Sun. Jul. 4 2004 8:38 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
In Shchuchye, Russia, where a statute of Lenin still stands in the town square, there are huge stockpiles of chemical weapons just a few kilometres away.
The weapons stored include 1.9 million shells filled with the nerve agents VX, Soman and Sarin. One drop on the skin is enough to kill a person in under a minute.
Russia has about 40,000 tonnes of these deadly chemical weapons.
Two years ago at the Kananaskis G8 Summit, Canada pledged a billion dollars over 10 years to help clean up that arsenal. The total amount pledged by all G8 countries was $20 billion for what was called the Globe Partnership Against Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
There was to be an 18-kilometre railway built complete with a $33-million bridge.
However, the money has not yet been sent to Russia.
"Given the urgency of the situation we're dealing with, we would have loved it to have gone faster," said Allan Poole, senior co-ordinator of the Global Partnership Program.
One destruction facility was to be up and running by 2005, but that isn't happening.
The Russians say they aren't the problem, claiming they have only received about $50 million of the $20 billion promised.
"We're ready to build right now, but the money issues are having a real impact on how fast we can get the work done," said Col. Sergei Kozlenkov, the head of construction.
The global partners say they have been frustrated by Russian red tap, lack of access to sensitive sites, and as one put it, "boldfaced lies." there are also accusations of overcharging.
Experts say the squabbling is taking away precious time. "We're not, you know, on that stage yet where we could say tomorrow is to late. But I would say day after tomorrow could be too late," said Vladimir Orlov of the PIR Center.
At the G8 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia last month, there was a recommitment made to the $20 billion, with the money to be raised by 2012.
More donor states were being sought. Seven agreed to do so.
The G8's communique on the the Global Partnership had an upbeat spin.
"Global Partnership member states, including the six new donors that joined at Evian (site of the 2003 G8 summit), have in the past year launched new cooperative projects in Russia and accelerated progress on those already underway. While much has been accomplished, significant challenges remain," it said.
"We will continue to work with other former Soviet states to discuss their participation in the Partnership. We reaffirm that Partnership states will participate in projects according to their national interests and resources."
At the same time, the G8 acknowledged the threats posed by bioterrorism and chemical weapons.
However, it mainly pushed the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention as the means to that.
The nightmare scenario is that terrorists get a hold of chemical munitions before Russia and the Global Partnership are able to destroy them," said CTV's Ellen Pinchuk at the Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility in Shchuchye.
"But the international attention span towards these weapons of mass destruction may prove dangerously short."
With a report from CTV's Ellen Pinchuk