Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D.
NewsMax.com. Thursday, Oct. 19, 2000
Although it is not yet mid-autumn (and we are already experiencing record
low temperatures in certain areas of the country), presidential candidate Al
Gore, you can be sure, will continue to preach about the perils of global
warming, ozone depletion, and the burning of fossil fuels.
In fact, environmental and ecological concerns about the latter caused
gasoline prices to rise this summer and will cause natural gas prices to rise
this expectedly cold winter because of the accumulating high fuel taxes and
severe environmental restrictions on the exploration, drilling, and extraction
of abundant fossil fuels from our own continent.
And yet, one of the greatest threats to the environment in the Western
Hemisphere, particularly the southeastern United States and the Caribbean basin,
is not the internal combustion engine of our automobiles, as predicated by Vice
President Al Gore in his cataclysmic "Earth in the Balance," but the
obsolete nuclear power plant being constructed in Cienfuegos, Cuba.
The Juraguá nuclear plant is located only 180 miles off the U.S.
coast in the seismically active area of Cuba. Fidel Castro and the Soviets chose
this area in 1983 because it was conveniently located near the submarine naval
base in Cienfuegos, Cuba's premier harbor in its southern coast. Yet I'm certain
that you will not hear environmental champion Al Gore denounce the environmental
threat this facility poses in the Western Hemisphere.
The Juraguá nuclear power plant was shoddily constructed with
Chernobyl-type (Model VVER-440) Soviet reactors, which are already obsolete,
although the facility is not yet believed to be operational.
In 1992, the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness warned, "The VVER design
does not meet Western safety standards," and in his book "The
Poisoning of Paradise," José R. Oro explains that the plant is "shoddily
constructed" and the reactors "fatally flawed." Thus, "the
first reactor's dome would not be able to contain the pressures associated with
meltdown conditions."(1)
While in January 1997, Fidel Castro announced that completion of the Juraguá
plant would be postponed, barely a month later Russia admitted to the U.S. that
it intended to finish the project. Later in Vienna at the International Energy
Conference, Cuban officials conceded the veracity of the information provided by
the Russians. Yet, at the time, the GAO estimated that the facility was already
90 percent constructed and 30 percent "technically" complete.
Most ominously, the GAO also estimated that 60 percent of the
Soviet-supplied materials were defective. This disturbing information has been
substantiated by two Cuban defectors, no less than two senior engineers in
charge of quality control at Juraguá:
Pelayo Calante has warned the U.S. about the potential catastrophe that
could take place if the VVER-440 reactors are activated, because equipment is
used for purposes for which it was not designed, according to the October issue
of The American Sentinel. For his part, Vladimir Cervera revealed "that
X-rays showed welded pipe joints weakened by air pockets, bad soldering and heat
damage."
Activation of these reactors then could be calamitous for Cuba, other
Caribbean nations, and the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) has estimated that 50 to 80 million Americans in the
southeastern U.S. (i.e., extending as far north as Chicago, as far west as
Dallas, and northeasterly to include Washington, D.C.) could be exposed to
dangerous levels of radiation.
And yet, don't hold your breath waiting for Vice President Al Gore, the
environmental champion, and his disciples in the environmental movement to
denounce the communist regime of Fidel Castro for this needless environmental
threat. In fact, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), which
represents anti-nuclear groups, has remained muted, claiming: "In the
current political climate, the Cuban government's effort to complete the
[Cienfuegos] reactors is being used as a tool to 'bash' Fidel Castro. It is not
in the interest of the environmental community to further politicize Cuba
bashing in this vein."
Ditto for Who is Who in the rest of the environmental, anti-nuclear
community, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the Union of Concerned
Scientists, Greenpeace, the Audubon Society and EarthFirst! The American
Sentinel could not find any of these groups willing to criticize Fidel Castro
for this looming environmental effrontery. One of the environmentalist
publications did admit that the dangerous Juraguá plant was not on their "radar
screen" because it would be "Castro bashing."(2) There we go
again!
By their complicit silence, you could say that the eco-environmentalists
should be added to the orgasmic bed of Fidel Castro(3), and therein lies the
hypocrisy of the self-professed environmental champion, presidential candidate
Al Gore and his cohorts in the environmental movement. It also demonstrates that
the eco-fanatic movement has a watermelon agenda, green on the outside and red
on the inside, not unlike those grown in the forced collectives of the workers'
paradise of Fidel Castro's Cuba.
References:
1. Blázquez, Agustín. Castro's true identity. ABIP, 1997.
2. Bellington, Lee. Gore sanctioned dangerous Soviet-made Chernobyl
reactors in Cuba. The American Sentinel, October 2000, pp. 6-7. 3. Faria,
MA, Jr. In Bed With Castro. NewsMax.com, June 6, 2000.
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D. is editor in chief of the Medical Sentinel of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and author of "Vandals
at the Gates of Medicine" (1995) and "Medical Warrior: Fighting
Corporate Socialized Medicine" (1997). He is currently working on a book
about Cuba. Web sites: http://www.haciendapub.com
and http://www.aapsonline.org |