New Article: "No bliss in this ignorance: the great Fukushima nuclear cover-up"

Extracts from "The Ecologist"
Linda Pentz Gunter 20th February 2016


The Japanese were kept in the dark from the start of the Fukushima disaster about high radiation levels and their dangers to health, writes Linda Pentz Gunter. In order to proclaim the Fukushima area 'safe', the Government increased exposure limits to twenty times the international norm. Soon, many Fukushima refugees will be forced to return home to endure damaging levels of radiation.


Dr. Tetsunari Iida is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) in Japan.

As such, one might have expected a recent presentation he gave in the UK within the hallowed halls of the House of Commons, to have focused on Japan's capacity to replace the electricity once generated by its now mainly shuttered nuclear power plants, with renewable energy.....

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A trial for Tepco like post-war Tokyo Trials

The media may have played the willing government handmaiden in reassuring the public with falsehoods, but in July 2012, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission concluded that the disaster was really no accident but "man-made". It came about, the researchers said, as a result of "collusion" between the government, regulators and the nuclear industry, in this case, Tepco.

"There should be a Tepco trial like the post-war Tokyo Trials", Iida said, referring to the post World War II war crimes trial in which 28 Japanese were tried, seven of whom were subsequently executed by hanging.
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Normalizing radiation, a policy and now a practice

Of course radiological decontamination is not that easy. Nor is it reliable. It is more like"pushing contamination from one spot to the next", as independent nuclear expert, Mycle Schneider describes it. And radiation does not remain obediently in one place, either.

"The mountains and forests that cannot even be vaguely decontaminated, will serve as a permanent source of new contamination, each rainfall washing out radiation and bringing it down from the mountains to the flat lands", Schneider explained. Birds move around. Animals eat and excrete radioactive plant life. Radiation gets swept out to sea. It is a cycle with no end.
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The nuclear industry did not tell the public the truth

The confusion surrounding evacuation was so profound that, as Zhang et al. noted in a September 11, 2014 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: "Unclear evacuation instructions caused numerous residents to flee to the northwestern zone where radiation levels were even higher."

All par for the course, said Iida. "I must emphasize, the people in the nuclear industry did not tell the public the truth and keep us informed."
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The great repatriation lie

All of this set the perfect stage for the Great Repatriation Lie. "It's the big cover-up," Iida told his Westminster audience. "People are being told it's quite safe to have a little [radiation] exposure."

Indeed, at a recent conferences of prefectural governors, young people in particular were urged to return to Fukushima. "If you come to live with us in Fukushima and work there, that will facilitate its post-disaster reconstruction and help you lead a meaningful life",said Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori.

Young people in Japan, however, appear not to be cooperating. Where evacuees are returning, the majority are senior citizens, who have less to lose from a health perspectiveand are more traditionally tied to the land and their ancestral burial grounds.
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Radioactive areas are hardest hit economically

Late last year, the Asahi Shimbun looked at tax revenues in the 42 municipalities affected by the triple 2011 disasters of earthquake, tsunami and the Fukushima meltdowns.

Unsurprisingly, the areas hardest hit by radiological contamination had suffered the biggest economic blows. Those areas free from radioactive fallout could simply rebuild after the tsunami and earthquake, and had consequently recovered economically, some even to better than pre-3/11 levels.

"On the other end of the scale, Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, marked the biggest decreasing rate - 72.9 percent - in tax revenues for fiscal 2014", the Asahi Shimbunreported. "All residents of the town near the crippled nuclear plant remain in evacuation. Although tax payments from companies increased from decontamination work and other public works projects, income taxes paid by residents and fixed asset taxes have declined."

[Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, MD environmental advocacy group.]

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Last Edited by CitizenPerth™ on 02/21/2016 04:20 AM