 "The time has come for Ukrainians to live and work in Ukraine" |
MP Hennadiy Rudenko, Head of the Committee for Ecology, Use of Natural Resources, and Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe
Interview by Glen Willard and Galina Aleykina
On Friday April 11th, Galina Aleykina and I arrived early at the offices of Hennadiy Rudenko to interview him. Galina who normally has account responsibilities with The Willard Group was drafted into the service of the UO to act as translator. Deputy Rudenko met with us immediately after we had been comfortably situated and offered and served coffee by his assistant. Mr. Rudenko who was elected in the last parliamentary elections proved to be an affable and articulate practitioner of his new profession. Only 30 years of age, one sensed being in the presence of an up and coming political talent in the Rada. A family man with a sense of humor to go along with a sense of mission it seemed Our interview began on time.
GW: We ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself, background, things our readers might be interested, you are from Poltava.
HR: From Myrhorod, Poltava region.
GA: Myrhorod is a very famous old town in the Poltava region.
HR: Maybe you have heard about the writer Gogol.
GW: Yes.
HR: He was born near Mirhorod. In the village of Velikiye Sorochintsy. They used to have a big fair there. Gogol described it very vividly in his short story "Sorochintsy Fair".
So, I lived in Mirhorod, then came to Kyiv to study at the Kyiv Foreign Languages Institute. But after three years of study I left the school and went in for business. After a while, I returned to my schooling. I entered a biology department and received a diploma of a biology teacher. Later I also graduated from the National Ecomomics University in Kyiv.
GW: Is that your first elected office? Your first venture into politics?
HR: Yes.
GW: Have you been in politics previously at all?
HR: No. From 1992 till 2002 when I went into parliament, I was in business.
GW: What caused you to go into politics?
HR: If not me, then who? I am 30, and sitting back and waiting until something changes is not for me.
GW: This is a question I would probably ask towards the end, normally, but what are your ambitions in politics?
HR: Everything is in our hands. I can see no limits to my ambitions. I have the ability and the wish to work and to grow. To be more concrete, first of all, I would like to have my own team as I used to do in business. Or, as an option, I should find a group, which I can join.
GW: Currently you are in the Agrarian party?
HR: Just now yes, but I suppose in the near future I'll be with the Social Democrats. The Agrarian party was a compromise decision at the election stage. I have only now realized that a party-based election system is very effective. At the same time, I am not an orthodox party man. It does not matter much for me what ideology this or that party embraces. The most important thing is who their leaders are.
GW:Are there any particular leaders of Ukraine now that you are particularly affiliated with or would associate yourself with?
HR: I am sure that Ukraine needs an ambitious, determined and diplomatic leader and there are such people in Ukraine today. Today my likings are with Volodymyr Lytvin. Over this past year that we have worked together, I have changed my opinion about this person. He proved himself to be a good diplomat. I also admire the managerial skills of Mr. Medvedchuk. Finally, I can't help liking the sort of charm that Mr. Moroz has. So, if it were possible to combine certain features of these people, this combination would be ideal for Ukraine, if incarnated in one person.
GW: Well, that sounds like a very diplomatic answer, it's very good. Tell us... you are the head of the environmental policy committee?
HR: Yes, it is called the Committee for Ecology, Use of Natural Resources, and Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe.
GW:Did you pick this committee yourself because of some particular interest to the areas of concern of that committee?
HR: This was my choice. I wanted to work in this committee and when the 24 committees were distributed among various factions, I persuaded the democratic faction to take over the ecology committee, while most people longed for the budget and transport committees. I can even say that I chose the democratic faction because they chose the ecology committee.
GW:Tell us a little bit about the goals of the committee.
HR: The goal of the committee today is, so to say, to show the teeth. I am saying so because somehow there is a tendency in Ukraine to make money on the account of ecological issues and on the abuse of Nature. In Ukraine penalties for the damage made to Nature, to the environment are hundreds or even thousands times lower than those adopted in Western Europe.
We have received a complicated technological legacy from the Soviet Union. Ecological safety was given minimum attention both in the Soviet Union and in independent Ukraine. Being 30 years old I have the right to say that it is not indifferent to me how the environment will be used in the future because I want to live in this country and I want my children to live in this country.
GW: What would you say is the major environmental problem facing Ukraine today?
HR: There are two aspects. Psychologically it is Chernobyl. But the real major ecological problem today is caused by underground waters, you know.
GW: Underground water problems?
HR: Yes, like thoughtless mine closures. The land reclamation policy is also far from being perfect. Unfortunately, Chernobyl has become a synonym of Ukraine.
GW:Is this fair that Chernobyl has become so associated with Ukraine?
HR: No. That's why I am happy to have a chance to talk to a foreign journalist to tell him that Ukraine is not just Chernobyl, but much more.
GW: Do you see Chernobyl as not a significant problem for Ukraine?
HR: Chernobyl is the indicator of the very irrational approach of some bureaucrats to problems and problem solving. We had the Soviet Union, Chernobyl was in the Soviet Union. It was a federal problem of the Soviet Union. In 1991 Ukraine rejected assistance of the countries of the former Soviet Union. But unfortunately we didn't make a new partner and had to choose our own narrow path, thus, manifesting our "political independence".
GW: Ukraine now has shut down Chernobyl pretty much with the assistance of the Western world, but it continues to want to open additional units at Khmelnytski and Rivne. Do you think this is good?
HR: I just want to repeat that Ukraine at the moment has very few national interests and a very underdeveloped national strategy. Considering the current condition of the nuclear power units at Khmelnytski and Rivne, it would be stupid not to finish them. I am not a nuclear engineer but I realize that humans should rationally use Nature and its resources. And any problem like Chernobyl, represents a problem on one side, and an important experience on the other side. Nuclear power is a high-tech industry. When we are talking about mining, the coal industry or thermal power plants, no one seems to be concerned where we should store slag waste from thermal power plants or what should we do with those dangerous coal mines where people perish regularly. Closing Chernobyl and then constructing new nuclear power units might look inconsistent. But one should remember that the Chernobyl plant was closed for many various reasons. However, Ukraine never declared that it would not develop its nuclear industry further.
GW: If I hear you right you were saying that fossil fuels themselves had their own problems and you mentioned the production of coal. Are you saying that nuclear power fits in the blend of things that are necessary for Ukraine to go forward into future?
HR: Ukraine is a large country, nearly 50 million people. We simply cannot afford to give away this industry which provides more than 50 percent of the nation's electric energy.
GW: Despite of the fact that the Western world seems to almost condemn Ukraine for what happened at Chernobyl, which happened in Soviet times, and countries like Germany have placed a ban on nuclear power?
HR: Each time when there is an environmental scandal or an attempt to put an end to something, I remind people of the Greenpeace history. Once two companies were competing to expand their markets for arms oil, and one of these companies was making this oil from crude oil, and the other - from whale fat. It resulted in a very powerful Greenpeace campaign to protect whales and ultimately the company that produced arms oil from crude oil won. Coming back to Germany putting a ban on nuclear power plants, I am confident that the reasons behind it were not purely ecological, but rather economic. I am aware of the fast development of wind power in Europe, which ensures a workload for the machine-building industry, etc. I believe that ecologists should be economists as well; they need to be well educated in what is going on around them in terms of economics.
Certainly, we have to have very strict environmental principles and implement ecological control over the operations of nuclear, fossil fuel and wind power units.
GW: There is a lot of "wind" blowing from Europe these days, but you seem very agile and comfortable with these questions about nuclear power while some others might be more defensive, I am taking this is an issue that you have studied fairly thoroughly?
HR: I believe the perception that an ecologist should wear long hair and a dirty T-shirt and stand on the street with a slogan in hand - is in the past. I believe that I can make much more good for the Ukrainian environment as an engaged politician, as the head of the ecology committee in the parliament. A recent summit in Johannesburg showed that any ecological tasks or objectives or programs should be focused on the human being. In other words, man is Number One. Men need water, air and energy. The job of ecologists is to advise people on certain rules as to the use of natural resources. And if these rules are not in place yet - to develop them for people to follow.
It would be very wrong if the Ukrainian political arena would divide into 24 committees and each of them would listen and hear only themselves and their needs.
I am talking freely about nuclear energy because it exists. It exists around the world. If it didn't exist in Ukraine at the moment, I would vote with my both hands against the construction of nuclear power plants. But one should acknowledge that we have 13 nuclear power units in Ukraine. Just as they are in Finland, Lithuania, America, Great Britain, etc. When I hear talks about closing nuclear power plants, I try to make people realize that the process of closing a nuclear power plant takes decades.
Speaking about political compromises, I would like to cite the example of Turkey, which requested some 15-20 billion dollar credits from the U.S. for providing its military bases to the American military in the war against Iraq. I think it is a very good example, which shows how a country can defend its national interests in a complicated international situation.
Unfortunately, Ukraine - here is an opposite example - closed the Chernobyl plant by gaining very little in return. Six and a half billion dollars were spent solely to mitigate the social aspects of the Chernobyl closure.
GW: Is it fair to say that the United States with their 140 or so nuclear plants and France which is getting 70 percent of its energy from nuclear sources, which each will continue probably for at least another 50 years, that it's a bit hypocritical for the West to focus on Chernobyl and Ukraine?
HR: I would not call it hypocrisy, I would call it economy.
GW: I will make a confession to you that you are talking to one of the few Westerners who is an advocate for nuclear power. And one of the things that is, as sad and bad as Chernobyl was, it's been a focus of too much controversy. Do you...
HR: Honestly, and again it's also economy of sorts, out of that six and a half billion dollars that were allocated for the mitigation of the social consequences of the Chernobyl closure, a lion's share ended up in someone's private pockets. I wouldn't call myself an advocate of nuclear power, but I can say that each country has to choose its sources of energy. Let's take medications, before they reach the counter, they go through many different tests. And nevertheless sometimes there are problems. With nuclear power, we have a situation when projects are implemented and nuclear units are put into operation, while people don't know what to do with the waste from the nuclear power plants and what will be the consequences of these operations. I think that if we invest money in scientific research on the consequences of the Chernobyl closure, we should then listen to what the researchers have to say.
And if they say that the problem is subduing, we should spread this word rather then hushing it up.
GW: The Khmelnytski and Rivne plants, are they of a different generation type of nuclear plants than Chernobyl?
HR: Yes, they are different. They are a closed-cycle type of units, which are equipped with special protective covers.
Conclusion:
Deputy Rudenko continued and displayed a considerable degree of knowledge of the subject of nuclear power as well as a broad range of knowledge on many other issues both concerning the committee he heads as well as those general to Ukraine, Eastern Europe and, indeed the world. After the interview we had a short time prior to Mr. Rudenko's subsequent appointment to learn of other outside as well as prior business interests. Both Galina and I agreed as we spoke after leaving our meeting, which had turned out to be very enjoyable, that Hennadiy seemed very much a man of and for the people. It is not often that I have been with politicians and come away with the sense that I was in the presence of a real leader. This UO interviewer would like to see Deputy Rudenko again and will not be surprised if many in Ukraine get to know him well in the future.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
Political ‘Faces’
Ahmet Tanyu: On Starting Up
A Kodak Moment
with Andrey Pleskonos
Philip Morris's Raman Berent International & Experienced
Ian Boag: European neighbor
The Velvet Songstress
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