| 15 April 2005 | Friday | 05 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426 |
Some Chernobyl clouds will not clear
CHERNOBYL: Almost 20 years have passed since the world’s worst nuclear accident, but Chernobyl continues to bring back traumatizing memories for many Ukrainians.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that anyone thinking of doing business in the United Arab Emirates might well consider taking a look at Ras al Khaimah.
RAK, as it is commonly known, is the northernmost of the seven emirates that make up the UAE. It has a population of around 170,000 — a mixture of nationals and the remainder of the people coming from South Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East.
RAK has slumbered away for many years but a new crown prince — appointed by the ageing ruler — has been waking up this sleepy emirate with announcements of a multitude of development plans, in tourism, property, commerce and industry.
Well, it appears that I am not the only one with confidence that RAK is about to rock.
A few weeks ago the government launched a new real estate company, RAK Properties, and offered shares to the public. The applications came rolling in from both big and small investors from all over the Gulf countries and the issue was 50 times oversubscribed.
We now await details of how RAK Properties are going to spend the money: at the moment they are talking about a series of “groundbreaking projects” with no further details.
In the meantime, however, details were released this week of a new RAK beach development called The Cove, which is being built by an Egyptian developer. There will be a 409-room hotel and 134 villas which investors will be able to buy and use for four weeks a year. The developer will rent them out to tourists for the rest of the year and give the villa owner a seven per cent return on investment.
Ras Al Khaimah has a long way to go before it gets into the Dubai league for development but it will certainly be making headlines in the coming months.
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DUBAI’s shopping malls continue to get more bizarre as they outdo each other for attractions.
The latest to open is just five minutes from my home in Jebel Ali. When I moved here some 15 years ago, it was a small village, a 25 minute drive along an unlit desert road and I loved the isolation. There was a small supermarket but very few other facilities.
Since then, however, the city has moved outwards and now, within 10 minutes’ drive I could play golf at one of three courses or dine at one of eight luxurious hotels. The old road to the city has been replaced by a superhighway, but it can now take at least twice as long to make the journey, thanks to the horrific traffic. Such is progress.
And now we have the new Ibn Batuta Mall. It is named after the 14th century Arab explorer and the Mall recreates his voyages with different courts decorated in the style of the time of Andalusia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India and China, where the voyager was believed to have been shipwrecked.
Spectacular it certainly is and the crowds are flocking in. For the moment it is the place to go but I wonder for how long. In September, just 10 minutes along the road, yet another mall will open that will have the third largest indoor ski resort in the world (after Holland and Germany).
They are building a mountain, there will be real snow, 70cm deep and 400 metre long slopes and the temperature will be -1C, even in the height of summer when the thermometer can reach 50C. Most people in the UAE have never even seen snow, let alone tried skiing, so the success of this mega-project will be fascinating to watch.
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CAMEL racing has been a major sport in the UAE. While desert races were held in times gone by, it is only in the past couple of decades that it has really taken off, prompted by the government pouring money into building race tracks and big prizes being offered for race winners, with champion camels being bought and sold for large sums.
Followers of the sport are almost totally UAE nationals but it is also a great spectacle for visitors, and a visit to see the camels racing or training is now on the schedule of all city tours.
The downside has been the fact that the camel jockeys have usually been young boys, some just four years old, who are chosen for their lightness.
The authorities, despite statements of good intent, have long resisted calls from international organizations to outlaw this child labour, but finally they have succumbed and from the beginning of this month it became illegal to employ a jockey under 16 years of age, a move which was welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Pakistani human rights advocate Ansar Burney has been at the forefront of the campaign to stop the child abuse. He says there are around 16,000 racing camels in the UAE but an unknown number of child jockeys, most of whom come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Yemen and Sudan.
A rehabilitation centre has been set up in Abu Dhabi to provide shelter and education for rescued child jockeys, but Mr Burney is concerned that many are being hidden in remote areas with a view to smuggling them to other Gulf countries which are still ignoring the problem.
Mr Burney believes that on this occasion the UAE government is serious about tackling the issue and a couple of recent developments seem to support this view. One is that immigration authorities have been told to keep any eye out for children who may be coming to the country to work as jockeys.
The other pointer is that this week the first trials were carried out on — you have to believe this — a robot jockey. To show the importance of the issue, the development of the robot, which has taken three years, was ordered by no less than the president and all the rulers of the various emirates.
The first batch of robot jockeys will be produced in August and will be ready the next camel racing season that starts the following month.
The robots apparently have big advantages — they are actually lighter than young boys, they don’t need feeding, they don’t need to go and sleep in a tin hut in searing desert temperatures and they can actually receive orders by remote control from their owners roaring alongside the race in their land cruisers.
And finally, or course, they do not need visas to get into the country.
Camel racing will never be the same again (I am pleased to report).
The disaster continues to account for deaths and illnesses, but this has not stopped a few determined residents from coming back to contaminated areas to reclaim their old everyday life.
On April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred in reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in northern Ukraine. A fire broke out and huge quantities of radioactive debris were released. The authorities were first preoccupied with controlling the fire, and neglected the surrounding population that was left for four days without any information on the catastrophe.
After the government admitted the disaster, close to 150,000 inhabitants from nearby cities and villages were evacuated. People in Pripiat, the largest city in the region, left under the impression that they would return shortly.
They never did. Today the town that once hosted 47,000 citizens is a ghostly space of empty buildings and roads invaded by advancing flora.
The houses, libraries, schools, and sports and recreational centres in what was a model of socialist urbanisation built in the seventies, have since the disaster seen only looters, scientists, and a few adventurous tourists.
Entering the local school presents the visitor with a spine-chilling scenery of desks, open books, rotten pianos and gas masks scattered over a floor that looks ready to give in. This school, like the buildings surrounding it, has remained untouched for almost two decades.
Most of Pripiat’s residents were involved with the nuclear plant one way or another. Their misfortune was to live only a kilometre away from it.
While Pripiat will never see life again, further away from the plant, still within the radius of a 30km government-restricted zone, villagers have been reoccupying their abandoned homes in an illegal move to which the state turns a blind eye.
The villages are not a rousing tale either. Seemingly abandoned, the sudden sight of a pensioner eventually says otherwise. The average age of its inhabitants is 68, they live mostly in solitude, surrounded by stranded households, and under harsh material conditions. They are relatively indifferent to radiation-related risks.
“Some specialists feel mass resettlement was a mistake,” Evhen Golovakha, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine told IPS. “People who live in their own villages and towns feel better than those resettled.”
Yuri Privalov, director of the Centre of Social Expertise said it was not easy to settle in new conditions. “Adaptation to a community with differences in culture and language is not easy,” he told IPS.
But Privalov does not dismiss the economic aspect. “They lost everything, the government couldn’t find everyone a new job, and was unable to cover all their expenses.”
If Pripiat and surroundings present a post-apocalyptic scenario, the Chernobyl power plant is its complete opposite.
The plant is abuzz with activity. Scientists, engineers and workmen wander the installation wearing simple uniforms, apparently indifferent to possible radioactive threats. One concern they have is that the complete closure of the plant, which they opposed, will be at the expense of their above-average salaries.
Following acute international pressure, the Ukrainian government closed the last working reactor in 2000. The plant’s activities revolve these days around maintenance of the concrete ‘sarcophagus’ that covers the ruins of the explosion.
While radiation levels are not excessive at present, the precariousness of the structure has compelled the government to approve construction of a new safe confinement surmounting the old concrete block.
The project has already kicked off, but “the overall cost of the task is 1 billion, 91 million dollars,” Igor Vasilevich from the Ministry of Fuel and Energy told IPS. “We had donations from several developed countries, but it’s far from enough.”
In line with dominant international interests, most current government efforts are directed at increasing nuclear safety levels. But there is also a costly social dimension to Chernobyl.
Ukraine had to outgrow two separate Chernobyl traumas: the first following the explosion, the second when mass media gave a true account of its consequences. It is estimated that around six million people have been affected in some manner. Even a close estimate of the number of deaths will probably never be reached.
Up to 50 were reported dead as a result of immediate exposure. Other estimates range from 250 to a few thousand.
But many continue to face grave health problems. The most dramatic is the situation of the so-called “children of Chernobyl” who grew up in contaminated areas and now suffer from thyroid cancer.
Many more people have had to deal with psychological problems. A report by the Democratic Initiatives Centre that assessed the situation 10 years after the disaster says that among those affected, 60 per cent “associated food products with fear, and experience helplessness, insomnia and irritability”, while 30 per cent “lost their interest in life.”
For these victims, the disaster meant the “ruin of their world views, lifestyles and plans,” the report says. Most resettlers overcame a general disenchantment and helplessness with time, but many others have been left behind.
Yuri Privalov concedes that victims need further assistance, but also that not much more could be done. “It’s hard to say what’s sufficient, since we have no similar situation to compare with. There are many demands on the state, with ill people, the plant’s deactivation, and the earth’s pollution. The country is quite poor, of course problems will remain.”—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.