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An image of the factory after the bombing
Following the bombing of NATO in 1999, numerous workers from Zastava were employed in the rehabilitation of the Kragujevac factory. Five years later, those workers are dying silently. From Kaziprst, B92
11/05/2004 - Editorial staff
During the bombing campaign conducted by NATO in 1999 on the then Federation of Yugoslavia, Zastava, the Kragujevac factory, was hit twice in a devastating way. The first missile attack was launched on April 9, 1999 and destroyed much of the factory, while the second, 14 missiles that gave the coup de grace to the industrial complex causing 36 wounded, it happened on the night between 11 and 12 April.
Founded in 1853, already a symbol of the Yugoslav industry for having produced several million vehicles in its history, the Zastava comes out destroyed by the bombing of the '99 which caused in addition to the enormous damage a 70% reduction of the 36,000 workers once employed in the factory. However, the tenacity, the sense of union or more simply the lack of alternative and the pressure of the administration have prompted many workers to engage in the rehabilitation of the Kragujevac factory. A few months after the bombing ended, the Serbian government drew up a plan for its recovery. If on the one hand the effort and sense of duty that committed the workers of Kragujevac made sure that production started again, on the other hand, he exposed them to very serious health problems.Indeed,
representatives of the workers of Zastava say that during the factory renovation works many would have fallen ill with carcinoma or leukemia. Many of them later died. The exact number of sick and deceased is not confirmed, but systematic medical examinations of the workers who participated in the cleaning of the structures damaged by the bombing have not even been organized.
The following is the transcription of the Kaziprst transmission aired on the B92 broadcaster on April 15, during which some of the workers who participated in the Zastava rehabilitation were interviewed. By Tamara Sretenovic
Translation of Nicole Corritore
B92:Five years have passed since the first NATO bombs fell on the Zastava plants in Kragujevac. The workers who participated in the cleaning of the damaged factory structures became seriously ill and linked their health to the work of renovating these structures. They believe that these works were done without any precautionary measures and that they had not been informed by the competent offices of the possible serious consequences. Participation in the reconstruction of what was once a giant in the automobile industry today, workers say, is costing a tribute in lives. Photos of carcinoma patients and funeral announcements on the bulletin board at the entrance of the company have become everyday. Dragan Stojanovic,responsible for one of the teams that participated in the structural improvement of the company, he tells how the rubble removal work was done without any precaution and thinks that this could pose a health hazard.
Stojanovic: "The recovery was done without gloves, without any kind of precaution. We thought there was no danger. Only at the end was it found that the remediation work was very dangerous, we didn't know what we were exposed to and we knew that colleagues died from various carcinogenic diseases, without knowing which ones. We only know that they are gone today. They disappear within seven days, or galloping leukemia ... or catch a cold, get sick, and disappear. I saw the ads posted on the bulletin board.
B92: You told me that six funerals were held a month ago, and all colleagues in his section.
Stojanovic: Yup. They are colleagues who participated in the cleaning work from the rubble. Some worked with us, some at the OUR in Kovacnica as electricians in the renovation of the electrical system. One died very quickly - in two months, of galloping leukemia. The second died after three days, worked with us. He died of galloping leukemia at the Clinic of the Medical-Military Academy ( VMA ) in Belgrade. Two other colleagues died, but it is not known what, but very quickly. They are no longer among us.
B92:Due to a tumor, a lung was removed; Dragan Paunovic, who participated in the reconstruction of Zastava for six months. Today with 4,500 dinars ( 1 euro about 65 dinars ) tries to get expensive medicines and to feed the family of five.
Paunovic: I have been operated on for lung cancer. At the VMA on December 6, 2002. Now I'm a little better. I am no longer under therapy and continue with a drug treatment. The union practically gets the drugs. It is thanks to them that I survived. They also paid me for the operation at the VMA. All thanks to them, the independent union. Zastava administrators probably don't even know I'm alive. They never even asked me. Except for only one person in the management of the company, Vladan Kostic, my plant manager, who is the only one I still talk to.
B92: Paunovic points out that none of the corporate management had informed him that working in such conditions could be dangerous and lead to health consequences.
Paunovic: We have been pushed and victims at the same time, at least a number of workers. The factory had to be lifted. All right. And then that we die. But what is the most terrible thing about all this? The fact that the company's directors did not grant us a single dinar for treatment. I know we had to do this job, renovate the factory. But at least give us the opportunity so that our children don't have to suffer or that we don't have to suffer from the lack of medicines. For a while I couldn't afford to buy pressure pills and treated myself with garlic. I don't have the money to buy them. I don't know how to get them.
B92: A long period of work in inhuman conditions, characteristic of the Lakirnica plant, has weakened the defenses of our immune system. In fact, these are the workers who most often get sick with cancer, says Paunovic.
Paunovic: The speed with which Lakirnica's colleagues die and what happens to us are convinced that they depend on the heavy working conditions that have lasted over the years, more than the specific working conditions of Lakirnica. Our body was already weak, especially organs such as lungs, liver, heart, due to the conditions in which we worked. Radiation only gave us the coup de grace. But you have to find the funds for these people who get sick so quickly... company managers must one day get to take care of these workers and at least allow them the opportunity to take care of themselves. Because these people don't die like beasts. It is not possible - one day he was a man, then he died and nobody does anything.
B92: Is it true that new mortuary announcements appear every day at the various plants of Zastava?
Paunovic: I rarely go to Zastava. Only when I have to present certificates, and then I see the ads on the doors. This is where they usually hang. It is sad just to watch. They are not elderly people, they are between 30 and 50 years old.
B92: Do you think you have been sacrificed?
Paunovic: Yes I think so. I think we sacrificed ourselves conscious of this and now they avoid us. They look at us as if we were lepers.
B92: Sure he was exposed to radiation in the workplace, at Zastava, Paunovic asked some of the factory administrators for financial support for medical treatment, but he was told that his claims are incorrect.Paunovic: Let both the government and the administration of Zastava be clarified: if we have been hit by firecrackers - that they are firecrackers. I will apologize. If uranium can be drunk as if it were lemonade, I will apologize again. I will say that I am healthy and that I got sick at the spa. They must clarify, both. So that it is not always that when the state is needed, nothing is taken, when instead the worker has to take from the state. We are not looking for anything. We don't want a new car, an apartment. We want the money to treat ourselves like people, and not to die like beasts. Just this.
B92: Milovan Matic, also employed in the company's recovery, was removed from his thyroid because of a tumor. His health conditions, even after surgery, constantly deteriorate. For this reason he is obliged to go to the doctor every day, where he has the opportunity to meet other sick colleagues.
Matic: Yes, colleagues, colleagues. We only meet in the hospital. Two women, one has lung cancer, the other a jaw cancer, with the thyroid already partially removed. All from the same workplace.
B92: Were you all in the same department?
Matic: Yes, yes. In the same workplace, in the plant.
B92: With the wages he receives while he is sick, Matic is unable to secure family support, and is unable to buy medicine.
Matic: Hold on. Half of you hang on, half of my parents helped me. Right now nobody. A medicine that I have to take now, "novotirol" is German-made ... it can be bought in Switzerland, Italy or Germany. It costs 25-30 Euros, it depends on where you buy it.
B92: And what is your pay today that you are sick?
Matic: My wages are 5,600 dinars.
B92: Matic and Paunovic have listed the names of about twenty colleagues whose carcinoma they know are certainly sick with. But they say that without their permission they cannot make names public. No comment can be obtained from the representatives of Zastava, and when it is obtained they declare that the situation is not alarming. At the beginning of the recovery of Zastava, employees had been assured that every six months they would undergo systematic health checks, to follow a possible deterioration in their health. But instead in the last five years these workers have not been subjected to any checks. We learned that Zastava has no funds to finance systematic checks of the over 600 workers who pulled the factory out of the ash.