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.

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.

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.”

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