Depleted Uranium: UN Confirms Radioactivity in Bosnia

The United Nations Environment Program task force inspecting Bosnia-Herzegovina have claimed that DU can create an increase of uranium concentration 100 times natural that of levels in groundwater. Three sites have been declared as radioactive and have been cordoned off.

The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed that 10,800 rounds of DU ordnance were fired into its territory by NATO aircraft during the Bosnian War in 1995. This weaponry is coated with Depleted Uranium to give shells a greater penetration into their target. Despite numerous claims by NATO that this weaponry is safe, there have been a growing number of scientific reports which would suggest that this is not the case. Inhalation of DU dust has been stated to be the cause of raised levels of cancer in areas where DU has been deployed, namely in Southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and southern Yugoslavia. In Iraq, up to 500,000 children have died in the area targeted by DU during the Gulf War of cancer-related illnesses.

Pekka Haavisto, the Chairman of the UNEP team in Bosnia, declared that “We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks”. He added that the areas where radiation has been detected should be abandoned until they are decontaminated.

The team has admitted that there are potential hazards to people who come into contact with DU. Meanwhile, World Health Organisation experts have been visiting hospitals in Bosnia, performing tests on patients who claim to have been contaminated by DU. The UNEP team has warned that troops should not be deployed in the areas contaminated.

The more NATO denies that DU is dangerous, the more evidence is overturned which states the contrary. In deploying DU, NATO blatantly disregarded the terms of the Geneva Convention, which states that weapons that leave a lasting on the battlefield must not be deployed. NATO is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and, were the world order based upon justice, its leaders would be liable to stand trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

This, however, will never happen because the United States of America considers that its citizens are above international justice, leaving this country a free reign to go globe-trotting on a gung-ho mission of arrogance and abject disrespect for international norms of behaviour.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru