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December 08, 2006
Dow's "Human Element" commercial, this time showing the truth
Boston Coalition for Justice in Bhopal, December 7, 2006
More than 1,000 blogs, according to Technorati, have registered protests against Dow Chemical for its refusal to shoulder Union Carbide's outstanding liabilities in Bhopal.
Dow bosses are rattled, and their PR agency is now working on strategies for tackling "activists". They'll never get it, will they?
Dow managers: your problem is not out there in the world, it is in your hearts.
The excellent video above was made by the Boston Coalition for Justice in Bhopal. Please distribute it as widely as possible. The YouTube link is below.
http://www.youtube.com/v/lbpuSPL-FNU
Posted by bhola at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Why?
Pragya, Here I am, Bhopal, December 6, 2006
"Ganda pani saaf Karo!
Bhopal mein insaaf karo!"
It's not that they were asking for clean drinking water, they were demanding it. Demanding the right to be able to live without waking up every morning and being envious of the thousands that have died, because they don't have to suffer like you do. They are the lucky ones.
This past weekend made being in Bhopal all too real for me. Yes, Bhopal is known for what happened five past midnight on December 3, 1984, but it is not something that is discussed everyday. You don't see hundreds of people marching down a dark alley with flaming torches in their hands, shouting their deformed lungs out until they are gasping for the little air that is left in their spongy organs. Hope is the thread that binds us all together. Hope for justice, hope for life without poison, hope that children will be born without missing body parts.
"Awaz do! Hum ek hain!"
We are one- white, black, brown, purple, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, man, woman, young, old, and in that instant of saying those five words, we are Bhopalis, we are survivors, we are strong and we are loud (really, really loud). We are fearless despite the police that surround us, we are angry that the government is capable of being so unresponsive to the world's largest industrial disaster. We burn an effigy representing Dow and the Indian government; the quickly roasting limp straw inside them is not as weak as the morals of the officials who choose to make false promises their profession.
"Ladenge! Jeetenge!"
We will fight and we will win. No ifs or buts. It's a done deal. Wearing masks of crying ghosts, holding the signs that we made till 1 am in the morning, we walk for two hours as the sun shines directly down at us. It is hot, yet the sweat is quenching my fatigue. We walk to the factory where it all began, the cursed ground that has partially blinded the woman next to me. She cries. We hug, but the pain in her tears is more than I can comprehend. How many children has she lost? How many more will she lose? How will she survive on the meager earnings that are quickly dwindling? And the largest question of all, the one that looms over her, refusing to leave our minds. The question that she probably asks herself everyday, hoping that today, yes today she'll find the answer. Why? I wrote this a few years back, but it is for those who have lost so much and still have more love to give than any one of us.
Why they ask
Does it happen to those
Who already lost all they had
Must it be so
This tragedy of tragedies
This horror story beyond words
The tale of unspeakable sufferings
Why must it be us they ask
Who live this dark, muggy reality
This reality of death and deformity
Of life as a curse
Why must misfortune
Always knock on our doors
Why must this haunting
Stomp on our floors
Is there hope
That I may live this life as you do
Is there a chance
That I may breathe the air without choking
This air thick with poison
Like a thousand needles it stings
This air that enters my being
Not to give me life, oh no
But to strangle every strand of resolution
Every ounce of energy that remains
It slowly and surely drains
After my bones collapse beneath my skin
What is left inside this mortal
Is a slowly beating heart
A pulse which quickens with every victory
With every success my blood rushes to my fingers
And they unite to create this powerful fist
This symbol of my strength
This mark of my resolve
It hails our triumph
Against those that curse our existence
It hails our triumph
Against steps that you thought impossible
It brings us together
With immeasurable persistence
And helps us see
The faint but determined glow ahead
Why they ask
Must it happen to those
Who have already lost it all
Because you never really lost
What was taken from you
The freedom to breathe
The freedom to live
The freedom to act
Regain what is rightfully yours
The time is now
Posted by bhola at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2006
The circle of poison continues
BRIDGET HANNA, BHOPAL MEMORY PROJECT, DECEMBER 5, 2006
Bridget Hanna at work in the Sambhavna Clinic, Bhopal
It’s December again, time for Christmas music, office holiday parties—and the anniversary of the world’s worst industrial catastrophe, the Bhopal gas disaster. Twenty-two years ago this week in Bhopal, India, a midnight feast of methyl isocyanate and hydrogen cyanide was served to 400,000, courtesy of the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation, now fully owned by Dow Chemical. The gas killed about 8,000 people that night, and has slowly poisoned to death at least another 12,000 since. In fact, in Bhopal today people are still dying, suffering, drinking contaminated water, and worrying about the future of their children, many of whom suffer from deformities or genetic disorders.
Outside India, Bhopal was important for two reasons. Firstly it publicly illustrated the failure of national and international legal and regulatory systems to hold transnational corporations accountable in a poor country—to date, Union Carbide has not yet faced criminal charges or admitted responsibility for the disaster. Judges in the U.S. refused the Indian government’s request to try the civil case here, and once back in India it was settled in a backroom deal, netting about $500 per person for a lifetime of disability. Perhaps the best evidence of the inadequacy of this compensation was provided by the "invisible hand" of the much-admired free market—Union Carbide stock rose a couple of points when news of the low settlement broke. The second effect of Bhopal was that it delivered a personal message about chemical safety to communities around the world. The realization that a disaster like Bhopal could happen in the U.S. was instrumental in the late 1980s passage of the community Right to Know Act and parts of Superfund. But 22 years later, Bhopalis are still drinking contaminated water, and we are less and less safe at here. Problems raised by Bhopal are more pressing and more connected today than they were in 1984
The long-term failure of India and the U.S. to hold Dow/Carbide accountable for what happened in Bhopal has emboldened the chemical industry. Safety is only as cost-effective as the relative value of life and environmental damage, and since the Indian government has been unable, and the American government unwilling, to force Dow/Carbide to take responsibility, life remains cheap. Dow Chemical refuses to clean up or provide important information regarding the gas to doctors treating survivors. “Self-regulation” initiatives of the industry—such as Bhopal-inspired “Responsible Care” program—reduce safety concern to merely a public relations problem in order to prevent government regulation.
Meanwhile Dow/Carbide continues to market in products known to be dangerous. Dursban, for example, a Dow Chemical pesticide banned in the U.S. for its effects on children’s brains, is still being advertised and sold in India. The Indian government, under pressure by activists, has continued (ponderously) to pursue the criminal case against Union Carbide and its former CEO Warren Anderson (both facing charges of culpable homicide). In 2003 they submitted extradition orders to the American Justice department. The U.S. declined to offer up either Union Carbide or Anderson for justice.
Paradoxically, while Union Carbide is a wanted criminal in India, its owner Dow Chemical—with the blessing of the Indian government—is planning a major expansion into the country. Perhaps its warm welcome has something to do with the fact that Dow arrives hand-in-hand with the American government. The U.S.-India CEO Forum, held in March of this year (during the visit of George W. Bush to his new friend, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh), included 25 top American executives. Among them was Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical. The Bush tour ended with agreements to send nuclear power to India and mangos to the U.S., and the release of a cheerful list of joint resolutions. The first item insisted on “welcoming the report of the U.S.-India CEO Forum.”
Other bullet points on the list—painfully ironic considering the Bhopal issue—reiterated commitments to "prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" and improve "capabilities to respond to disaster situations." It should be noted that the same methyl isocyanate gas that leaked in Bhopal was used as a chemical weapon against the Kurds by that exemplar of civic responsibility, Saddam Hussein.
The fact that the U.S. government and Dow are still putting pressure on India to absorb more chemical risk is one irony of Bhopal. But the irony at home is just as chilling. In the 1980s, when concerned community groups succeeded in getting some of the strongest legal environmental protections passed here, the concern was a lethal accident. Since 9/11 however, the concern has become terrorism. In New Jersey alone there are 15 facilities where a terrorist act could cause serious injury or death to over 100,000 people, and at least one that could potentially kill over 12 million. Rather than tightening regulation on chemical plants however, the current administration has used this tragedy as an excuse to gut the protections—such as Right to Know—that were put in place after Bhopal. Last week, the EPA announced that it was beginning to close its nationwide network of libraries that provide access to community groups about chemical hazards. And after five years of the curtailment of civil liberties here in the name of homeland security, the final recommendations of the 9/11 report released in 2005 awarded U.S. chemical plants the dismal terrorism preparedness grade of ‘D.’
Bipartisan efforts in the Senate and House last year prepared a bill that would have at least allowed states to enforce stricter safety measures, and to order chemical companies to replace their most dangerous and volatile components with safer alternatives. But last September, a few Republicans working behind closed doors eliminated those stipulations—along with provisions to protect water sources from contamination—in a rider attached to the 2007 spending bill. We are less safe than we were after Bhopal, partly because we have not helped India to bring Union Carbide and Dow to justice.
Those who survived Bhopal advocate not just for their health and rights but also to make sure there are ‘No More Bhopals,’ not in India, not anywhere. They can’t forget the disaster—plagued as they are by chronic illness and second-generation genetic damage. The medical effects of the gas are still terribly understood and poorly managed, and many gas victims have no choice but to drink water saturated with contaminants—like mercury and tetrachloride—that leak from Union Carbide’s abandoned factory. They are subject not only to the exigencies and failures of their own government, but to the weight and influence of ours. Given the current regulatory climate however, it is not clear that if tetrachloride were to show up in your eggnog this month, it would be noticed. Even in the newly Democratic legislature, passing real reforms to curb the behaviors of corporations will remain an uphill battle as long as the chemical industry still thinks it can get away with murder.
Bridget Hanna is director of The Bhopal Memory Project, co-editor of The Bhopal Reader (2004), and a volunteer with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. She is currently a graduate student in the Department of Social Anthropology at Harvard University.
Posted by bhola at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2006
"We are flames, not flowers":
rap song and video by Terry Allan
Terry Allan, Maine, December 3, 2006
Posted by bhola at 12:54 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2006
Dow Chemical must be held responsible for Bhopal disaster
Mary Shaw, Philadelphia Freedom Watch, December 3, 2006
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on human rights and social justice. She currently serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International.
Today, December 3, marks the 22nd anniversary of a catastrophic explosion from a gas leak at a Union Carbine pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. More than 7,000 Bhopalis were killed in the explosion, and 15,000 more died later from their injuries.
The incident left behind a derelict plant site full of toxic chemicals that have never been effectively cleaned up.
Union Carbide is now a fully owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical. The company is still denying its responsibility, and refuses to reveal the toxicological information of the gas, thwarting medical efforts to deliver appropriate treatment to the more than 100,000 surviving victims.
You can help:
• Demand Dow Chemical clean up the Bhopal site.
Posted by bhola at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
Bhopal 1984: The night the town turned into a gas chamber
GV Krishnan, My Mysore, December 3, 2006
December 2-3 night has significance for my family. We are Bhopal survivors. I read in the papers that people in Bhopal observed the 22nd anniversary of the gas tragedy with a silent procession by the gas victims. Even after two decades since the tragedy the gas victims are still on a protest mode for relief and rehabilitation. Over 40 tonnes of the lethal methyl isocyanate – a toxic substance whose formula remains an industrial secret that is zealously guarded by the company – leaked from the Chhola Road Union Carbide pesticide plant, Bhopal, claiming 3,000 lives and leaving thousands of others with, what is suspected, genetic and reproductive after-effects. The pregnant women exposed to the gas that spread to much of the Bhopal town had suffered abortion or gave birth to stillborns.
For several days in the wake of the disaster all nine cremation grounds in town were kept busy round the clock. There were reports of collective cremation of bodies to clear the backlog in the first few days of the gas leak. As many as 191 bodies were cremated as "unclaimed." Many of them were rail passengers who collapsed in the waiting hall and platforms of Bhopal railway station. Over 85,000 residents fled Bhopal in the wake of the gas leak.
It happened late on a Sunday night, when the town had gone to sleep. I was woken up by commotion on the street. When my wife opened the balcony door for a look-see we sensed irritation in our eyes. I thought the police might have burst teargas shells somewhere in the vicinity to disperse a mob. People were out on the street, heading towards the lake close to our flat in Professors' Colony. Within a few minutes I got a call from N. Rajan, a neighbor and editor of the local daily, Hitavada. He said there was a gas leak in the Union Carbide pesticides plant and residents in the old city were fleeing their houses to escape the gas that caused irritation in the eyes, vomiting and breathlessness.
Before long we felt the effect of the gas in our house, though we were more than five kilometers away from the Carbide plant. And, like scores of others in our neighborhood, we locked our place and took to the street in a bid to outpace the drift of the poisonous gas. The four of us - my wife, 12-year-old son and I, along with our dog Bitsy - joined hundreds of others on the road. Many were rushing ahead in panic, hoping to get as far away and as quickly as they could from the Union Carbide plant. We could not keep pace, which turned out to be a blessing. For those who were in a rush, and breathing heavily, inhaled more of the toxic gas, developing breathlessness. We saw some of them vomit and collapse on the wayside.
As we fled our houses, Rajan, who also represented Patriot newspaper, and I realised that we had a major story to handle. I was then the Bhopal correspondent of The Times of India. But the story had to wait. Besides, it was past edition time. My immediate concern was finding a place that was unaffected by the leaking gas. We spent the night at a relation's place in Arera Colony.
The morning after the tragedy was bright and sunny. I started working the phone for information. Among the more resourceful newsmen in Bhopal those days was Taroon Bhaduri of The Statesman and Abhishek Bachchan's grandpa. Bhaduri told me about a call he received from someone high up in Union Carbide. Initial reports put the gas leak toll at five and the company executive said the situation had been brought under control. It was evident that the Union Carbide spin doctors were already at work.
Later in the morning Rajan and I found that all hell had broken loose at Hamidia Hospital. The OPD verandah, outer lawns and even the driveway were littered with people who had collapsed in fatigue and complained of breathlessness. Doctors said they were running short of drugs. To cope with a spate of patients that continued coming through the night the hospital authorities sent out their staff to buy up from drugstores in town all available stock of sodium thiosulphate - antidote to cyanide poisoning.
The tragedy of it was that the gas victims did not respond to the drug. The toll mounted by the hour. Postmortem indicated that the deaths were due to respiratory failure following pulmonary oedema (fluid in the lungs). It was found that the lungs of gas victims contained 250 cc of fluid and weighed 900 grams against the normal lungs weight of 400 to 500 grams.
The gas that leaked out of the pesticides plant was methyl isocyanate (MIC). And doctors in Bhopal administered drugs for cyanide poisoning. The 'cyanate' in MIC was quite another devil. No one had a clue to the formulation of MIC, which was the trade secret of the US multinational. The Union Carbide stonewalled all queries on possible antidote to MIC while the gas affected were dying by the hundreds. All that the Union Carbide could be persuaded to divulge was a statement saying that methyl isocyanate had nothing to do with cyanide and that the two substances had entirely different effects on tissues and human health.
Retired Times of India correspondent, based in Mysore. Runs www.mymysore.com, a civic initiative on the web; writes a column -DatelineMysore - for www.zine5.com
Posted by bhola at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
$30 million for PR, zip for Bhopal
BANJO JONES, THE BRAZOSPORT NEWS, DECEMBER 3, 2006
Despite the $30 million "Human Element" public relations campaign that champions the allegedly noble intentions of Dow Chemical, the global conglomerate continues to treat Bhopal like the tar baby in the ol' Uncle Remus tales.
Dow don't wanna touch Bhopal or even get within sniffin distance, figuring it's a trap for all its honest, hard-working shareholders, which include a good many people right here in the Petrochemical Underarm of Texas.
Nevertheless, shareholders with some $278 million worth of Dow, think the real tar baby might be a multi-million dollar public relations campaign that rings awfully hollow in the face of nettlesome questions about Bhopal.
"...Dow has claimed for years that outstanding issues in Bhopal are not material to the company’s success, but the facts tell a different story. It is in the long-term interest of shareholders for Dow to address potential liabilities in Bhopal, rather than allow them to impact our company’s reputation and ability to expand into new markets,” said New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., after shareholders filed a resolution with the company requesting that it address outstanding issues resulting from the Bhopal, India, chemical facility explosion on December 3, 1984.
View a creative response to Dow's PR campaign here.
Posted by bhola at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2006
Solidarity with the victims of Bhopal: Motion lodged in Scottish Parliament calls on Dow to accept full responsibility
SOLIDARITY, SCOTLAND, DECEMBER 2, 2006
http://www.solidarityscotland.org/
On the 22nd anniversary of the environmental disaster in Bhopal,India, Solidarity have called on the petrochemical company Dow to face criminal proceedings, fully compensate victims, and clean up the site and surrounding areas.
On the 2nd and 3rd December 1984, the worlds worst ever industrial disaster killed thousands of people in India and left 150,000 disabled. To this day over 50,000 local people are too sick to work and some are dying still. Mary Spowart, environmental activist and South of Scotland Solidarity member said:
“The Bhopal disaster got me involved in environmental politics, this was the worst ever industrial disaster but there are hundreds of Bhopals across the world and those who have made massive financial gain from the industry have failed to take the blame and face the consequences.”
www.bhopal.net www.studentsforbhopal.org
Yesterday in the Scottish Parliament, Solidarity’s Co-Convenor, Rosemary Byrne lodged a motion in parliament asking MSPs to add their weight to the calls for justice.
Motion on Bhopal to be submitted on behalf of Rosemary Byrne MSP:
That this Parliament notes the 22nd anniversary of the disaster at Bhopal which took place on the 2/3rd December 1984, calls on Dow to ensure that its 100%-owned subsidiary Union Carbide, along with ex-Chairman Warren Anderson, end their 13 year absconsion from criminal proceedings in Bhopal and face trial; calls for Dow to assume responsibility for the long term effects of Union Carbide's gases and provide long-term health care for the victims and those as yet unborn who may be affected; calls for Dow to clean up Union Carbide's heavily contaminated factory site in Bhopal and provide safe drinking water for communities whose wells have been poisoned by chemicals leaking from the factory; further calls for Dow to provide economic and social support to people who have been incapacitated by their injuries, and families which have become destitute as a result of losing the breadwinner.
Posted by bhola at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
Night without end
PRADEEP CHOUREY, BHOPAL CENTRAL CHRONICLE, DECEMBER 2, 2OO6
Dr Pradeep Chourey recalls the Union Carbide MIC gas leak. At the time of tragedy he was a senior Resident in Hamidia hospital, residing in a college hostel.
Yes! Exactly 22 years have passed, in the tick of a second, since that gory incident, one of the first and worst of its kind in the world since the world war. The MIC tragedy will enter its 23rd year without much relief to the sufferers.
I still remember the night of 2nd and 3rd December 1984. It was during the final year of my residency, I was in the E-Block hostel. On that night I was awakened by some discomfort of unknown origin. Something was wrong! There was a sudden increase of noise outside. Boys were shouting, awakening one and all. It's a gas leak, probably phosgene, one boy shouted.
Oh my God! I thought of myself. The whole episode of ICCU rushed to mind, how a Union Carbide employee was admitted with phosgene exposure, how he had breathed his last pleading with us to save him, but nothing could be done. Would we suffer the same fate?
Then common sense prevailed. Boys started covering their noses with wet cloths, but the scene was one of utter chaos. We ran to the emergency room and it was there that we learned the real gravity of the situation. News started pouring from all quarters about the leak of some gas from Union Carbide. Nobody was sure which gas. And then the tragedy struck!
Bodies started pouring in, I repeat pouring in; a tide of humanity, suffering at the hands of the wealthy who thought of the people of the third world as guinea pigs; there were children, old, young, women, men, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, people fair and dark, big and small, death was impartial.
Next day there were heaps of bodies, and normal human respect for the dead had also vanished. Bodies were thrown one on top of each other, such was the load of corpses. Room after room, then the morgue, all were strewn with the bodies of the dead.
Meanwhile the nightmare had begun for the treating doctors. Each department was full, corridors, passages and even the roads inside the hospital campus were full of patients, weeping and crying in agony. Word had spread fast about the gas being MIC but there was no instruction from Union Carbide regarding treatment. Symptoms were clear, dyspnea, respiratory obstruction requiring tracheotomy, burning of eyes, chemical conjunctivitis and retrosternal burning and vomiting. The story was very clear, those who ran for cover in the open suffered more, while those who chose to remain indoors were relatively less injured.
The next few days were the same for everyone. Confusion and more confusion. Politicians started flocking in, so too journalists from all over the globe. Then came the visit of the grief struck Prime Minister who himself had suffered at the hands of destiny. Suddenly we realised that the body count had gone down!
There were many stories relating to the sudden disappearance of the dead. Claims and counterclaims abounded. But anyone who was actually in Bhopal was sure that the death count had to be more than 20,000.
The sad part is that there was and still is a trail of suffering left behind. There were abortions, birth defects, laryngeal disorders, allergic rhinitis, and a sudden spurt in malignancies, COPD tuberculosis, mental breakdowns, depression, fast developing cataracts, conjunctivitis and severe gastrointentinal disorders.
They are still continuing.
Most of the worst-hit sufferers are no more. There are stories of heroics during the tragedy. There are unsung heroes and also of the brokers of health who have made millions out of this tragedy, but the real culprit is still at large. America, which boasts of human rights, has still not brought to justice the people in the States who were responsible.
Posted by bhola at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
Sambhavna Trust exhibition commemorates twenty-two years of suffering since "that night":
the story in pictures
Sambhavna Trust Clinic, Bhopal, December 1, 2006
First published on www.bhopal.org
Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by a painting done by students.
Specimins of viscera brought by Dr Sathpathy, who performed the greatest number of autopsies on those who perished in the 1984 disaster.
Dr Sathpathy explains to an attentive crowd what they are looking at, specimins which show how Union Carbide's methyl-isocyanate and other toxic gases affected people.
Dr Sathpathy delivers his powerpoint presentation.
A foetus with meningocele. Impaired infants, often born dead, were known in the months after the disaster as "gas births".
Foetus with head abnormality. 50% of the women who were pregnant on "that night" spontaneously aborted, but in the months that followed the city saw an epidemic of "horrific births".
His talk done, Dr Sathpathy views the other items in the exhibition.
Sambhavna's Aziza Sultan talks about her work to a visitor.
People crowding in to see the exhibits.
Exhibition organisers, from l, Biju, Masarrat, Sabah, Amita and Ritesh, all of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic.
Posted by bhola at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)