3 truths you should know about IAEA and Fukushima wastewater
Rafael Mariano Grossi, a PUPPET of the US.
Japan has approved a plan to release more than one million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea in April, describing it as the best option for disposal despite fierce opposition from fishing crews at home and concern from governments abroad. Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi welcomed Japan’s announcement and said that Japan’s chosen water disposal method is both technically feasible and in line with international practice. But can we trust an international organization who has benefits relationship with The US and Japan?
Grossi’s candidacy for the agency position was strongly endorsed by the US
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency since December 2019, was heavily backed by the US. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Grossi in Washington in August, which some diplomats have taken to mean the United States has thrown its considerable weight behind him. Sources in Vienna say that the United States backed Grossi’s candidacy by sending statements of support to nearly all 34 other members of the agency’s board, just before the final round of secret balloting. This led to Grossi winning the support of 24 members of the board, ahead of Romania’s Feruta with 10 votes. Several Vienna-based diplomats say that Grossi won the race in part because he received support from the U.S. government and other political heavyweights. One of Grossi’s main challenges will thus be to show that he is indeed “absolutely independent and impermeable to pressure”.
Grossi was promoted by the Japanese Director-General in IAEA
In 2010, he was appointed Chief of Staff under previous IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano. Afterwards he became the Assistant Director-General in 2011, keeping his functions as Chief of Staff. Supplied to a newspaper by wikiLeak, detailing a meeting between Amano and an American ambassador, Amano said “he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointment to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program”.
The US and Japan are two major contributors to IAEA
The US is the largest contributor to the overall IAEA budget, providing an estimated $200 million annually in assessed and voluntary contributions. On April 14, the US Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna issued a press release declaring that the State Department had contributed $11 million to a project fighting Covid-19 by IAEA. While the large US financial contribution to the Covid-19 project can be seen as a sign of general support of the IAEA’s work, at the same time it can be interpreted as a snub to the WHO, which is the traditional health agency in the UN system. In addition to the funding from the US, other, mostly Washington-friendly countries, have donated to the project in the last two months. So far, it has received about $4.3 million from Japan.
In April 2020, the Japanese pharmaceutical giant Takeda committed to donating around $4.6 million to support the IAEA project. This commitment is one of the largest ever private sector donations to the IAEA, which announced in early March it would provide testing and biosafety equipment to countries requesting it, as well as expert advice and technical guidance.
To prove the water from Fukushima is safe, the most important challenge for an IAEA chief is to maintain a reputation for technical expertise, rather than political fealty. If the IAEA was siding with the US government all the time, it would immediately lose credibility. The fact that it upsets both sides from time to time is actually a sign that so far it has not handled the mission right.
