Wednesday, May 7, 1986
eas

Newsstand Price 40°

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Vol. 49, No. 17

ot II

aa SS SS SS SSS eS

Trades
reiterate:
‘No cuts,

rollbacks’
— page 12 —

rack down on aggressive reservation agencies. Story page

unionists staged a three-pronged picket at _
ncouver May 2. The Downtown Eastside

ix of the worst offenders.
to tourists in vi of city

ning laws, —

Meanwhile, the city

anniversary
target for
S. Africa

movement

— page 8 —

T
RIBUNE COMBINED SERVICES

te of ement from the Council of Minis-
Kes : the USSR May 6 reported that a
Sty ily, eX of measures” had been taken to
hen the situation at the damaged
ony: a Yl reactor and to minimize the
ate. Be Mental damage to the surrounding
ting the Ukraine, following the devas-
Aprit >. ate power station accident

dente Situation is stabilizing, with a ten-
Ment towards improvement,” the state-
6, te eattied by TASS news agency May
Lory a Tted. “The cleaning up of the terri-
the <'OUnd the station is underway and

emissi ae ;
Mecting sion of radiation continues to

Th
River, Statement added that the Pripyat

a runs through the nuclear

Evacuation of affected zone
Completed within four hours

power station, was being dammed to pre-
vent its contamination.

The TASS summary of the ministers’
statement was carried together with a
detailed report of the accident itself and
although it left no doubt about the
seriousness of the accident, it demon-
strated that authorities had moved swiftly
to control the situation.

The first major accident in a Soviet
nuclear power facility, it was precipitated
by human error, according to Boris Yelt-
sin, the first secretary of the Moscow city
committee of the Communist Party. And
steps are being taken to ensure that it never
happens again, he said, including the
establishment of a top-level investigative
commission comprising representatives of

see PEACE page 11

U.S. Canadian media reports
distorted accident, causes

By FRED WEIR

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear
power station has riveted global attention
and concern upon this tragedy which last
week struck in the Soviet Ukraine. While
much about the event and its eventual
impact remains unknown, it is not too soon
to assess Western reaction and to raise some
highly relevant questions about the direc-
tion of our own nuclear policies.

Some reporting of the Chernobyl acci-
dent has been objective, and where nuclear
power experts have been given the floor,
their comments have often been cautious
and reasoned. However, the Western media
has also indulged in a good deal of what can
only be described as Soviet-bashing. In this
‘connection, one thinks of the Carnegie
‘Endowment’s execrable “Soviet expert,”

Dmitri Simes, who appeared Monday and
again Wednesday on ABC’s Nightline to
blame the “Soviet leadership” for every-
thing, and seemed scarcely able to control
his glee.

Aside from such appalling indecencies,
media coverage has tended to be highly
misleading on a number of points. The
almost universal emphasis on the “prob-
lem” of Soviet “secrecy” with respect to the
accident is not only misplaced, it is
extremely hypocritical. As we shall see in a
moment, the USSR has been far more
forthcoming, far more quickly, than many
Western nations have been about their
nuclear mishaps in the past.

Further, the media has broadly implied
that the Chernoby] accident is a uniquely

see U.S. page 7

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