Dec. 4, 12:54 EDT
Pope, Chernobyl victims mark day of disabled people
Pontiff calls on world to work harder to help those with disabilities
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KIEV, Ukraine (AP-Reuters) - About 10,000 Chernobyl victims marked the international day of disabled people yesterday by demanding that the government maintain pensions and subsidies for those affected by the world's worst nuclear accident.

Many of the demonstrators had taken part in the Chernobyl cleanup operations and suffered disabilities as a result.

Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident on April 26, 1986, when the plant's reactor No. 4 exploded and caught fire, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.

Among the thousands of people who paraded down this city's central boulevard yesterday were wheelchair-bound children and widows holding black-bordered portraits of their husbands.

Along with the Chernobyl cleanup workers, there were children whose birth defects have been ascribed to the radioactive smoke that
spewed out of the Chernobyl plant, about 130 kilometres north of here.

The disaster is believed to have eventually killed some 8,000 people. Hundreds of thousands suffered from its after-effects.

In Rome yesterday, Pope John Paul celebrated mass in honour of the world's disabled and called on politicians and scientists to work harder to protect and improve the lives of those born or left with disabilities.

``It is possible and it is our duty to do more to protect the dignity of the handicapped,'' he said in an address to more than 12,000 people who packed the Basilica of St Paul's, chosen over St. Peter's because of its better wheelchair access.

During the mass, the 80-year-old pontiff met and blessed dozens of children and young adults paralyzed by physical affliction or suffering from conditions such as Down Syndrome.

`I lost 90 per cent of my health - who may restore it?' Heorhiy Shaposhnikov, 50, who took part in the cleanup of Chernobyl

``In a society rich with scientific knowledge and technological skill, it is and should be possible to do more, from biomedical research to prevent disability, to the absolute cure of afflictions,'' the Pope, who shows the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, said to applause.

``This celebration is certainly among the most significant and dear to me of all the Jubilee celebrations,'' the Pope said.

The Roman Catholic Church has designated the year 2000 a Holy Year, with a different section of society honoured each week as part of the Jubilee.

Chernobyl, which operates only one reactor, has been the focus of disputes between international groups concerned about safety and energy-strapped Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has promised to close Chernobyl on Dec. 15.

``These people were liquidating the accident, these people were deactivating the exclusion zone, the sarcophagus (over reactor No. 4) was built with their hands,'' said Yuriy Andreyev, president of Ukraine's Chernobyl Union.

The union organized the demonstration to try to halt government plans to reduce aid to victims.

Some disabled war veterans and other handicapped people also joined the protest.

``I have a pension like other people, but receive also a compensation for health loss,'' said Heorhiy Shaposhnikov, 50, who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup.

Shaposhnikov's face was swollen and looked unhealthy.

``I lost 90 per cent of my health - who may restore it?''

Earlier in November, victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and people who cleaned up afterwards protested against government plans to cut their benefits in the budget for 2001.