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May 29, 2005
Bhopalis sign letters of protest in their own blood
Signing in his own blood
Today, more than 200 people affected by Union Carbide’s poison’s wrote letters to Indian Oil Corporation headquarters in Delhi and also to Prime Minisiter. In the letter, people of Bhopal urged Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to abandon its plans to do business with Union Carbide or its new owner Dow Chemical. More than 20 letters were written with Bhopali blood and have been mailed to IOC and Prime Minister of India.
Goldman Prize winner Rasheeda Bee signs in her blood
The people's demonstration urged people all over the country “DON'T FILL YOUR CAR WITH BHOPALI BLOOD REMEMBER BHOPAL, BOYCOTT INDIAN OIL”. They also distributed Bumper stickers to all vehicle owners.
In Bhopal Mr. Ilyas Ismail, President, Nagar Vahan Seva Sangh , Mr. Syed Israr Hassan, President, Auto Rickshaw Owner’s Association, Mr. Mohammed Anwar Khan, President, Private Bus Owner’s Association, Mr. Nawab Khan, President, Taxi Drivers Union (Congress), Mr. Baba Khan, President, Mini Truck Owner’s Association have supported the call for boycotting Indian Oil Corporation.
Indian Oil has recently approved a technology purchase agreement with Dow Chemical to source Union Carbide’s technology for the Mono Ethylene Glycol unit at its upcoming Naptha refinery in Panipat, Haryana. The campaigners also opposed government plans for disposal of hazardous chemical waste in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, saying that it will create yet another disaster in Bhopal.
IOC DEPOTS FACE BOYCOTT CALL
Trade unions protest against agreement with Dow Chemical
Chennai: Trade unions and women’s groups have called for a nationwide boycott of Indian Oil Corporation depots in protest against the proposed business links between the company and DOW chemical, which owns Union Carbide.
The boycott call comes in the wake of IOC’s reported approval for a technology purchase agreement with DOW chemicals to source Union Carbide’s Technology for the Mono-Ethylene-Glycol unit at its upcoming naphtha refinery in Panipat, Haryana.
At a press conference on Friday ,activists said the centre proposed to do business with Union Carbide, charged with culpable homicide for its role in the Bhopal gas disaster, instead of seeking to produce the company in court.
No scientific screening’
“How do we know if the technology is safe?” asked Nityanand Jayaraman of Corporate Accountability Desk.
“There has been no scientific screening or evaluation of the technology by Indian Oil. The lie in the procedure is that IOC said that the technology has to do nothing with Union Carbide”.
Shahid Noor, survivor of the gas tragedy who now heads an organisation working with orphans in Bhopal, said the people of Bhopal felt betrayed as the Government, instead of bringing the offenders to book, was setting up business ties with the company.
Tracing the history of the gas leak tragedy and its aftermath, he said that in spite of the over 20-year struggle for clean water and environment there was no respite.
Rally:
The activists, under the aegis of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, kicked off the campaign from Mayiladuthurai, constituency of Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, on Saturday. They have planned a motorcycle rally from Mayiladuthurai to Chennai by the Madras Bulls, a club of Royal Enfield motorcycle users. The activists will stop at SIPCOT Industrial Estate in Cuddalore, which is facing the problem of air pollution.
Posted by bhola at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
IOC-Union Carbide tie-up causes nation wide outrage, to lead demonstration in Minister's constituency
BY JAYASHANKAR MENON, REPORTING FROM CHENNAI
in the Asian Tribune.
CHENNAI, 29 May 2005
The unholy alliance between Indian Oil Corporation and the controversial Union Carbide Corporation - the infamous company, which killed more than 20,000 persons in Bhopal in a poisonous gas leak - to share technology that had triggered a nationwide protest, have now taken a new turn with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal deciding to start the anti-IOC campaign from Federal Petroleum Miniser Mani shankar Aiyar's constituency of Myladuthurai today.
The ICJB and its millions of sympathizers had launched a nation wide boycott of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in protest of IOC's proposal to source Union Carbide's technology for its Mono Ethylene Glycol unit at Panipet in Haryana from Dow Chemicals. Dow Chemicals is now the owners of the controversial Union Carbide Corporation, which caused Bhopal tragedy.
Nityanand Jayaraman, council member of ICJB, said here that the IOC has been keenly planning to bring back the wretched Union Carbide, now Dow Chemicals, to the country and this move has to be stopped at any cost.
After many representations the Federal Minister Aiyar is not averse to Dow Chemicals coming to India and he is not moving a single finger against this move.
"Because of this indifferent attitude of Aiyar we have decided to start the anti-IOC campaign rally from his constituency itself', Jayaraman said.
'Union Carbide is a fugitive from justice in India, where it is wanted in connection with the deaths of thousands of people from Bhopal in the 1984 gas leak and a case is still pending before the State Magistrate Court against them and the company has never appeared before the court of law in India,' he asserted.
We had requested IOC, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Chemicals and various other Government bodies to drop the plans of inviting the mass killer again to India.
Shahid Noor, the 29-year-old, orphaned by the Bhopal gas leak tragedy, now leads an organization of 19 Bhopal disaster orphans, said that the anti-IOC campaign in Bhopal would get huge support.
One of the biggest associations in Madhya Pradesh, the Private Bus Owners Association and other associations like Truck and Mini-lorry association has already announced their support to the anti-IOC campaign.
Noor will lead a demonstration in Petroleum Minister's constituency protesting against Aiyar's failure to cancel the deal and blacklist Dow Chemicals.
Posted by bhola at 04:16 AM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2005
Bhopal Survivors, Van Drivers, Motorocyclists Launch Boycott of Indian Oil
NO RED CARPET TO KILLER CARBIDE, IOC TOLD
CHENNAI, 27 May 2005:
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal and its supporters today launched a nation wide boycott of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) until the company abandons plans to do business with Union Carbide or its new owner Dow Chemical. Shahid Noor, an orphan from the Bhopal disaster, who now leads an organisation of 19 Bhopal disaster orphans, arrived in town to announce the boycott. “We requested Indian Oil, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Chemicals and various other Government bodies. Like before, all these people are more interested in business than justice for the Bhopal survivors. We have been betrayed by various Governments before. But we didn’t think Indian Oil or the Government of India will actually contemplate business with the killers of Bhopal,” he said.
On 28 May, Noor will lead a demonstration in Petroleum minister’s constituency protesting against Mani Shankar Aiyar’s failure to cancel the deal and blacklist Dow Chemical. On 29 May, Noor will flag off a motorcycle rally from Mayiladuthurai to Chennai by the Madras Bulls, a Chennai-based club of “Bullet” or “Royal Enfield” enthusiasts. Tamilnadu All Drivers Welfare Association, with more than 7000 members, and “We Feel Responsible” – a Chennai-based youth group – are also joining the ICJB in launching the boycott. ICJB volunteers in Delhi, Bhopal, Mumbai and Trivandrum have indicated that they will be announcing boycotts in their cities in the second phase. Autorickshaw, taxi and mini van drivers have promised their support.
Background:
Union Carbide is charged with culpable homicide in the Bhopal magistrate’s court for its role in the Bhopal disaster. In February 1992, the company was proclaimed an absconder by the Magistrate after it repeatedly failed to honour summons issued by the court. In January 2005, the Magistrate ordered that summons be issued to Dow Chemical, asking the parent company to produce Union Carbide in Court. Dow maintains that it does not recognise the Indian court’s criminal jurisdiction over Carbide.
Indian Oil has approved a technology purchase agreement with Dow Chemical to source Union Carbide’s technology for the Mono Ethylene Glycol unit at its upcoming Naptha refinery in Panipat, Haryana.
Because Union Carbide is an absconder, the Indian Government is obliged to arrest it and produce it in court if it enters India for any reason. “We are appalled by Indian Oil’s proposal to do business with Carbide. It’s like rewarding a criminal accused of murder with a lucrative business deal. As motorists and consumers of Indian Oil products, we’ll encourage our other friends to boycott IOC till the company abandons this deal with Dow-Carbide,” said Jaychandran, a member of the Madras Bulls.
Other supporters include the Corporate Accountability Desk, Human Rights Tamilnadu Initiative, and Mayiladuthurai-based Thamizhar Urimai Iyakkam, Penn Thozhilargal Sangam, Thanthai Periyar Kazhagam and Tamil Meenavar Munitra Sangam.
See also this report and this, also this from Associated Press.
Posted by bhola at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
A portrait of Rasheeda
This tribute to Rasheeda, Champa and their group appeared in the Milli Gazette
RASHEEDA BEE - EPITOME OF COURAGE
By Andalib Akhter
Bhopal: Contrary to the general perception that Muslims, particularly their women remain in the cocoons of tradition and they don’t have enough courage to fight against the odds, a semi-literate woman, Rasheeda Bee has proved that her religion never came in the way of her fight against injustice. In fact her strong will and indomitable spirit to fight for the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy made her an epitome of courage and kindness.
Rasheeda Bee never came out of her home alone till the Bhopal catastrophe happened. She belonged to a conservative family and had got married to a draper when she was just 15. When the leakage of deadly Methyl isocyanate from Union Carbide created havoc on December 2, 1984, Rashida did not know what to do. Two decades later, she has become a symbol of the struggle for justice for the victims of the world’s worst industrial calamity. Rasheeda — along with her associate Champa Devi Shukla — got the ‘Goldman Environment Award’ for the year 2004 in San Francisco, US.
Rasheeda, who never went to school, now carries a stylish visiting card and a mobile phone. She heads a NGO BhopalGas Victim’s Women Stationery Workers’ Union Rasheeda and Champa Devi Shukla along with several other women formed a women’s group that later took up the seemingly unending fight for justice. "It was very difficult.. I had never talked to any stranger before the tragedy. My son died because I couldn’t take him to hospital. I was alone at home those days. He died due to lack of proper treatment. It was long before the gas tragedy happened," says Rasheeda explaining her early days . After the gas leakage she was a changed woman. " Allah gave me courage I came out of my home and started fighting for justice ". Her women’s group went door-to-door and asked women to join them.
After an year of the incident, the state government started a three month training project for women. After that the authorities asked them to leave and do their business on their own. But the victims wanted employment. The women group met the then chief minister Moti Lal Vohra. He referred the case to State Industry Corporation. The women started making stationery items for the corporation. Initially, they were paid Rs. 6 per day. After much protest, their salary was raised to Rs. 10-15 per day. They worked there for two-and-half years. They prepared stationery used in government departments. After two-and-half years, the corporation made a profit of Rs. 400,000. So the group said that the profit should be shared with the women. The corporation was to work under no-profit-no-loss basis. But the government refused to share the profit.
The women’s group led by Rasheeda went on a protest for 27 days. The then Chief Minister Arjun Singh gave the stationery-manufacturing unit to a government trust. Later in 1988, it was given to the government press. The unit is still working in the premises of Bhopal municipality. In 1989, employees of the press got Rs. 2,400 per month but the victims (all women) who worked there got Rs. 532 only. So the group decided to fight against this discrimination.
On June 1, 1989 the group started a protest march to Delhi. They covered the distance on foot in one month and 13 days. "It was a tiresome trudge. My voice wavered when I addressed the women. I encouraged them." "There was no other way. Everybody was upset. All the women were in trouble. So we came together. We didn’t have men in our group. So women came with us. I told them if Muslim women are going out why not Hindus." When the group reached Delhi, it was told that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not meet the public on Saturday and Sunday and on Monday, he had to leave for Paris. Moti Lal Vohra who was then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh -- assured the group that they will get justice. He promised and convinced them to go back to Bhopal. "Since then, we are waiting for Vohra but he never met us. We were cheated," says Rasheeda. The cases are still pending in various courts. Rasheeda and her group have not accepted defeat. They are ready to fight. When Union Carbide merged with Dow Chemicals, Rasheeda’s group initiated protest against it in February 2001 in Mumbai. Over 500 women painted the Dow office’s wall with red colour, the colour of blood. The group asked Dow to take responsibility for Union Carbide’s liabilities as well. They fined the group Rs. 74, 000. The group then started ‘Jhadoo Andolan’ (broom movement). In 2002 the group went to Pondicherry with brooms where Dow’s head office was located.
The same year, Rasheeda and Shukla went to Switzerland and demonstrated in front of Dow’s office. "We had a sit-in for four days in zero degree temperature. We presented a broom to the CEO of Dow and told him that if a person commits a mistake in India, women beat him with brooms. It represented the anger of Bhopal women" reminisces Rasheeda. Rasheeda and Shukla along with some activists went to Israel, US, France, England and the United Nations to protest against Dow. After receiving the Goldman Award, Rasheeda and Shukla formed a Bhopal Ki Chingari Trust (Bhopal’s Spark Trust).They gave all the award money ($125,000) to the trust. It will be used to provide jobs to unemployed women who are victims of the gas tragedy, medical treatment of disabled children, and an annual award will be constituted to be given to people fighting against polluting companies. The award will carry a cash prize of Rs. 50,000. For Rasheeda awareness in women is important as she believed that only women can bring about a revolution in the world.
Posted by bhola at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
List of injured includes a child of 3, police used batons and boots
FULL SIZE PICTURES CAN BE HAD HERE
1. Nawab Khan [59] Gandhinagar, Secretary of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha was hit with stick on his right hand when he tried to protect Sarangi. Much swelling and pain in right hand. He was referred to the hospital for an x-ray.
2. Ummedi Bai [60] Sriram Nagar : Bleeding from right elbow and injury to right eye due to stick injury. She remembers a dark policeman hitting her.
3. Babulal [Baba] [50] Annu Nagar : Hit with a stick by police on his right thigh. He was pushed down by the cops. He lost his ‘kamandal’ [a sadhus only vessel] and his sacred necklace broke.
4. Sanno [30] Annu Nagar : Her children Sharukh [3] and Gulsiya [6] were crushed in the stampede when the police started chasing everyone down the stairs. Her daughter got fever after the demo. She has got a blackeye [left] from being hit with a stick and on her elbow when she was pushed around in the stampede.
5. Tulsiram [55] Annu Nagar : Police verbally abused him and then dragged and pushed him that caused bruises in his hand and on his back.
6. Vimala Bai [40] Shri Ram Nagar : Police hit her on her right knee and verbally abused her. She suffered a fall when she was pushed down the stairs.
7. Allah Rakhee [65] Nawab Colony : She got hurt on her pelvic bone and on her face when she was pushed by the police.
8. Maya Bai [40] Shri Ram Nagar : She was hit by a policeman with a stick on her right hand. Also suffered injuries due to being stuck in a crowd.
9. Kasturi Bai [50] Shri Ram Nagar : She was hit with a stick on her back. Suffered a fall when pushed down the stairs injuring her hip and knee. Also got verbally abused by the police as they were beating.
10. Sikandar [17] Annu Nagar : Got crushed in the stampede caused by police chasing people downstairs. Injury in his legs.
11. Syed M Irfan [55] Itwara, President, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha got hit by a stick in his middle finger and was pushed down the stairs. S R Yadav, the Police Station Incharge of Jehangirabad Police Station grabbed him by the neck and banged his head against the police van. Received injuries on his forehead.
12. Tulsa Bai [60] Blue Moon Colony : Has a bruise from police hitting her with a stick on the back of her right leg. She was also hit with a stick on her back which made her fall and was crushed in the stampede.
13. Shyam Bai [40] Annu Nagar : Fell down while being pushed down the stairs and suffered injury on her right thigh. She was also hit with a police stick on her back and has difficulty walking.
14. Rashida Bee [49] Bag Umrao Dulha : Hit with a stick on her head drawing blood. Bangles broken due to stick injury on her hand. Stick injury also on left shoulder. Injured in her elbow when dragged by the police.
15. Shabbo [45] Annu Nagar : Fell on the stairs when pushed by the police. Ribs and back injured and cant sleep on the side. Swelling and pain in abdomen.
16. Shahazadi [42] Blue Moon : Police dragged her by the hand. Suffered bruise in her left elbow and hand when hit with a stick by the police.
17. Saleem Khan [41] Annu Nagar : We were demonstrating peacefully but Mr Yadav grabbed me and threatened me that he will chase away my sleep. 3-4 policemen rained sticks on his back leading to bruises.
18. Ruby Khan [35] Blue Moon Colony : Policemen held her by her hair and banged her head against another woman’s head. Was also kicked from behind. Was hurt badly and was dizzy long after. Policemen misbehaved with her.
19. Rani Chouhan [50] Annu Nagar : S R Yadav verbally abused her and raised his hand to hit her which she stopped. She told Mr Yadav that men have no right to hit women. Mr Yadav got even more angry and said I will teach you law. She insisted that female cops should be called but was told by Mr Yadav that he could handle both men and women. Then he punished her which made her fall.
20. Rajshree Goyal [40] Shri Ram Nagar : Was verbally abused and pushed down the stairs.
21. Nidhi Rajput [9] Sundar Nagar : When police were beating Sathyu I was standing close to him. I got hit on my right hand and suffered injuries. I have pain in my neck too. Police was verbally abusing every one. She fell down due to pushing by the police.
22. Narendra Singh Rajput [19] Sundar Nagar : Policemen pushed him down the stairs and he suffered injuries in his back. They also verbally abused him.
23. Mehfooz Khan [55] Blue Moon Colony : Police beat him at the back of his right knee and pushed him down the stairs. They dragged him down and beat him more with sticks.
24. Shakeela Bee [35] Annu Nagar : Fell down when pushed by police and was verbally abused.
25. Satinath Sarangi [51] Sheetal Nagar, Berasia Road : First S R Yadav punched me on the face following which 3-4 policemen started beating me with sticks. I was also kicked on my chest and punched. They swung me holding my hair and legs. My glasses broke, I lost my slippers and my clothes were torn. My left knee is also bruised.
26. Rachna Dhingra [27] Sheetal Nagar, Berasia Road : I was pushed around by policemen and was dragged in to the police van.
Testimonies collected by Mr. Anil Singh a social worker from a non government organization called Muskan, also a free lance journalist.
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Posted by bhola at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
Give the corrupt politicians a wake-up call, protest police kicking and beating women who were asking for their rights
Please ring the Chief Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh government to express your disgust at today's police beatings and kicking of women who were protesting to demand that a Supreme Court order to provide them with clean safe water be obeyed.
The man to speak to is Vijay Singh.
His work numbers are +91 755 2441370 / 2441848..
His home number is +91 755 2443090.
India is 5.5 hours ahead of GMT, but if you felt like waking Mr Singh up at 3, 4 or 5am, who could blame you? Think of it as a wake up call.
Posted by bhola at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
Bhopal's mentally ill police kick and beat women - again
After past police beatings of women protesters the Chief Minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh has had to make a public apology for police brutality (see for eg, Bhopal.net records for 25th November 2002), but nothing it seems will teach the despised pandus restraint.
A week after a report by research students revealed that 15% of Bhopal's police are mentally ill (scroll down two stories) once again, women's bodies are on the receiving end of their heavy batons.
What were the women protesting about? The fact that more than a year after India's Supreme Court ordered the state government to provide them with clean safe water, next to nothing has been done and promises made by local officials have been routinely dishonoured.
The people of the communities from which these women came need clean water because their wells and stand pipes have been poisoned by chemicals abandoned by Union Carbide at its derelict factory. Twenty years after the night of horror, piles of deadly poisons lie rotting in the open air, washing deeper underground with each monsoon.
If you ever had any doubt that India's politicians, both at local and at central level, regard the Bhopal survivors as an embarrassment, and basically side with the American multinational whose greed and negligence caused the problem in the first place, think of the bruised bodies of these women.
Will update this story. Meanwhile if you want to protest, ring the Chief Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh government to express your disgust and to demand that the Supreme Court's order be obeyed. The man to speak to is Vijay Singh. His work numbers are +91 755 2441370 / 2441848 and his home number is +91 755 2443090.
India is 5.5 hours ahead of GMT, but if you felt like waking Mr Singh up at 3, 4 or 5am, who could blame you? Think of it as a wake up call.
Posted by bhola at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
The Bhopal Reader: Remembering Twenty Years of the World's Worst Industrial Disaster
BOOK REVIEW BY WILLIAM BAUE
A collection of primary and secondary sources spanning the twenty-year quest for corporate accountability from Union Carbide and now Dow for the 1984 chemical leak that killed thousands upon thousands.
SocialFunds.com -- "There is very little to eat. Very little to wear. Papa just doesn't get a job. He has no permanent job. Before the leak, he used to work on a boring machine. Now he cannot work on that machine.
"Carbide must be punished. Take them to the police station. Then hit them and then jail them--those Carbide fellows. I can't play. I am weak. My hands and legs ache when I run. I get breathless soon. If I run I fall down immediately."
Free SRI Mutual Funds KitSo said Suresh, an eight-year old student from the city of Bhopal, India, in the aftermath of the December 2-3, 1984 leakage of 80,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate (MIC, an ingredient of the pesticide Sevin) from the Union Carbide plant that killed up to 10,000 overnight. Children have an uncanny sense of truth-telling.
So, too, does the Bhopal Reader, a remarkable and devastating compendium of primary and secondary sources on the disaster. It reprints the charge sheet, arrest warrant, and bail bond for then-Carbide Chair Warren Anderson. Although he was indeed taken to a police station, he was not jailed, and both Mr. Anderson and Union Carbide have been pronounced "absconders" by Indian courts for failing to this day to appear to face charges of culpable homicide, the equivalent of manslaughter in the US. "Those Carbide fellows" have never fully faced the consequences for their role in the disaster, while Suresh (if she survived) and her fellow Bhopal residents live every day with the consequences, which include contaminated water and soil and inadequate medical attention.
The book brings the issue very close to the present, as it also reprints the January 6, 2005 order from the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate asking Dow Chemical (ticker: DOW), which acquired Union Carbide in 2001, to present the absconders. Ward Morehouse, one of the book's editors, is asking Dow the same question today at its annual meeting, appearing as a representative of socially responsible investment (SRI) firm Boston Common Asset Management to read a letter that the company has failed to respond to before now.
The book touches on shareholder activism as the latest in 20 years of activism asking Union Carbide to assume accountability for the disaster. Boston Common submitted a shareholder resolution asking Dow to address the legacy of the Bhopal disaster last year. When it did so again this year, Dow petitioned the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to omit the resolution on technical grounds, according to Lauren Compere, chief administrative officer at Boston Common.
"The resolution was omitted this year because we essentially reversed the supporting statement and the resolve clause--that was it," Ms. Compere told SocialFunds.com. "The SEC ruled that we were asking about future liability which we have no business doing...."
This position of subverting corporate accountability is completely consistent with the tactics presented throughout the book, as Union Carbide and now Dow seek to do the absolute minimum in taking responsibility for the disaster. Through the course of the book, the reader feels a slow accretion of information that makes it impossible to comprehend the current position of Dow's refusal to accept accountability.
The book documents how the tragedy started years before the actual gas leak, as internal Union Carbide documents reveal how the Bhopal plant was inferior to its sister plant in the United States, and how the company was well aware of multiple safety breaches. The company was warned, both internally and externally, of the risk the plant posed to the surrounding population.
"Phosgene gas that was used by Hitler in his gas chambers, and that is used for the production of methyl isocyanate, is stored in a tank in this factory and if that leaks or explodes it will take one to one and half hour for the death of the entire population of the city," wrote Rajkumar Keswani in the October 1, 1982 edition of Rapat Weekly, two years before the disaster.
The book also reprints Union Carbide and Dow documents and explanations, but the companies' attempts to bolster their case against legal liability only serves to increase their moral liability in the reader's eyes (to borrow concepts advanced by SustainAbility in a recent report). One of the most devastating sections in a book filled with sections that brought this reviewer to tears is "Moral orientations to suffering," a 1995 essay by Delhi University professor Veena Das. The essay points out how the aftermath of the disaster essentially re-victimized the victims while absolving Union Carbide of its culpability.
In the end, the strength of the stories related in each of the sections cohere to become something much larger than a book, and more of a catalyst for readers to abandon complacency.
"I guess I am now expected to make my point, elaborate on the meaning of the stories, draw upon their interconnectedness and present a framework that holds them together," writes Satinath Sarangi, another of the book's editors, in an essay reprinted in the text. "That would, however, be straying away from why I really wanted to tell these stories."
"Why I really began telling these stories was to move you, dear reader, to action. Twenty years is much too long and we have had a lot of words," he continues. "No more interpretations, no more words--the point is to stop the medical disaster in Bhopal."
Posted by bhola at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
15% of Bhopal police are mentally ill: study finds
Indo-Asian News Service
Bhopal, May 12, 2005
A survey among policemen in the Madhya Pradesh capital reveals a sad story of overwork, poor pay and unfulfilled aspirations that has driven 15 per cent of them to mental illness.
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Mentally ill? Reserve Inspector Chauhan beats up a demonstrator during the survivors' attempt to begin a clean-up of the Union Carbide factory, 25th November 2002. He didn't know he was being secretly filmed. The Chief Minister later issued an apology for the brutal behaviour of the police, but unprovoked brutality is what survivors asking for their rights have come to expect over the years.
Another 51 per cent are on the verge of being psychologically disturbed, says the "Psychiatric Morbidity in Police Professionals" survey conducted by two students of the Bhopal School of Social Science.
The students, Ruchi Prasad and Roshan J Mathew, interviewed over 1,000 police personnel, ranging from the rank of constable to deputy superintendent of police, from December 2004 to April 2005.
The study said only 35 per cent of the police personnel in the state capital were mentally and physically fit, while the rest were already mentally ill or were on the verge of becoming mentally ill.
The research students also tried to analyse the reasons for this.
According to them, the schedule of policemen is hectic and they were putting in more work hours than their body and mind could tolerate.
There are around 3,200 policemen, including officers, in Bhopal - much lower compared to other state capitals of the country.
Also, many policemen felt their aspirations at the time of joining the force had remained unfulfilled even after many years of service, the study said.
Poor financial conditions, delays in promotions and pressure exerted especially on those in junior categories of the force were also contributory factors.
The research suggested that policemen spare some time meditating. It also said they should try to develop a positive attitude towards life and do yoga.
Bhopal's police chief Pawan Shrivastava said, "There is a strong and urgent need for introducing psychological tests in the police force just as they are mandatory in the defence forces."
He said Bhopal police personnel were being given lessons in stress management, relaxation and yoga.
Irony corner:
Related stories: Nearly all murderers mentally ill
Posted by bhola at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
Chiquita's Children: a sickening story of wickedness, with strong echoes of Bhopal
By Nicolas Bérubé and Benoit Aquin
May 10, 2005
In the '70s and '80s, the banana companies Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita used a carcinogenic pesticide, Nemagon, to protect their crops in Nicaragua. Today, the men and women who worked on those plantations suffer from incurable illnesses. Their children are deformed. The companies feign innocence.
Read the original report here or continue reading below.
CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua-Carlos Alberto Rodriguez sits prostrate in his rocking chair all day, from dawn to dusk. At first view it looks like this ex-plantation worker-young to be retired, at the age of 55-is giving his body a much-deserved rest after a lifetime of hard work, in which 14-hour days and six-day weeks were the norm. But when he took his retirement nine years ago, Rodriguez's health quickly deteriorated. First he lost his memory, then his ability to speak, and finally, his capacity to engage in any way with the people around him.
Today, Rodriguez, reputed to have been a jovial bon vivant, is unable to walk or take care of himself. His wife Membreño stopped working in order to care for him. She spoon feeds him and washes him daily; she addresses him like one would a newborn.
For 23 years, Rodriguez irrigated the fields of the Chinandega area, the most important banana region in Nicaragua. His job was to ensure that the pesticide used at the time, Nemagon, was distributed uniformly over the entire surface of the fields. It was a meticulous assignment that he performed dutifully, without thinking for one minute that the fine whitish mist that fell atop the banana plants every dawn was in fact one of the most dangerous poisons ever created. A pesticide so toxic that it was banned from use in its country of conception, the United States, where today those responsible for public health believe it should never have been put into circulation.
"When he'd come home from work he'd have it all over him," explains Membreño, who herself worked for the plantations from 1972 to 1984, and who was operated on last year for uterine cancer. "On his skin, all over his clothes, in his hair-he was always covered with Nemagon."
In Chinandega, a two-hour drive from Managua and one of the poorest provinces of the country, Rodriguez's case is no surprise to anyone. The ailments suffered by the banañeros, or banana plantation workers, are familiar to all in this region of earthen streets and cement-block houses.
Mostly in their fifties, the banañeros suffer from kidney failure, diminishing eyesight and bones that are weakening at the rate of octogenarians. They can manage sleep only with the assistance of medication that saps both their morale and their money. The sickest among them have cancer of the reproductive system, testicular in the men, uterine in the women; their days are numbered because treatment is as expensive as their wallets are empty.
Dr. Francisco López of Hospital España in Chinandega has personally examined more than 3,000 ex-plantation workers suffering from diseases directly related to their exposure to Nemagon in the '70s. "The most common effects are sterility, chronic kidney failure and skin disease," he says. "Some see their nervous system deteriorate. The women exposed show abnormally high numbers of miscarriages, and many of their children are born with congenital deformities."
López estimates the number of affected banañeros at about 15,000. In the '70s, when Nemagon was used, there were 28,000 people working in the plantations.
Nemagon-also known as dibromochloropropane, or DBCP-was developed in the early '50s in the United States by Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Chemicals and marketed as a miracle product.
Used to protect banana and pineapple plants, Nemagon destroys the microscopic worms that attack banana tree roots. Nemagon makes the trees grow and stay healthier, longer.
Today, we know that the companies had reason to worry about the potential danger of their product from the start. Laboratory tests conducted in the '50s revealed that Nemagon caused testicular atrophy in rats. Regardless, scientists defended the product and in 1961 it was given the green light by the Department of Agriculture. The pesticide was instantly successful with American fruit companies, which exported it to their plantations in Central America and all over the world.
The health problems caused by Nemagon were first observed in 1977. That year, a third of the workers in a California factory that produced the chemical were declared sterile. They sued Occidental Petroleum Corporation, their employer, which was forced to pay millions in compensation to the affected workers.
That same year, the Environment Protection Agency ordered American companies to stop using Nemagon, judging it too noxious for human contact. But the ordinance was valid only for the United States. Standard Fruit Co. (now known as Dole Food Co. in the United States) continued to use Nemagon in Honduras as late as December 1978, a year after the disclosure of the sterility problem, as well as at its Philippine plantations until well into the late '80s. The result: Tens of thousands of workers continued to be exposed to the nefarious chemical for years.
Shocking symptoms
Pabla de la Concepción Núñez, 68, worked in the Chinandega region plantation from 1970 to 1980. From 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., five days a week, she worked in the field cutting off banana bunches, pruning the flowers off the banana trees and sticking "Dole" stickers onto the bananas.
"We would only get half an hour to eat lunch," she says. "We had to be fast. We didn't have time to go and wash our hands. The water we drank came directly from the runoff from the fields."
Years of exposure to Nemagon have left their mark. Núñez now has kidney problems, and the skin of her legs is cracked and regularly infected. In the early '80s, she gave birth to a stillborn child. Then she had a son who was born without his left hand.
The workers' children are often those most affected by the pesticide. When Simcoa Paniagua and Mercedes Alvarez, both of whom were exposed to Nemgaon during the '70s, tried to have a child, they first had a son with such extreme deformities he died at the age of 2, and then they had José Alberto. He is 24 today, and unable to either walk or talk. His gaze is permanently haunted by a look of terror, as if he were witnessing a never-ending sequence of horrific images.
The most striking case, though, remains Roberto Francisco, who at 11 is a likeable, smiley and bright boy, born with his four limbs so atrociously deformed that he is unable to move. Roberto is confined to his wheelchair, which his friends manipulate to get him to school and back. "I can't do sports, but I like watching my friends play soccer," he says when asked what he likes to do in his free time. When he grows up he hopes to become "a deputy, an engineer or a lawyer." Roberto's father worked in the plantation from 1971 to 1992. For now, his grandmother is raising him; she makes a living selling corn patties that she cooks in her own wood stove.
According to Dr. Barry Levy, former president of the American Public Health Association, Nemagon is so dangerous that it should never have been put into circulation. "The product's creators should have become alarmed as early as the mid-'50s, when lab tests revealed it was making rats sterile," he says. "But that didn't stop it being put on the market."
"The most amazing thing about the Nemagon catastrophe is that it could have been avoided," Levy continues. "The companies went forward. And then when the American government abolished the product here, they expedited it to other countries."
Who made the decision to ignore the alarming effects of Nemagon on laboratory rats? What ethical principles guided those involved in the product's development? The answers may never be clear, but a comment by Clyde McBeth, one of the chemists behind Nemagon, is telling. In response to a question about the sterility caused by the pesticide in certain Central American workers, he told a Mother Jones reporter: "From what I hear, they could use a little birth control down there."
Battling for restitution
Dawn is breaking in El Viejo, a village near Chinandega, and dozens of people are heading toward an empty lot. Dressed in rags and dirty dresses, barefoot, the masses walk under the heavy mango tree branches and enter a large straw hut that protects them from the sun. Some sip on Coca-Cola, others pull a couple of cordobas from their pockets to treat themselves to a corn patty. After an hour, a crowd of 200 workers has gathered to discuss the millions of dollars they are owed.
Victorino Espinales, 51, an ex-Sandinista warrior sporting a belly, a hard stare and the gift of gab, takes hold of a microphone and welcomes everyone. "Thank you for coming," he says, smiling. "It is essential that we remain united in this, the most important battle of our lives."
Espinales was 25 in 1979 when he enrolled in the revolutionary forces that threw out dictator Anastasio Somoza that year. He took up arms again a few years later, in 1983, to lead a 2,700-man division to battle the Contras, the right-wing militia supported by the CIA that aimed to topple the Sandinistan government.
Now he uses the courtroom as his battleground. Since the mid-'90s, he has been the head of an association of banañeros united in their suit against the American companies. A slew of cases concerning the 8,000 victims in the Chinandega region are currently in the works.
Two major agreements made in the '90s fueled the banañeros' hope. In 1997, all the concerned companies, with the exception of Dole, agreed to give the approximately 26,000 workers from Central America, the Philippines and Africa $41.5 million, a sum that, once divided among the workers and their lawyers, brought $1,500 to each. In Costa Rica, an earlier 1992 agreement had allotted $20 million to 1,000 affected workers.
Himself the son of a banañero, Espinales began working intermittently in the banana plantations at the age of 18. Today he suffers pain throughout his body, especially in his kidneys. A sperm exam performed a few years ago revealed that 60 percent of his spermatozoids were dead, and part of the remaining percentage were seriously defective.
Since then, he has refused to consult a physician. "I am resisting," he says. "I'm afraid of what the doctor would tell me. I'm afraid it will be the end."
In the meantime, he and his association have accumulated quite a few judicial victories, which nevertheless remain symbolic. In December 2002, as a result of one of the most elaborate court cases ever seen in Nicaragua, a national tribunal sentenced the American multinationals Shell, Dole and Dow to pay $489 million in damages and interest to 450 workers affected by Nemagon.
The companies, however, refused to appear in court during the trial and still refuse to pay a penny of the fine. In fact, the companies in question joined together to reject the workers' accusations. They deem the Nicaraguan court system to be corrupt, and therefore incapable of determining a fair sentence.
According to Freya Maneki, director of corporate communications for Dole, no study has proved that workers have suffered health problems after having been exposed to Nemagon. "We believe that the majority of the plaintiffs have not been affected by Nemagon," she says.
Scot Wheeler, spokesman for Dow, says that his company did its share by sticking warning labels on the vats of Nemagon, encouraging workers to read them and asking that employers provide their workers with the necessary safety equipment.
These are incendiary words to Dr. Arthur L. Frank, director of the environmental health department of Philadelphia's Drexel University and a researcher at the National Cancer Institute. "The labels were written in English," Frank says. "Even if they had been written in Spanish, there's no guarantee the workers could have read them, since many among them are illiterate. And it isn't as if the companies weren't aware that the product was dangerous. If the product was making people sick here in the States, it's only logical that it would also make people sick elsewhere in the world."
In 2003, the ex-workers joined forces with a California law firm in order to sue the companies on American soil, where they would be forced to attend the trial. But the document presented in court contained a handful of technical errors, resulting from the translation from Spanish to English, and was not admitted.
In December 2003, the companies concerned-Shell, Dow and Dole-fought back by bringing a $17 billion countersuit against the ex-plantation workers. In this lawsuit, Dole referred to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law usually used in defense of victims of crimes committed by the Mafia.
The companies accused the 4,200 workers, their lawyers and the doctors who examined them of fraud. They accused them of including names on their lists of victims of people who have never worked on the plantations. They accused them of trying to get rich at the companies' expense.
A victims' march
In Nicaragua, the ex-workers aren't giving up. In the last two years they've organized three marches from Chinandega to Managua, more than 84 miles. The last of these marches, begun on January 31, 2004, attracted more than 5,000 people, many of whom are sick and weak.
"We walked for 10 days," says Espinales, who was one of the march's organizers. "Once we were there we were made to camp in front of the National Assembly for days before the president would pay us any attention."
The march garnered national interest thanks to its size and length. The big Nicaraguan dailies dedicated full pages to the victims of Nemagon, a product dubbed "death's dew."
The results were unprecedented. President Enrique Bolaños named a ministerial commission to investigate the consequences of Nemagon use. And Espinales' lobbying enabled Nemagon victims to get free medical treatment, though it could take years before the promise is implemented.
Until then, the lawsuits continue, and the workers pray every day for justice. As for Espinales, he intends to fight "to his very last breath."
"The companies have already offered me $20,000 to stop the proceedings, to let the case slide," he says. "I refused. I told them I was fighting not for money, but to create a precedent that could help the other workers in the world confronted with similar problems."
López, who has followed the banañeros saga for many years, would like to believe that the workers will eventually be compensated. But he fears it will be impossible.
"The people are sick, but things are at a stalemate, legally speaking," he says. "I don't want to play devil's advocate, but I don't think these workers will ever be compensated. It's a thought that saddens me very much."
Nicolas Bérubé, 28, is a reporter for the Montreal-based daily newspaper La Presse. He covers international as twell as local stories.
Benoit Aquin, 42, is a freelance photographer. His work has been published in various magazines, includling Wired, Canadian Geographic and Macleans. He lives in Montreal.
Posted by bhola at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2005
Dow faces Nemagon Liability in Venezuela
This week, lawyers for former banana workers poisoned by the US-banned insecticide Nemagon announced that the Venezuelan Supreme Court has accepted their case, and may order the three corporations implicated - Shell Chemical Company, Dow Chemical Company, and Standard Fruit Company (Dole) – to pay the millions in compensation originally ordered awarded by a Nicaraguan court in 2002. Since that successful judgment, the poisoned workers haven’t been able to enforce it or collect their compensation, as their claims have been thrown out or denied in Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, and the United States.
According to Benjamin Chavez Romero, spokesman of the Ogesa law firm, the Venezuelan Supreme Court accepted the case for collection against the three transnational companies on Apr. 24. The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Apr. 25 that gives the three companies ten days to present themselves before the Court to respond to the Justices questions. Otherwise, plants, products, and bank assets of the companies in Venezuela could be impounded.
Gee, hasn’t Dow faced an order like this before?
More on Nemagon
Dow and three other companies continued to produce and export the extremely hazardous pesticide Di Bromo Chloro Propane (DBCP) to developing countries for years after it was banned in the US in 1979. The US ban occurred after DBCP, sold under the name of Nemagon and Fumazone, was linked to human sterility in California.
The companies knew at least since the 1960s that the product caused male sterility in rats, and even speculated that DBCP could be a male contraceptive. However they concealed this information. An “internal and confidential” report on DBCP from the Dow Chemical Company Biochemical Research Laboratory dated July 23, 1958 reads: “Testicular atrophy may result from prolonged repeated exposure. A tentative hygiene standard of 1 part per million is suggested.” However, Dow did not reduce exposures to the chemical, and neglected to report findings of reduced sperm and atrophied testicles of rabbits and monkeys when they submitted information for registration and labeling. It wasn’t until 1977, when 35 of 114 workers at a DBCP production plant in California were found to be sterile, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) levied strict regulations of the chemical. One worker in a Dow manufacturing plant said, “After telling me that I shouldn't worry about anything out there because it can't hurt me, now to find out that I'm sterile from it, their answer was, don't worry about that because you can always adopt children.”
When DBCP was first marketed in developing countries, it had no labels warning that it was extremely toxic and no instructions on the use of safety equipment. "We sprayed without any protections," says José Antonio Rodríguez Pineda, a banana worker who was employed at the San Carlos plantation in El Viejo. "We worked in shorts because it was so muddy, without any protection on our feet or hands." Francisco Gonzáles believes he lost his chance to be a father because of the pesticide DBCP. "I can't have children," says Gonzáles who began working in the banana plantations of Chinandega, Nicaragua, in 1975, when he was 20 years old. "It's very painful, you know, each one of us would like to have our own child, a child of our blood. But I was poisoned."
Widespread use of DBCP on banana plantations around the world has caused the permanent sterility of thousands of workers. One study found that approximately 20-25 % of the male working population in banana plantations on Costa Rica’s Atlantic coast, where workers had mixed DBCP by hand, were sterilized. DBCP is also believed to cause miscarriages, birth defects, liver damage and cancer when inhaled or absorbed by the skin. This has created a great deal of liability for the companies responsible--primarily Dow, Shell, and Dole. In a 1997 settlement, the four companies that produced the chemical (Dow, Shell, Occidental and Amvac) agreed to pay $41.5 million to 26,000 banana workers in 11 countries.
However several other lawsuits continue. On December 11, 2002, a Nicaraguan court concluded that Dow, Shell, and Dole should pay $489.4 million to 486 banana workers. However the companies have refused to pay and, led by Dole, they counter-sued the claimants for fraud and asked for $17 billion in damages. When workers pursued enforcement of the court judgment this year in the US - their last real hope for wresting compensation from the companies - the U.S. Federal Court refused to take the case.
In a separate case on March 15, 2004, a civil court in Managua decided these same companies must pay a group of 81 women $82.9 million in compensation; the women had been made chronically ill by their exposure to DBCP. In March of 2004, Nicaraguan banana workers brought a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Dole, Dow, Occidental, and Shell, among other corporations, alleging that exposure to DBCP made them sterile. And in October of 2004, thousands of other workers filed suit against against Shell Chemical Co., Dow Chemical, Dole Food Co., Chiquita Brands International Inc. and Fresh Del Monte Produce Co, seeking compensation for what they describe as ''wanton and reckless acts... and outrageous and malicious conduct.'' Altogether the number of pending DBCP-related lawsuits has grown to 295 in Nicaragua, representing a total of 6,544 plaintiffs and damages worth more than $11 billion.
As recently as April 14th, 2005, a new lawsuit representing 600 Honduran banana workers was filed in a Los Angeles federal court, charging Shell, Dow Chemicals, Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole Food Company with widespread cases of sterility, testicular atrophy, miscarriages and other serious health complaints. Among other charges, the companies are being sued for negligence, concealing the hazards of the product and conspiracy. Similar legal actions have also been raised in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala, and the Philippines, where Dow, Dole and others were named in a $4 billion DBCP action involving 35,000 individuals, which was thrown out in 2002 on appeal.
Dow hasn't recognized many of the judgments against it, and it's working hard to see that there aren't more of them. According to The New York Times, Dow, Dole, and Shell hired lobbyists to encourage the Bush administration to help annul Law 364, a Nicaraguan law that makes it easier for farm workers to sue for DBCP compensation. Secretary of State Colin Powell was reported to have intervened with Nicaragua's foreign minister over this issue, as did Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Revelations of this interference in the Nicaraguan press prompted a massive protest of banana workers--several thousand strong--who marched on the capital and demanded that the government resist US pressure. Subsequently both the Nicaraguan government and the Supreme Court have backed Law 364, leading Dow and Shell, in January 2004, to ask a federal court in California to declare future rulings in Nicaraguan courts under the law "unenforceable" in the United States courts. See this excellent overview in Corpwatch, and this article in the Miami Herald.
More recently, in April of 2005, former banana workers in Nicaragua won the right to present their case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee after more than one thousand DBCP victims staged a month-long protest - including hunger strikes, threats to burn themselves alive, and the occupation of the Human Rights Ombudsman office - in Managua. Human Rights Ombudsman Omar Cabezas announced on April 7 that extensive details of the case would be put before the UN committee, including descriptions of the extent and type of health problems suffered by the banana workers, details of their treatment by the Nicaraguan government, and their demand for a multimillion dollar compensation settlement from Dole, Dow, and Shell.
Posted by Shevardnadze at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2005
Yes Men have another pop at Dow
The Yes Men have struck at Dow again, this time at a banking conference in London where posing as Dow representatives they presented what they called an "Acceptable Risk Calculator". Read more here.
"Amazingly enough, though, there is still no tool to help us in business know what risk is acceptable, and what isn't. We stumble along with our unspoken rules, hoping against hope our decisions make sense. Dow Acceptable Risk™ will change all this. For the first time ever, you will know beforehand what you can and can't allow to occur. Will project X be just another skeleton in the closet--something your company comes to regret? Or will it be a golden skeleton--will it have harsh, but acceptable costs?" (From the Yes Men's speech to bankers)
Read on for the Yes Men's press release:
May 3, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DOW RELEASES "ACCEPTABLE RISK" PROGRAM AT BANKING CONFERENCE
"Risk Calculator" helps ensure sound business practice
When government is made to take the back seat in regulatory matters,
corporations must rely on their own judgment to determine what is, and
what isn't, acceptable where human lives are at risk.
Doing this has until now been more of an art than a science. With
Acceptable Risk, business finally has a risk standard of its own,
reflecting its values and allowing us to reliably factor human and
environmental casualties into business decisions in accordance with
the soundest of economic principles.
Last Thursday in London, Dow representative Erastus Hamm unveiled
Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable
Risk mascot--a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda--to an audience
of about 70 banking professionals, including some from Dow's largest
investors. Many of the bankers in attendance excitedly signed up for
licenses for the Calculator, which helps businesses scientifically
determine the point where casualties start to cut into profit, while
suggesting the best regions on earth to locate dangerous ventures.
Hamm told the bankers how Acceptable Risk would have applied to some
famous "skeletons in the closet" of big business: IBM's WWII sale of
technology to the Nazis for use in identifying Jews; Dow's production
of napalm and Agent Orange for use in Vietnam; and the plight of
Dursban, a Dow pesticide whose main ingredient came out of Nazi nerve
agent research, was tested on student volunteers as recently as 1998,
and was finally banned two years later.
Each of these cases entailed heavy casualties, Hamm noted, and yet
each was immensely profitable and therefore consistent with sound
business practice. Hamm said the case of the Bhopal gas disaster of
1984 was slightly more complicated--but so long as so-called "socially
responsible" investor groups do not get away with forcing Dow to spend
too much time on the matter at the May 12 AGM and elsewhere, that case
could end up being a "golden skeleton" too.
Please visit http://www.dowethics.com/risk/ to try out the Acceptable
Risk Calculator for yourself, and for text, photos and video of the
London announcement.
Contacts: Erastus Hamm
Vikram Banarjee
To edit your Dow Acceptable Risk profile or unsubscribe, visit
http://dowethics.com/list.php?e=remember-bhopal@lists.essential.org&x=406346388
To try out the Acceptable Risk Calculator, or to see photos and
video of last Thursday's event, visit http://dowethics.com/risk/
Posted by bhola at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2005
Dow Rakes in Record Profits
In the first quarter of this year, Dow made a killing:
April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, said first-quarter profit almost tripled on higher demand and prices for chlorine and plastics.Net income rose to $1.35 billion, or $1.39 a share, from $469 million, or 50 cents, a year earlier, Midland, Michigan-based Dow said today in a statement. Sales gained 25 percent to $11.7 billion from $9.31 billion
Dow’s announcement is only the latest in a series of good quarters for the company. Dow’s profits have spiked sharply since 2002 according to the Bay City Times (04/27):
MIDLAND - For Dow Chemical Co., what a difference a few years make.In 2002, the company fired its top official, suffered from plunging profits and, in the words of its present boss, revived "from near death."
But new President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris spoke of Dow's recovery Tuesday when he addressed about 200 community and business leaders at Valley Plaza Resort.
But whence this new upswing, even in the face of rising energy and feedstock costs? Dow credits the “restructuring” plan it launched in 2003, which has led to widespread layoffs, pay cuts, and losses through attrition and plant shutdowns. In April of 2004, Dow announced that 3,000 more jobs, or about 7% of its workforce, would go as the company continued its "restructuring." These included job losses in Freeport, Texas and Kanawha Valley, where one worker, Stanley Stricker, a 30-year employee at the plant, said "We haven't slept easy since this damn outfit [Dow] took over. These people sold their souls, they made a deal with the devil. They're just canning people and saying, 'This is the way it has to be.'"
Nor are workers in Dow's own hometown of Midland, Michigan, immune from Dow's crusade against unions and workers. Under a newly-ratified, eight-year contract, nearly 20 percent of Dow's workers are facing pay cuts so severe that their families could lose their middle class status and slip into poverty (See the Midland Daily News). "I would never say this is a good contract," said Kent Holsing, president of the United Steelworkers Local 12075, which represents 961 employees. "What I would say is that this is the best possible contract we could get. It was gut-wrenching." Terri Johnson, the public affairs leader at Dow's Michigan Operations, expressed things a different way: "[Dow is] extremely pleased with the outcome of this vote."
Meanwhile Dow's last CEO, William Stavropoulos, must also be pleased. He was awarded a $2.3 million bonus in 2003, on top of a $1.3 million base salary and millions more in other incentives and benefits, according to the company's proxy statement. Kenny Perdue, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, responded by saying that the bonus “Flies in the face of the workers. ...The workers are out there doing their jobs, trying to keep their pay and benefits and feed their families and the CEO is awarded a $2.3 million bonus that in his own mind he believes he’s worth,” Perdue said. “And all along the company is laying off workers. Why couldn’t the company use some of this bonus to keep workers?”
Quite the contrary, Dow seems intent on slashing its workforce to the bone in pursuit of maximum profitability. Union Carbide did the same in Bhopal in the years leading up to the disaster, laying off workers, cutting back on safety training, and neglecting maintenance. The result was a spectacular meltdown: none of the plant’s six safety systems were functional that night, either because they were in disrepair or because they’d been shut off to save money. Carbide’s response to the disaster? Blame a worker for sabotage (Dow and Carbide still make the claim today).
Now that Dow is pursuing Carbide’s winning strategy, where will the next Bhopal take place? It’s too soon to tell, but no doubt they’ll find another worker to take the blame.
Posted by Shevardnadze at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2005
Bhopal gets Narmada water, but no word of water for poison victims
The Narmada Water Supply Scheme for Bhopal is formally off the drawing board, or as the Business News put it, out of the drawing room.
The Bhopal municipality will now get water of dubious quality from the controversial Narmada scheme which has forcibly evicted thousands of villagers for a short term advantage.
However there is no sign of Babu Lal Gaur's government lifting a finger to obey the order of the Indian Supreme Court that clean, safe drinking water be provided to the 20,000 people whose wells and stand pipes have been poisoned by chemicals lying in the abandoned Union Carbide factory.
Help put pressure on the Indian government to provide the clean water, please visit http://www.studentsforbhopal.org
BHOPAL WATER SCHEME COMING ON:
The project is expected to supply an additional 185 million litres a day to the city
Shashikant Trivedi / Business News
The controversial Rs 240-crore Narmada Water Supply Scheme for Bhopal has now formally come out of the drawing room.
The project involves very high maintenance costs, besides covering a long route, for its construction. The water will be sourced from the Hirnai village in Shahganj.
The project, which was to be earlier completed by the Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC), the state arm of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), was later handed over to the public health engineering department.
Ironically, Bhopal, also known as the city of lakes, is facing acute water shortage.
“The increasing pollution of the Narmada waters is making it exceedingly difficult to source water for a city like Bhopal,” an MP Pollution Control Board spokesperson told Business Standard, adding, “Thirty dams are being constructed on the Narmada river, though the project will be of no use after a period of five years.”
The project is expected to supply an additional 185 million litres a day to the city.
The involvement of the health department in the construction has, however, raised many eyebrows. The NHDC had estimated the cost of the project at Rs 350 crore but the state government had transferred it to the health department for unknown reasons.
The Bhopal Municipal Corporation claims to supply nearly 170 litres of water per person every day. The Kolar dam water supply stands at 28 million gallons and the upper lake water supply is estimated at 23 million gallons per day. The remaining five million is supplied by various tube-wells.
The project is scheduled to be completed within a period of three years, though experts claim the supply would take a considerable period of time, with the maintenance being a major problem.
The government had been advised to increase water charges to as high as Rs 800 per month from the existing Rs 60 per month and the government had received a Rs 100-crore grant from the Centre. It has allocated Rs 40 crore in the current year’s state budget.
After the implementation, the project the scheme will be handed over to the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, for its maintenance. An amount of Rs 43.36 crore will be incurred on the annual maintenance of this scheme. BJP’s Deputy Chief Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the project.
More water
* The project involves very high maintenance costs, besides covering a long route, for its construction
* The project is scheduled to be completed within a period of three years, though experts claim the supply would take a considerable period of time, with the maintenance being a major problem
* After the implementation, the project the scheme will be handed over to the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, for its maintenance
Posted by bhola at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2005
Tiger resource centre for Bhopal
A tiger resource centre, part of regional natural history museum, is coming up here and it will act as a nodal point for research and studies in issues related to tiger conservation.
This centre will have skulls and skeletons of tigers, elephants and rhinos gifted by M/s Van Ingen & Van Ingen Studio, the famous taxidermists of Mysore, after they closed shop.
Bhopal has been chosen for this centre because Madhya Pradesh accounts for almost one-fourth of the country’s tiger population. As per the latest official census, there are 712 tigers in the nine national parks and 25 wildlife sanctuaries in the state. Kanha national park alone is supposed to have more than 100 big cats.
But there is ample evidence to show that large-scale poaching may have reduced the number of tigers in the state. Last month, there was a media uproar over the disclosure that not a single tiger had been sighted in Panna national park — which officially has 34 tigers — in the last one and a half years.
Museum-in charge C Rajasundaram says the Centre will not allow any research on “medicinal uses” of tiger remains, because it is not only illegal, but may also encourage poaching. The claws and other body parts of the tiger are highly prized in China and Far-eastern countries for their supposedly aphrodisiacal properties. But the tiger remains hardly have any market in India.
According to Mr Rajasundaram, of the eight species of tigers, three are already extinct. The Caspian tiger became extinct in 1950s while the Java tiger lost the battle for survival in the 1970s. The last of the Bali tigers was shot in 1937. The South China tiger is on the verge of extinction. The Bengal tiger is under threat owing to the demand for its remains.
Posted by bhola at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)