Yevgen Garin, Coordinating Director of the Chornobyl Center, took part in the meeting dealing with development of a set of state activities to commemorate the 20-th anniversary of the Chornobyl accident. The meeting was initiated by the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Ecopolicy and took place on 14 January, 2005.
The world has to wait less than a year and a half till the sad 20-th anniversary of the Chornobyl accident. Thousands of human lives, ruined health, wasted lands and abandoned villages within the exclusion zone were paid by the humanity for its fatal mistakes and carelessness in using nuclear energy. Today, the world shivers at the view of new disasters mostly generated by the mankind itself. The dismal lessons learned from Chornobyl should be deeply conceived in order to prevent recurrence of a similar tragedy and careful thought should be taken when using the gifts presented to a man by nature.
Therefore, on the 20-th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy we must pay tribute to all people, who saved the world from a global nuclear disaster, summarize results of the titanic work accomplished by Ukraine and international community in the course of the years dedicated to the Chornobyl accident elimination.
The Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Ecopolicy initiated a coordinating meeting that involved representatives of key ministries, offices, organizations and institutions working in the area of nuclear and radiation safety, radioecology, health protection, social development, as well as executives representing the Chornobyl NPP and Slavutych. The meeting dealt with planning the state activities to commemorate the 20-th anniversary of the accident.
The meeting was opened by Mykhailo Borysiuk, Head of the Committee Secretariat. The delegates of the meeting made a proposal to establish a working group required to organize an international committee on this anniversary with the objective to develop a joint action plan and activities to further mitigate the consequences of the accident. The following were proposed to be included into the joint action plan of state-level activities: hold international scientific and practical conference “20 Years After Chornobyl: Results And Prospects”, hold a joint out meeting of Ukrainian, Russian and Byelorussian parliamentary delegations, issue a digest with scientific papers covering the accident elimination experience, organize a targeted international exhibition, international TV-bridge, implement a number of activities at the Chornobyl NPP and in Slavutych, develop a set of actions related to social protection of the eliminators and victims of the accident, pay tribute to the individuals, who took part in eliminating the consequences of the Chornobyl tragedy.
Yevgen Garin, Coordinating Director of the Chornobyl Center, proposed to develop the action plan urgently and submit the corresponding propositions to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in order to consider them while reviewing the state budget for 2005. He also stressed that in accordance with a special assignment of the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, he has already started preparation of the international scientific and practical conference to commemorate the 20-th anniversary of the accident.
On Monday, January 17, 2005, based on the results of the meeting, the Committee on Ecopolicy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine held another meeting. The meeting has developed a set of proposals to be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with the objective to issue an appropriate resolution and include the activities required to commemorate the 20-th anniversary of the Chornobyl accident into the state budget of Ukraine for the year 2005.
