PRAGUE, Jan 8, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) American professor Hari Sharma already two years ago warned Czech officials about dangers to health of peacekeeping troops in the Balkans due to uranium, and Sharma even appealed directly to Czech President Vaclav Havel, but Czechs ignored the warning, a newspaper article says today.

The article, published in today's editions of both the newspaper Zemske noviny and the paper Ceske Slovo, says that Sharma in 1999 sent President Havel's office a letter warning about health dangers from uranium munition used by NATO in the Balkans, but that his office did not deal with it.

Several European countries lately have asked NATO for an explanation due to speculation raised that depleted uranium used in NATO weapons during its intervention in the Kosovo crisis might have been a cause of death or illness among some peacekeeping soldiers serving with KFOR. Some have begun to speak of a phenomenon called "Balkan Syndrome". The speculation began after six soldiers in Italy who had participated in Balkan missions died of leukemia.

The United Nations said late last week that it had discovered evidence of radioactivity at eight of 11 locations in Kosovo tested after NATO ammunition containing depleted uranium struck them in 1999. Officials from the World Health Organization also said last Saturday that doctors in Kosovo, who were asked for data about cases of leukemia from 1997 to 2000, had not registered any increase in leukaemia cases, but the WHO emphasized that no scientific survey had yet been carried out.

According to the article in Zemske noviny and Ceske Slovo, Sharma's letter to Havel's office ended up in the hands of Otakar Neruda, an employee of the radiobiology section of the Military Academy in Hradec Kralove, east Bohemia. Neruda, however, said he doubted Sharma's conclusions, and he instead sided with the U.S. Defense Department's official claim that depleted uranium did not contribute to illnesses of veterans.

The article says that the press section of Havel's office claimed when asked that it knew nothing at all about the letter from Sharma.

Neruda has for now become a member of an investigation commission, which was set up last week by Czech Defense Minister Vladimir Vetchy in reaction to concerns expressed by some EU countries about "Balkan Syndrome". Vetchy has also ordered that Czech soldiers who participated in KFOR peacekeeping missions on the territory of Kosovo undergo health checkups. According to TV reports, the checkups are also to be done on soldiers who served with UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993 and 1994. ((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)