PLUTONIUM, NATO AND THE BALKANS…AND THE FIRST RUSSIAN CASE OF BALKANS SYNDROME

In Portugal, only one tenth of the military and civilian personnel sent to the Balkans has been tested for radioactivity or toxicity levels resulting from uranium and the official line is “so far, so good.” There are two deaths and four seriously ill with leukaemia among Portuguese soldiers sent to the Balkans, but… In Spain, two corporals tested for radioactivity have shown unusually high levels of plutonium. The newspaper El Pais indeed states that some of the Depleted Uranium munitions used in the Balkans came from nuclear power recycling stations in the USA which were contaminated with plutonium. One has been named as a station in Kentucky, reported in different papers as “Paducham” or “Paducahm.” These two paragraphs demonstrate the whole drama behind the use of NATO weapons in the Persian Gulf and in the Balkans. We are speaking not only about uranium but also plutonium. We are speaking not only about radioactivity but also, toxicity. The perpetrators of evil can therefore hide behind a number of combinations and hypotheses, which they do with increasing dexterity and suppleness of movement, as the providers and readers of this on-line newspaper dodge constant and continuous campaigns to take us out through destructive viruses. Now we discover that a Russian soldier in the Kfor force in Kosovo has presented the same symptoms as the many others who have served in the same area. In Portugal, the source quoted is ORT, which stated that this soldier has a cancerous situation in the blood…this situation is apparently not officially leukaemia but is an infection of the blood very similar to this, which requires chemotherapy treatment. The soldier in question is reported to be from the region of Yaroslavl, north-east of Moscow. The Portuguese Foreign Minister, Dr. Jaime Gama, stated yesterday: “Portugal, as a nation, has no intention of using this type of weapons in the near future” and would only do so “if the need was necessary for a defensive action against any case of aggression.” He added that no military situation justified the use of depleted uranium weapons (and did not even mention the use of plutonium). NATO meanwhile does not cease to surprise us, not by its intelligence or integrity but rather through insolence and provocation. NATO states that it does not intend to call a moratorium on DU weapons because it is not currently at war. How insensitive can an organisation (even like NATO) become? If indeed NATO is not currently at war, how does it justify, in any international court of law, its constant bombings of Iraq, a situation which has only been covered by Pravda.Ru - alone among the world’s press. The USA can state categorically that there is no connection whatsoever between DU weapons and cancerous situations in soldiers because the Pentagon manages extremely well to place its soldiers very far outside areas where DU was used. Now when we mention DU, we have to take into account that tests are starting to prove positive to plutonium and not just its “poorer” relative, uranium. However, the Pentagon need only to present to the world’s medical community (only as a formality because the victims have only done so) the symptoms suffered by Gulf War veterans to be on the same wavelength as the rest of the world regarding this incredibly immoral and depressing story. NATO is losing credibility by the day. It is an outdated organisation, its morals are apparently non-existent, it is ruled at least by incompetents and at most by evil elements and frankly, is a remnant of the cold war, a vestige of the side which lost, morally, politically and militarily in so many theatres of battle over the years. Some states evolve, others remain the same. NATO states, and now let us divide them into “hardcore NATO” and “unconvinced NATO” countries, have obviously a lot of evolving to do...some more than others, our correspondent Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey reports from Lisbon.