SU-HSE
Report by Merkulova Maria
1st year magister program
Public policy and political analysis
“Nevada Semipalatinsk” as a transnational movement
"Nevada Semipalatinsk movement" was the first Soviet antinuclear movement. The importance of it's experience is undoubtful and I consider it's very important to study this movement, because it's was also the firs Soviet NGO. By the way, non only being non-governmental made it so important - "Nevada Semipalatinsk" was and serial is a transnational movement. So how exactly was this movement created and developed and what made it so successful?
First of all it's worth saying what the problem in the Semipalatinsk really was. This region was conducted as Soviet nuclear site. The size of the site is 18500 sq.km. It costed 150 millions of rubles to built it ib Soviet time. During 40 years (1949-1989) there were more than 450[1] nuclear tests have taken place, a big part of that were also underground tests. Results of such an activity is still visible when you start to study medical record on this region. It occurred, than in a time after huge tests sets the amount of people in hospitals raised in 5-6 times, that is surely very significant to show that the region has serious eco problems because of than tests. Besides there was some other secret reports that somehow occurred in public. They considered information about child cancer rates in the Semipalatinsk region and studies on some villagers living in the region, collecting their blood samples and given their money for participating in researches on the influence of the nuclear tests on the health of the human. Semipalatinsk was the first region where russians have tested their first hydrogen bomb.
The problems with ecology were grand: the survey made in 1989 discovered that in the bones of the animals the amount of plumbum-210 was in dozens of times bigger than the critical. During the test millions of animals of the area were damaged an slowly diying. The amount of the cases of child cancer rised every time when the massive testings were conducted.
The decision to create the International antinuclear movement was made on February 28, 1989 and was the equivalent of a challenge to the then all-mighty military-industrial complex of the USSR. Its purpose was to destroy all nuclear test polygons on the territory of Kazakhstan, create public control over industrial wastes, and establish an ecological map of the region. The movement has a Charter, organizational structure and cultural symbols. It was definitely that creating such a movement required a lot of bravery in the period when all kinds of opposition to the government in Soviet Kazakhstan was simply unimaginable. But it worked.
All things were started by famous kazakh poet Olzhas Suleimenov, that time he was the head of the regional Writers Union. "Nevada Semipalatinsk" began from an unusual source. One military colonel contacted Olzhas Suleimenov after one of the nuclear tests in February 1989[2]. Military officials located in Kurchatov, a small town near the test site, would schedule a test when the prevailing winds would blow the radioactive "noble gases" away from their base. But they did not care whether the wind went to Ust-Kamenogorsk or to Semipalatinsk. This military town was kept totally secret. The colonel said that a full military alert had once been in effect at the base: during one test, the wind unexpectedly shifted and blew the radioactive clouds in the opposite direction - right over the military base. The colonel told Suleimenov that he was an honest man and could now say that these clouds were not "noble gases," but that they seriously affected people. The military realized this only when the tests affected the soldiers as well.
Two days later Suleimenov went on live Soviet television, to read some of his poetry and to make a pre-elections statements (he wanted to get into the Verhovniy Soviet). He then put the book aside and told the audience that the poetry could wait because there was a problem which was of much more importance to them. He spoke of the information the colonel had told him, and called for all the people to come to the square where the Writers' Union was located. The KGB and the government were shocked by Suleimenov's speech. And in deed a huge amount of people, about 5,000 came to the square[3]. The main goal of that first actions of the movement was to protest against the tests, the second goal, which appeared quite soon was to shut down any tests on the site. Also these goals was based ob the desire to save ecology of the region and to stop harm which was made by the bombs.
Then the second important activist Almaz Estekov called the American Embassy an told them about the creation of the "Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement". He now says that adding the word "Nevada" was made because the movement's goal was not only to close Soviet test site, but also to reduce the amount of nuclear testing in the world. So, Nevada, where americans were testing their bombs was essential, because it had much in common with Semipalatinsk because of than testing. The movement put in their program, that if they stop nuclear bombs in Kazakhstan, people in Nevada would do the same.
In October 1989, Almaz Estekov, who was responsible for the anti-nuclear and anti-military demonstrations in Moscow, organized 300 Soviet students to surround the Central Military Staff Headquarters in Moscow. They blocked the access of Soviet generals to the building. Also, their petition was handed over to the head of the military staff. In 1989, movement started ten protests, the most significant of which was a huge demonstration next to the test site. It was the first time that the generals in charge of the test site met representatives of the movement. On May 24-27, 1990 Kazakh and-nuclear groups met an American delegation headed by a representative from Physicians for a Worid Without Nuclear Bombs. This organization had a chance to see the nuclear-test site in Semipalatinsk. Soon afterwards, the delegation and Olzhas Suleimenov met with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze.
All this activity, involving information distribution (movement's activists were sending to the Nevada state a lot of reports and video and foot materials), finally gave successful results - military shut down 11 nuclear tests right after the first demonstrations in Kazakhstan. But to close all the testings in the site was still impossible. That was also a fault of one movement's characteristic - it was also a political movement. "Nevada-Semipalatinsk" quickly became the main Kazakhstan's opposition, because if you still cannot protest about the whole policy of the Soviet state, you can protest about crushing the ecology and people health. So everyone, who want to change something was easily welcomed in the movement.
The main strong participants of the movement were workers, miners and sudents – they were the “force”. Other participants who conducted all the meetings and actions were mostly the Kazakh's intellectuall elite, lead by Suleimenov. It was the most mass movement in the modern history of the Kazakhstan because it bothered everybody, espessially after information that they found out.
The problem was that the Americans did not want to close their nuclear-test facilities in Nevada. Nuclear tests were profitable for the state of Nevada because jobs were created from this activity. Kazakhstan's movement's activities ceased just after the August putsch, when Gorbachev and his new Defense Minister announced that there would be no more nuclear tests conducted in Semipalatinsk. Now they are directing the many resources of this organization toward helping the people of Kazakhstan who were affected by this testing, especially the children born with many genetic defects as a result of the testing.
The main things about this transnational movement are the following:
1. It had to become transnational right in the same time as it was created. It was an only way to make it noticeable and to prevent harsh actions from the soviet authorities. So that was a right decision to make – even if Nevada state didn't pay much attention to the movement's activity that time, the government of the US did. Because of that, soviet government, which was no longer as strong as it was in the 50-60, or even in the beginning of the 80s, could not bring all of the movement down.
2. The “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” movement found wide support and approval in the whole world and people made their governments declare a moratorium on nuclear tests following the example of Kazakhstan. At the present time, branches of “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” have been created in all regions of Kazakhstan, and in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, the Altai, Yakutsk, Bishkek, the USA, France, Germany, Turkey, Mongolia, South Africa, Italy, Israel and Canada.
3. The “Nevada Semipalatinsk” became the basis of all Kazakhstan's political opposition. The main opposition parties in the 90s was connected to this movement and personally to Olzhas Suleimenov, who crated the most powerful opposition party in the modern history of Kazakhstan - “Ak Zhol”. Afterwards, a lot of activists from this movement can be found in “People congress of Kazakhstan”, “Azat”, “True Ak Zhol” and all of the significant political forces of the 90s.
4. The movement surely is successful, but talking about that first campaign, which I really need to explore in this work, one can say that it really was an enormous success – to shut down 11 nuclear launches of the 18. Afterwards, there was a resolution accepted, and no more testings appeared after the 19th of october 1989[4].
What made this campaign so remarkable and successful? I guess that was a combination of the following factors.
The first – Olzhas Suleimenov played an enormous role in all of this events. His status as the head of the Writers Union, which made him not a politician but a poet, thinking and taking care about the people of the country he writes about, made his influence really huge. So it was easy to him to call people on the streets, to create a massive demonstration right on the Semipalatinsk site. Also, because of such an influence it was easy to gain money for this actions from the people who had it and also from those who had some resources.
The second – the character of the movement is a great plus for it. Nuclear testings and the eco problems was the issue in that time and in that region. So that was the essential problem which made people interested in it.
The third – the movement had a lot of information to give it to the people, there were movies made, there were medical reports and all of this was made public. And also worldwide. Such an information couldn't left people inactive.
The forth – it was military involved in shutting done their own testings. I'm sure it's very significant, cause it means that one of the power institutions went across others policy, and not only regional, the main thing is that it went across the policy of the central govern in Moscow.
The fith – demonstrations an all of the stuff around them was conducted very clever. It was not only local actions – also students went to the area near the Ministry of the Defense, people went on the Semipalatinsk site, so all this actions was to crate a massive resonance all across the Soviet Union, and over the world.
All this made the “Nevada Semipalatinsk” successful in canceling 11 launches, but all testings were shut down only after the Soviet Union broke up. Actually, it's easy to understand why does it happened in that particular way. All of the actions made by activist in that first days ware a kind of short lasting. They needed to shut down some launches and quickly. When they succeeded, they understand that the more influence on this problem can be made, so they started to try to cancel all the nuclear testings. After that they started to work with the government and the parliament on the issue of the nuclear testings in the Semipalatinsk site.
Also it's worth mentioning the context of the events in the Semipalatinsk. One can easily discover by the year when all the activity started that were're talking about the ocurance of the transnational movement in the context of “perestroika” and “glasnost”. That is why the information about testings happened to become public, that is why demonstrations was held and the connection whith Nevada was made. When you declare that you do accept making some things public, and when some movement shows that not only your country have problems you can afford this movement to speak. First of all to show that it's really a “glasnost” in your country, and second – to make everyone now, that not only you have shamefull policies.
The “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” movement enriched the world experience of antinuclear fighting, through democratic methods of popular and parliamentary diplomacy, strengthening the international authority of non-governmental organizations – the factor that determines the level of life activity of the individual and which is an institutional aspect of social life. Afterwards the UN gave Semipalatins a status of international problem and sent $43 billions to help the region, so the damage from testings could be somehow covered by usung this money to help people. Also, because of the interest that Nevada-Semipalatinsk drew to Nevada sites. The state of Nevada gaind $100 billions, nevertheless there was not so many tests as in Semipalatinsk.
In spite of the information, that was given by the movement, there still was lack of data. Information on the problem was inaccessible for a long time at a broad level. People were limited only by rumors and suppositions which precluded the true scientific analysis. That is why the scientific researchers themselves bore “a mythological” character. Only with the gaining of sovereignty by the Republic of Kazakhstan (the RK) did the possibility arise of access to information on the issue, along with objective analysis which undoubtedly stimulated further scientific research.