On the morning of Sunday, April 25, the Belorusian community of Chicago hosted a tree planting event in memory of the victims of the Chernobyl disaster to mark the 35th anniversary of the tragedy. The Ukrainian and Polish communities sent their representatives to the event. Marta Farion from Ukrainian Congress Committee of America Illinois Division and two members of the Ukrainian community attended. A journalist from Dziennik Związkowy covered the event for the Polish press. The local ТV station NBC Channel 5 filmed and conducted interviews.
The international catastrophe brought down an ecological balance, affected the health and lives of millions of people in several countries, made people leave their homes, broke families, and opened the process of dismantling the sarcophagus and the government of the Soviet Union . The Park District of Chicago supplied tree saplings and bushes to plant on the beach at Toughy Ave and Lake Michigan.
The Chernobyl memory is a historical reminder of the incompetence of the Soviet Union and any authoritarian system. It exposed the lies, the corruption, the disinformation of the system that eventually caused the break-up of the Soviet Union.
The explosion occurred on April 26th, 1986, at the nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Over 190 tons of highly radioactive uranium and graphite were thrown into the atmosphere. The radioactive cloud released from the burning reactor traveled north into the neighboring country of Belarus. The disaster directly affected people in Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia. The people of these countries were exposed to radioactivity 90 times greater than that released by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The UN has declared the disaster the worst environmental catastrophe in history. The country of Belarus has suffered the most: 70 percent of the radiation has fallen on its territory. Let us never forget that authoritarian regimes lead to catastrophic consequences. Long Live a free and democratic Belarus! Long Live an independent, free, and democratic Ukraine!
"У Чикаго (США) вшанували 35-у річницю катастрофи на Чорнобильській АЕС. 25 квітня білоруська громада на узбережжі озерa Мічиган висадила дерева у пам’ять про жертв катастрофи. В акції брали участь і представники від української громади: Марта Фаріон і Юрій Макар.
«Не сміємо забути про брутальність системи, яка довела до чорнобильської катастрофи, але і не забуваймо, що та сама система i сьогодні продовжує імперську політику Кремля i хоче охопити Україну під свій контроль», – йдеться в заяві представників української громади, переданій Радіо Свобода."