KYIV, Ukraine—Chernobyl pensioners whose payments have been reduced as part of the government’s cuts to social welfare are choosing to starve themselves near the main government building in Kyiv rather than accept their conditions.
The pensioners have refused food for more than a week, hoping to have their pensions returned despite government authorities’ claims that there is no more money.
On Thursday morning around a dozen veterans of the Chernobyl cleanup took further action to draw the government’s attention: they stopped drinking water and hot tea in response to government efforts to ignore them. By evening however, most had submitted to concerns that they were risking their lives and had resumed taking hot tea.
The protesters are mostly aged pensioners who are heavily dependent on the government’s social security system. They have come to Kyiv from different regions seeing no currency in staging demonstrations locally. There have also been protests and hunger strikes in other cities, including Donetsk—President Victor Yanukovych’s home region.
Last week, 70-year-old Gennady Konoplyov died after police broke up the protest camp in Donetsk. Former Chernobyl workers had been protesting for two weeks when a court judged the camp illegal. Protesters have since rebuilt the camp but were served another eviction on Friday.
When talked to, the Kyiv pensioners are not keen to respond, either too angry or exhausted to engage. The weather has not helped either, with snow falling on Thursday.
“What do you think my health is?” said Nikolai, resentfully. “We are all disabled people. … We feel very bad.” Nikolai, preferring only to give his first name, is one of the many who was working at Chernobyl when the disastrous nuclear meltdown occurred. Contaminated workers continue to suffer health problems.
For more than a week the Chernobyl pensioners have been forced to sleep in the park on leaves in front of the government building. A local court banned them from setting up camp.
They have been protesting since November, following significant cuts in their pensions, from about 7,000 hryvnia ($875) per month to as little as 1,400 hryvnia in some cases.
They want the same pensions they gained through court cases won in the past while seeking additional benefits. The benefits were supposedly enshrined in Ukraine law for people like Chernobyl workers and the 1979–1989 Afghanistan war veterans.
Last week, responding to ongoing protests by Chernobyl workers and war veterans, Ukrainian authorities set up new rules for paying the pensions, but that still leaves them with far less than they used to get.
Officials have accused Chernobyl protesters of being politically motivated and the hunger strikers complain that authorities have told them they are not even genuine Chernobyl workers.
One Chernobyl protester, who said he experienced a neurological disorder in February, told The Epoch Times that his welfare payments this month were not enough to get even close to proper medical treatment should the health condition worsen.
“You just have to pay and get everything by yourselves,” he said.
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