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Shortly
after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India,
owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none
of the plant's safety systems were working. In the city people were
sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the
gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching
and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighbourhoods
fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead.
People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within
hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets. Read
a survivor's account of "that night". More background
here.
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Police beat women who asked politicians to obey Indian Supreme Court order
List of injured includes 3 year old child, with pictures
Toxic chemicals abandoned at its factory by Union Carbide have poisoned the drinking water of 20,000 people. In May 2004 the Indian Supreme Court ordered local politicians to provide the communities with clean, safe drinking water. The politicians ignored the order.
On Tuesday 17 May, 300 people, overwhelmingly women, many with children and babies in arms, went to government offices to protest. They banged spoons on tin plates in a "Wake Up" (in Hindi "Neend Udao") protest. The politicians' response was to send in the riot police.
Pictures of police kicking and punching women and children have shocked the world. Amnesty International has expressed concern and asked the Bhopal authorities to bring those accused of violence to book.
The survivors of Bhopal have suffered enough. We need the help of every decent person whose sense of justice is as outraged as that of the women who dared to raise their voices against the politicial bullies.
Protest pictures here.
Media stories about Bhopal
Follow the story of the water protests on our three blogs, listed above. The links on those pages are not yet working, please return to this page for onward links. |
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URGENT ACTION
Join our Neend Udao protest, make Bhopal's politicians "Wake Up!" to their duty
News from September 2004
While politicians posture, people die
For more than 20,000 people who suffered terrible injuries on the night of poison two decades ago, recent Supreme Court decisions about clean water and distribution of compensation monies come too late. Those 20,000 are the dead. In their case neither was justice done, nor any humanity shown. The company, whose actions by any civilised standard are beneath contempt, is scarcely less callous in its treatment of the victims than successive waves of Indian politicians in central and state governments. The Supreme Court issues orders, the politicians ignore them. Hence the clean water demo of two days ago that brought Bhopal to a halt.
Today, there is more news from the Supreme Court - issues regarding distribution of compensation money are likely soon to be resolved. But local BJP politicians, led by Chief Minister Gaur, who earlier today pledged to make Madhya Pradesh a "corruption-free" zone, are asking the Court to distribute the money to the whole city, rather than just to those injured for whom it was intended and to whom it has been for so many years denied. In the unlikely event that such a petition is granted, it would be the first instance of Supreme Court-funded voter bribery.
Full story here
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For
the last 20 years, some of the poorest people on earth, sick,
living on the edge of starvation, illiterate, without funds,
powerful
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friends
or political influence, have found themselves fighting one
of the world's biggest and richest corporations, backed by
the government, military, and, it often seems, the judiciary
of the world's most powerful nation.
The corporation and its allies
have it all – wealth, power, political influence, lawyers,
PR companies, the ear of presidents and prime ministers, the
power to dictate policy or bend it to their will, and to manipulate
the courts and laws of two countries to avoid justice in either.
The nothing people have literally
nothing. If 35,000 of them clubbed together they could not
afford one American attorney. Their campaign for justice has
been conducted on the most unequal terms. On one side, multi-million
dollar budgets, armies of corporate lawyers, political lobbyists,
spindoctors and media manipulators (including Burson Marstellar
the world's biggest PR company), on the other a handful of
volunteers often without money for stamps, photocopying, telephone
bills, or travel.
It's David against an
army of Goliaths.
more
. . .
Article
courtesy of "777, the newsletter of the Bhopal Medical
Appeal"
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