Original title: Radioactive waste in Municipality of Gjorche Petrov: 16 tons radioactive rocket fuel dumped in Gjorche Petrov, how many more are in Krivolak?
The narrative in the text is a unique mix of misinterpretation of different topics – a depo of Makpetrol in Gjorce Petrov; stashing fuel for cloud dispersing rockets in possession of North Macedonia; NATO exercises with radioactive ammunition; radioactive waste; and the most famous Military Range in the country “Krivolak”. There is information collected from various sources and compiled to look logical at first glance.
The text is chaotic, linking recycled narratives dating from 1999 (19 years ago) and 2001 (17 years ago) appearing at the end of 2018. The text is spinning some facts, putting an accent on the word “radioactive” in order to provoke unease and panic as well as anti-NATO atmosphere in the society.
Link to the original article here.
Link to the archived original article here.
The first to open the story was Alsat-M (24.11.2018) that there are 16 tons of fuel that was used for cloud dispersing rockets, stashed in Makpetrol depo near Gjorce Petrov, which is dangerous. This information was overtaken by the portal some 3 days later. F2N2 found an article from 2015 from an incident that appeared in this facility i.e. explosion that did not provoke any harm to the fuel nor radiation. Please follow this link and watch the video.
On 05.12.2018 the Government enacted a decision on its 102 session to start a procedure for disposing the materials from this depo. At the session 124 held on 05.03.2019 the Government provided information that the dangerous and hazardous movable goods were disposed permanently from the territory of the country.
Another issue is a comment made on the web page of The Guardian from January 2001, with a claim that depleted uranium (DU) was used in Krivolak. The person behind the comment was presented as ex-NATO Officer by the portal, F2N2 investigated and found that he was Reporting officer of the UNHCR (before and after that he was an English language teacher).
Within the same text the portal is recycling a statement made by certain Sokol Klincarov in 1999 referred as the “Chief of the Macedonian Ministry for environment”. He explains the plans of the Government (at that time) to build objects for stashing of radioactive waste in Krivolak. F2N2 found out that Mr. Klincarov is/was an employee in this Ministry but was not a Minister at the time the statement was issued, the Minister was Toni Popovski.
So, to conclude. The travel in time and twisting the facts and figures makes the reader confused and easy to be deceived to believe: that the fuel used for cloud dispersing rockets is radioactive thus the Military Range Krivolak will be used for trainings with radioactive ammunition (referring to a statement from 2001), and finally the waste from it will be stashed in special objects as it is the plan of the Government (referring to a statement from 1999).
This text is excellent example of how the disinformation and fake narratives create confusion, mistrust and dissatisfaction in a society.
