14.7.2017.

Serbian Town Bombed by NATO Fears Effects of Toxic Chemicals

July 14, 1999

Serbian Town Bombed by NATO Fears

Effects of Toxic Chemicals

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By CHRIS HEDGES

ANCEVO, Yugoslavia -- On the edge of town, in a sprawling

industrial park that held an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant
and a fertilizer factory, lie the twisted pipes, scorched storage tanks,
crumbled roofs and jagged detritus left by NATO bombs. Yet it is
not these ruined factories that are the worst scourges of war in this
river town, many people here believe, but the tons of toxic material
that poured out of them.

Farm workers, plunging their fingers into the earth, say they come
away with rashes that burn and blister. Those who eat the river fish
and vegetables or drink the tap water, which trickles out of faucets
because of the damage to the purification plant, come down with
diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps.

Children, many of whom were sent away to Slovakia by local Red

Cross officials for several weeks to escape the clouds of noxious
gasses that hovered for days over Pancevo, still suffer headaches
and dizziness. The war's lingering, ghoulish touch could be affecting
even the unborn. There are twice as many miscarriages as during
this period last year, doctors here said.

There is no independent assessment of the medical effects of the

exposure to chemicals the bombing caused. The scientific studies
conducted by the Yugoslavs in Pancevo, by their own admission,
have been carried out with outdated methods and inferior,
antiquated equipment. The results of such testing, said Dr. Predrag
Polic, the chemist who conducted many of the tests, are three or four
weeks away.

The U.N. Environment Program has formed a Balkans Task Force,

headed by Pakka Haavisto, who was environment minister in
Finland. It will send a team of international experts to Pancevo, and
about half a dozen other damaged industrial sites, next Tuesday to
take air, water and soil samples for three or four weeks. It expects to
publish its findings and make recommendations in September.

"The most dangerous moment probably occurred during the fires

when the smoke was in the air," said Haavisto, who briefly visited
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Pancevo two weeks ago and was reached by phone in Geneva.

"A large amount of chemicals burned during this time. It remains

unclear how much is in the soil, but when you walk in Pancevo you
can smell chemical substances. The biggest danger now is that the
ground water and the Danube have been directly polluted,
something that will affect the drinking water. There are towns in
Romania and Bulgaria that use the Danube for drinking water. In my
estimation the most damaged sites will need a cleaning process, as
in places where the soil and water have been contaminated with
toxic materials, before we can talk about rebuilding."

Government officials, doctors and residents in the town report a

surge of unexplained symptoms.

"The effects of the bombing on these industrial sites have been

enormous," said Simon Bancov, the government health inspector for
the region. "More than 100,000 tons of carcinogens were unleashed
into the air, the water and the soil. The produce is not safe to eat.
The long-term damage to the water table and riverbeds is severe.
People complain constantly of stomach pain but have no viral or
bacterial symptoms. We have all been poisoned."

The repeated airstrikes on the industrial complex, which covers

several acres, culminated in three huge hits at 1 a.m. on April 18.
The bombs sent fireballs into the air and enveloped Pancevo in
clouds of black smoke and milky white gasses. Flames leapt from
the facilities for 10 days.

The airstrikes, part of the 78-day effort to destroy Serbia's

infrastructure in the war over Kosovo, unleashed tons of chemicals
into the air and water. An estimated 1,500 tons of vinyl chloride, the
building block of a type of plastic, 3,000 times higher than
permitted levels, burned into the air or poured into the soil and river,
according to municipal officials in Pancevo, which is controlled by
opposition parties hostile to President Slobodan Milosevic.

The chemical substance, which has left the banks of the river edged
with white foam, still clogs the canals around the town. Huge
quantities of other noxious chemicals burned or gushed out of
storage facilities, according to town officials and Yugoslav
scientists. These chemicals included an estimated 15,000 tons of
ammonia, used to make fertilizer, 800 tons of hydrochloric acid and
250 tons of liquid chlorine (used for several industrial products),
vast quantities of dioxin (a component of Agent Orange and other
defoliants), and 100 tons of mercury, the officials said.

By dawn of the night of the attack, dozens of people were

hospitalized gasping for air, struggling to see and unable to digest
food, witnesses said.

The sun was blotted out for nearly a day as people moved with rags
over their noses and mouths through the fog.

NATO officials, reached by phone in Mons, Belgium, said the

industrial site was a key target in the drive to deny fuel and other
resources to the Yugoslav army.

"NATO had two types of targets," said a NATO spokesperson, who

asked not to be named. "There were tactical and strategic targets.
The oil refinery in Pancevo was considered a strategic target. It was
a key installation that provided petrol and other elements to support

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14.7.2017. Serbian Town Bombed by NATO Fears Effects of Toxic Chemicals

the Yugoslav army. By cutting off these supplies we denied crucial

material to the Serbian forces fighting in Kosovo."

This official said that the environmental damage caused by the

attack was taken into consideration.

"When targeting is done we take into account all possible collateral

damage," she said, "be it environmental, human or to the civilian
infrastructure. Pancevo was considered to me a very, very important
refinery and strategic target, as important as tactical targets inside
Kosovo."

Three months later, anxious families are coping with illnesses no

one seems able to explain. Mothers, clutching the hands of small
children, along with people whose bodies are covered in rashes, clog
the small waiting rooms of local doctors hoping for explanations
and treatment. There is little, the doctors say, they can do, but wait
to see if the exposure leads to cancer, blood contamination and
serious respiratory ailments.

Chemical exposure can produce immediate and longer-term effects,

causing different kinds of damage to the body, experts say. Some
may be clear to the eye and painful; other effects could be silent and
only show up years later. It is difficult to pinpoint the cause of the
symptoms people in Pancevo report without scientific tests. Neither
Polic, nor UNEP officials, said they were ready to speculate on the
possible health risks.

"What can we tell people?" said Dr. Dobrosav Pavlovic, a

gynecologist. "We have not advised expectant mothers to have
abortions, but we are seeing more and more miscarriages. I can't say
how much the bombing has contributed to this increase. I can't say
what the results of the bombing will be over the long term. It will be
over a year, when we can begin to look for birth defects and can
detect serious illnesses, that we will start to understand what has
happened."

The bombing left most of the 8,761 people who worked in the
plants, 10 miles northwest of Belgrade, out of work. The
government, which was months late with salaries before the
bombing, has reduced incomes from $100 to $15 a month until the
factories are repaired, something workers say will never happen
without foreign investment. The damage is estimated in the
hundreds of millions of dollars.

Three U.S. companies and a German firm built the petrochemical

plant, used to make plastics, in 1978. Two U.S. corporations and a
French concern constructed the oil refinery in 1969. The fertilizer
plant, which began operation in 1958, was a joint venture by
companies from the United States, Spain and the Netherlands.

The loss of income in the town has made it difficult for those whom
would like to move or take precautions against the pollutants. There
is now 70 percent unemployment.

"My son and I have constant headaches," said Radmila Vukelic, 52.

"We feel dizzy, as if we were going to faint. No one has told us

anything. We have no information about what has happened or what
we should do. I do not eat the fish from the river. I am afraid. We
would like to eat frozen or canned vegetables, but we do not have
this kind of money. We must eat what is in the markets."

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14.7.2017. Serbian Town Bombed by NATO Fears Effects of Toxic Chemicals

Pancevo Mayor Srdjan Mikovic, 38, said he is bewildered by the

extent of the airstrikes, especially since his town of 130,000, with a
mix of ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Croats, has long been one of
the centers of the opposition.

It is one of the few places in Serbia where the radio and television
stations are free from party control, either by Milosevic's ruling
Socialists, or the parties that oppose him.

"We have heard nothing from the government," the mayor said. "We
have never supported the regime and for this reason I fear we will
be sacrificed. NATO had to understand what they were doing to us
because these factories were built by American and European firms.
They could not have been ignorant of the environmental damage. I
have given up. I eat the fish. How much more can I be poisoned
after living in clouds of this stuff?"

Pancevo was once a frontier town, manned by Hungarian, Serbian

and Austrian soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian empire. The pink
facade of the former imperial army barracks lies in the center of
Pancevo. It was from here that the European troops faced the
Ottoman Turks across the river from 1716, when Vienna captured
Pancevo, until the end of World War I. The buildings, although in
bad repair, look as if they were lifted from Austria, with stuccoed
block exteriors, onion domed towers, arched windows and delicate,
wrought iron staircases.

On the front of the old town hall, built by German-speaking settlers

in 1833 and now a museum, is a Latin inscription reading: "Justice
is the Basis for Any State." Outside is a thick iron cylinder with a
hollowed bore in the center. It was once lit with an explosive charge
to announce the arrival of riverboats. The ethnic Germans, who left
behind their churches, tombstones and architecture, were driven out
at the end of World War II after the communist state was established
in Yugoslavia.

But this part of Serbia has never embraced Milosevic's nationalist

movement.

Pancevo hosted a woman's water polo tournament last year, and the
American swimmers won. The spectators cheered the athletes as the
American anthem was played during the awards ceremony. "The
bombing has changed how we feel about the outside world," said
Mikovic. "People have lost their desire to fight, to reach out. They
only want to survive. The Americans can come back, but they will
not have any applause from us."

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