room, he explains how he served with a reconnaissance unit in Danzig during W.W.II, receiving the Order of Glory, The Order of the Red Star and The Great Patriot’s War medal in recognition of his bravery. These were the highest decorations for ordinary soldiers in the Soviet army. But in 1953, he was one of 42 healthy young men selected by the Soviet military regime as human guinea pigs. The small group was taken to the village of Karaul in the remote steppe of East Kazakhstan. Local villagers had been evacuated and Mr Kuzembayev and his colleagues were ordered to leave the shelter of the village houses in which they were billeted, to watch an atomic explosion from a nearby hill, only 30 miles from the test site.

Mr Kuzembayev recalls the nuclear blast in vivid detail. He saw the sky turn red as if a huge fire had engulfed the landscape from horizon to horizon. As the ground trembled beneath his feet and the hellish roar of the atomic weapon swamped Karaul, he watched the fiery sky turn black, then grey, with piercing white and red spirals of flame shooting skywards, while the writhing stalk of the monstrous mushroom cloud unfolded. Later, KGB officers told his group that they would now have “no worries from the USA,” as the Soviets had perfected their own atom bomb. Mr Kuzembayev feels fortunate to have lived to see his 80th year. He is the only surviving member of this group of nuclear guinea pigs. The other 41 each died of cancer.

From 1949 until 1990, the Soviet Union used the Semipalatinsk region of East Kazakhstan as a nuclear testing site. Hidden from the world, this top-secret site the size of France was subjected to 607 nuclear explosions, including 26 aboveground tests, 124 atmospheric tests and 457 underground. Cynically, the military scientists would wait until the wind was blowing in the direction of the remote Kazakh villages before detonating their nuclear devices. KGB doctors would then closely study the effects of nuclear radiation on their own population.

After widespread protests by the Kazakh population, President Gorbachev ordered a moratorium on all further tests in 1990. When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in December 1991, the departing battalions of troops and secret police who had guarded the ‘Polygon’ in East Kazakhstan, left a legacy of devastation and sickness. The 1.5 million population of the Polygon were subjected to the equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs. Seepage from the underground tests has polluted watercourses and streams. Farmland has been heavily irradiated. Radioactive contamination has entered the food chain.

Now cancers run at five times the national average. Cancers of the throat, lungs and breasts are particularly common. Twelve-year-old girls have developed mammary cancer. Birth defects are three times the national average. Babies and farm animals are born with terrible deformities. Children are mentally retarded and Downs Syndrome is common. Virtually all children suffer from anaemia. Many of the young men are impotent. Many of the young women are afraid to become pregnant in case they give birth to defective babies. Psychological disorders are rife. Suicides are widespread, especially among young men and even, alarmingly among children. Fourteen children and teenagers committed suicide in Karaul village alone last year, including an eleven year old boy and a twelve year old girl. Average life expectancy is 52, compared to 59 outside the Polygon.

In 1974, the United States and Soviet Union signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty limiting the yield of underground nuclear tests to 150 kilotons. Two years later, in 1976, the two countries signed the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, which limited the yield of such underground nuclear explosions to 150 kilotons. However, ratification of both Treaties was delayed due to a lack of effective verification procedures. A comprehensive moratorium was only finally agreed at a summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1990. In the intervening years, the Soviets had cynically continued to test atomic weapons, claiming that they were carrying out peaceful underground explosions in the Polygon to construct a lake, in order to supply fish to the local population.

Thus the Atomic Lake was born. This massive radioactive reservoir was blasted out of the low-lying mountain range, which crosses the steppe in the region of Semipalatinsk. The Soviets even tried to introduce fish to the highly radioactive waters, encouraging local Kazakh villagers to catch and eat their deadly harvest. Now there is growing evidence that cracks and fissures in the geological strata of the Polygon have allowed plutonium, strontium and americium into the River Irtysh, which flows from China, through the Polygon and on through Siberia to the Kara Sea and eventually the Arctic Ocean. The Soviet nuclear legacy may yet become a world catastrophe.

In the village of Znamenka, the local doctor introduces us to a group of patients. Znamenka was one of the villages worst affected by the nuclear tests and many of the inhabitants are ill. Cancers are rife. A group of elderly women recall witnessing the first atomic explosions and seeing the mushroom clouds. They were told to stack bedding and furniture against their doors and windows to protect them from the shock waves, then to stand outside, away from any buildings, to watch the explosions. A man of 25 is led towards us. His mother grips his hand tightly. His head is almost entirely covered by a cancerous tumour, covering his eyes so that he can no longer see. Disconcertingly he says “Ciao” and then we learn that 5 years ago he was sent to Italy to have the tumour surgically removed, paid for by Japanese donors. Sadly, it began to grown again last year and his mother fears it will slowly kill him. She is only 57 years old, but looks like a woman of 80, the struggle to survive etched on her deeply tanned face.

Nearby, a mother holds her young daughter who was born with a cleft palate and harelip. The child clutches a cuddly Loch Ness Monster given to her by ‘Cold Feet’ star - Kimberley Joseph - and tries to smile through her awful deformity. The doctor says that the cost of flying the child and her mother to the West for surgery is well beyond their means. We meet other patients with mental retardation, cancers and deformities – the common currency of the Polygon. After speeches from the village elders I give the local head teacher $250 and a large crate of sweatshirts and caps from the international sportswear company NIKE. I explain that this is for the local children and yet, in the face of such appalling conditions, it seems wholly inadequate.

On across the endless Kazakh steppe our convoy trundles, leaving clouds of radioactive dust in our wake. Occasionally wild horses can be seen drinking from polluted lakes. Kazakh herdsmen on horseback tend their flocks of goats and sheep in the searing heat. Soon we reach the village of Sarzhal. This village was only 10 miles from ground zero when the first nuclear tests were carried out. Later, the Soviet authorities moved it to 25 miles from the epicentre. Illness and disease have cut a swathe through the local population.

In the library, the village elders vent their fury at the Kazakh government’s failure to provide adequate help. One tall gentleman, wearing a traditional Kazakh embroidered cap, roars his disgust, fingers jabbing the air. He shouts that the government will not be happy until they are all dead and the problem has disappeared forever. He points through the window at the direction, from which the nuclear holocaust came and recalls the horror of the bomb blasts.

Another man of 80 comes to the lectern. He is a decorated war veteran who served his country at the Battle of Stalingrad. In a dignified and quiet voice he explains that only two years ago he was a happily married grandfather with ten children and grandchildren. Now, 24 months later, his wife is dead from cancer, 8 of his children and grand children have died from cancer and of his 2 remaining grandchildren, his eldest grand-daughter passed her business studies diploma in Semipalatinsk only last year, then committed suicide, overwhelmed by the tragedy engulfing her family. He says that he was forced to witness the first thermo-nuclear test. A middle-aged woman begins to sob quietly at the back of the hall. An elderly man wipes tears from his cheeks. I turn to look at Kimberley who is biting her lips, tears coursing down her face. “How can we live on a pension of 8000 tenge
($55) a month?” he asks, referring to the special pension given to victims of the nuclear tests. On cue, the sky suddenly darkens and the library trembles as thunder roars across the steppe, almost as if the nuclear tests have begun again. A torrential downpour rattles on the corrugated roof, echoing the tears flowing inside.

In the village of Kainar, among the foothills of a low mountain range, villagers in national Kazakh costume have gathered outside a yurta, or nomadic tent, to welcome our group. Salty chunks of dried, curdled yoghurt are offered together with large wooden bowls filled with soured mare’s milk. A sheep has been killed in our honour and I am asked to slice meet from the roasted head which sits forlornly on a wide dish, horns attached. Traditionally, the ears must be cut off first, as the greatest delicacy and offered to the most honoured guest. Kimberley gracefully declines. Then slivers of meat from around the mouth and nostrils are cut and served in turn to each guest crouched at the low table. Endless toasts are offered washed down with mare’s milk or vodka. The wise, choose vodka! Soon the rest of the roasted sheep arrives, pieces of carved meat lying on alternate layers of thick yellow fat. Equally fatty horsemeat follows. The Kazakh villagers must survive temperatures of –40 degrees in winter and fat plays a large part in their daily diet. A lack of refrigeration to deal with the searing heat of summer means that milk and yoghurt must be soured and salted to survive. However, radiation has penetrated every layer of the food chain. The water supply is polluted, milk and meat are irradiated and vegetables absorb radiation from the soil.

The cemetery just outside Kainar is almost bigger than the village itself. Grave after grave bears the pictures of young men and women, victims of cancer or suicide. The inscriptions are poignant. One young woman died at the age of 20. Her name was Orazken Malkarbay. On her tomb is written “She did not reach her 21st Spring and left us suddenly. ‘Crying forever’. Her Father.” ‘Suddenly’ is a Kazakh euphemism for suicide, our guide explains.

The village hall in Kainar is filled to overflowing. More than 500 people turn out to greet us and tell us of their suffering. Again we hand over gifts from NIKE and the local Akim (mayor) responds by presenting Kimberley with a horse. By now we are three hours behind schedule. Sixteen scientists from the National Nuclear Research Centre in Kurchatov are waiting for us at the Atomic Lake. They have brought protective clothing and gallons of water to wash us down after our visit. However, our guide has a better idea. He has agreed to a suggestion from a villager that we should take a shortcut across the steppe, cutting our journey time to the Atomic Lake in half. We set off in a convoy of vehicles across the grass-covered plains, dust billowing behind us. The journey by road should have taken just under 2 hours. After 4 hours bumping across the prairie we realise we are lost. Soon we spot a small ridge rising from the plain and make our way towards it, hoping to get a better view of our surroundings from the summit. The ridge has a broken fence surrounding it, which should have sounded some alarms for us, but it is only when I get out of our Landcruiser and walk to the top of the ridge that the full horror of our situation dawns on me. I am staring into an atomic bomb crater! We have inadvertently stumbled across one of the nuclear bomb test sites, which are lethally dangerous and strictly prohibited to all access. Dr Marat Sandybaev comes running up waving his Geiger counter. “It’s registering 160 roentgens” he shouts, “we have to get out of here quickly.”

We set off again at high speed, bouncing across the uneven terrain. After an hour we stop for a comfort break when suddenly we notice smoke billowing from underneath the Landcruiser. Prairie grass has wound itself tightly around the drive shaft and ignited against the hot exhaust. Our driver dives under the vehicle with a cloth. I throw bottles of water to him. The flames are licking dangerously close to the fuel pipe and already the tall grass beneath the car has caught fire. For five minutes the driver fights the blaze, finally emerging blackened with smoke, his right hand severely scorched. He has almost certainly saved our lives.

Around 9.00pm we find a Kazakh herdsman on horseback and ask him for directions. He tells us to follow a distant line of broken poles, which once brought power across the steppe to the nuclear test sites. After another hour we find the crumbling township which once housed the Soviet military guards and KGB personnel. Our Geiger counter still records abnormally high levels of radioactivity. It is past midnight before we finally discover an asphalt road.

Our final village visit in the Polygon is to Karaul. In the medical centre we are ushered into the room of a beautiful 14-year old girl called Aigul. She stands as we enter. She is wearing a trendy tee shirt with ‘love 7’ emblazoned on the front and a pair of flared jeans. She has incredibly sad eyes. The chief doctor explains that, like all other children in the area, Aigul has chronic anaemia. However, they have been unable to get her blood back to normal and she now has chronic hepatitis, kidney failure and the onset of scoliosis – the condition where the spine can no longer bear the weight of the head and begins to bend painfully. Aigul listens to our expressions of sympathy, her sad eyes telling us that she only yearns to be like any other teenage girl, away from this place of pain and suffering.

Karaul is in the Abay district of East Kazakhstan, named after the great Kazakh poet and humanitarian Abay Kunanbaev. It was Abay who translated the works of Robert Burns and Robert Luis Stevenson into Kazakh. It seems to be the ultimate irony that Stalin should chose the home of this national icon, who wrote about love and humanity, as the site of his nuclear tests. Abay wrote “If grief comes, resist, don’t give up!” His words must have given great courage to the people of Kazakhstan who rose up and challenged the might of the Soviet Empire, demanding a halt to the nuclear tests. For too long the nuclear testing programme in Semipalatinsk was a closely guarded secret. For more than 40 years the Soviet military authorities and the KGB kept their nuclear testing programme hidden from the world.

It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said - “The cruellest lies are often told in silence.” But the people of Semipalatinsk refused to suffer in silence any longer. It was their bravery and their resistance in confronting the might of the USSR that brought this sickening episode to an end. Now it is the task of everyone to help rebuild this shattered landscape and to provide real help to these victims of the Cold War.

Elaine McKean
Indigo (PR) Ltd
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Edinburgh EH6 6SE

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