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May 31, 2008
From a Government without a heart
Bhopal dharna diary, May 29, 2008
This morning, we got half of what we came here for.
Prithviraj Chavan, representing the Prime Minister's Office, came to the dharna sthal and read a statement conveying the Government's in-principle agreement to our demand for the Empowered Commission. This is a huge first step. The Commission would ensure the execution of rehabilitation schemes for gas survivors and victims of water contamination. But the devil is in the details, and the PM's statement was starkly devoid of detail. Chavan did specifically mention that medical research into long-term effects of Carbide's poisons will resume forthwith, and that water would be delivered by November. (They can drink poisoned water till then.)
Coming from a Government without a heart, even this announcement gave cause for celebration to Bhopalis. The meeting of all these demands is important, it allows the survivors to continue to... well... survive.
It has been a long road, a tough stay. A lot of people have died waiting for some of these demands to be fulfilled; a lot of people have seen their health, and that of their children, irreversibly damaged; and a lot of people have suffered severe symptoms of the exposure for 24+ years. 600,000 people in all. Going by figures estimated by the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Government of Madhya Pradesh, just in the last three months that the Bhopalis have been on padayatra and dharna about 90 gas-affected persons are likely to have succumbed to the long-term effects of the poisons.
These sobering realities notwithstanding, for the living and the fighting, we're glad to receive some acknowledgement that the Prime Minister is listening to us. As Rashida Bi said, "Unki aakh to khuli, kaan tak aawaaz toh aayi (he has finally opened his eyes, our voices have reached his ears)." Our friend Piyush -- who was arrested for juxtaposing the PM's face on to the bodies of the three see-no-evil, hear-no-evil monkeys -- would be glad to know that his appeal has had some effect. The Prime Minister is now able to see and hear. His feelings for fellow-humans -- particularly, those that are poor -- are still lacking. How else would you explain an offer by the PM that does not even guarantee that the mothers can give clean drinking water to their babies when they return to Bhopal? The Prime Minister has said the Bhopalis would have to wait until November 2008 to get clean water.
Reflecting on the PM's statement later in the day, the euphoria wore off and some of the old cynicism crept back in. What exactly have we won? An assurance from a PM (who has once broken his word) that we have the right to live? Elation followed by an empty sense of betrayal is now a familiar pattern for Bhopal. That is not to say we haven't learned from this cycle – each time we win an agreement with more teeth, more guarantees. Cynicism, for people like the Bhopalis who refuse to give up, only means better preparation, better follow-up and a realisation that every assurance squeezed out of a spineless politician only signals the beginning of another long struggle to help the politician live up to his word. And this time too, follow up is critical – going by our experiences, every little detail has to be examined, every deadline has to be enforced. In a way, the padyatra and dharna, were simply prologue to the struggle ahead.
And as for the other thing - the giant elephant weighing us all down – namely, legal action against Dow and Union Carbide. Our Hon'ble Prime Minister -- God bless his lost spine -- and the entire cabinet have been unable to muster the courage to take action against Dow Chemical. They are afraid of the Americans. Will Georgie bomb us for daring to pursue legal action against an American company? Not a word has been said about deregistering the three pesticides that Dow registered illegally by bribing officials. Nothing on revoking the approval given to Reliance to purchase Union Carbide's Unipol technology. And nothing said on whether the Government will -- even half-heartedly -- pursue the extradition of Warren Anderson and Union Carbide's representative. Strangely, all three things are not merely being required by the Bhopalis. They are also required by law.
Since 1992, when the Chief Judicial Magistrate proclaimed Carbide and Anderson absconders, the Government of India has specific instructions from the Court to produce Carbide's representative and ol' man Anderson in court to face trial. But successive Governments have decided that it is safer to ignore the Court than it is to piss off the United States of America. In the case of the bribery scandal involving the illegal registration of three pesticides, Dow has gotten away with murder, literally. Barring a little negative publicity, nothing concrete has materialised. Every time the Bhopalis shout for deregistering the pesticides, the Government will issue a well-heeled statement that investigations are on, or that the next painful, deliberate step is being conceived, and then will be considered, and then, perhaps, acted upon. Meanwhile, thanks to Dr. Singh’s spinal difficulties, Dow Chemical continues to profit from the sales of these three pesticides, including one (Dursban) that robs the childhood of our children.
The Bhopalis are unwavering in their commitment to see all their demands met. Our health, our bodies need to be looked after, but the outrage that has been the callousness of Union Carbide, and now Dow, has to be righted. Mr. Prime Minister, we have 600,000 Bhopalis and countless supporters, here and worldwide, demanding that one company, just one company, be pulled up for its wrongdoings. We don't understand the hesitation at punishing Dow for poisoning our communities, we cannot begin to comprehend why they are being allowed to introduce even more poisons into the country, and we shudder at the only possible reason for it: that you value its dollars more than our lives, more than righting the wrongs that were done to us. And it’s not just about us: it’s about No More Bhopals, its about sending a strong message to the world, to polluting industries everywhere, that India is open for business, but no business that compromises the environment or human rights will be tolerated.
Posted by tim at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2008
Arundhati Roy speaks out on Bhopal
Public statement
May 23rd, 2008
The lessons of Bhopal do not lie in our past but in our future. By refusing to meet the people of Bhopal who have suffered for decades after the Union Carbide/Dow Chemicals gas leak Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is at the forefront of the Corporatization of India's Economic Policies, is sending out a clear message to the Corporate World: In India you are free to poison, rob and kill our people. The Government will protect you. You will never be brought to book.
Posted by tim at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
Saare jahan se Nchha
Nityanand Jayaraman, Hindustan Times, May 22, 2008
For those passing by 7 Race Course Road on Wednesday, a wet day in the national capital, a strange scene may have greeted them outside the Prime Minister’s residence. People had chained themselves to the railings of the perimeter gate of the PM’s residence and before too long, were hauled into police vans by the dozen. Who were these people? And why were they there on such an unnaturally cool summer day with freshness in the air? These people were survivors and victims of the Bhopal Gas ‘tragedy’ protesting against the cacophonous silence on their two-point charter they have demanded from the man who lives inside the premises they were gathered outside.
These people had walked 800 kilometres from Bhopal to reach New Delhi in late March and are still on dharna at Jantar Mantar. But more than the distance, it is the matter of time — nearly quarter of a century — that has worn them down, that has made them tired. Their charter asks for two things: one, that a special commission be set up to rehabilitate families of gas tragedy survivors and those affected by the contaminated water in Bhopal; two, that the Government of India pursue legal action against Union Carbide and Dow Chemical. Just in case the government gets too nervous, compensation doesn’t even figure in the list of demands of these people.
A special commission, they say, is the only mechanism that can ensure the implementation of assurances of successive PMs that rehabilitation will be done. The fact that the plight of the survivors has gone from bad to worse over the last 24 years is proof enough that previous attempts to coordinate rehabilitation measures — through a Group of Ministers on Bhopal and, since 2006, by a Coordination Committee — have failed.
Legal action against Dow and Union Carbide is necessary not just for closure for those bereaved and hurt by the gas and poisoned groundwater. Survivors say that is the only way to ensure that future ‘Bhopals’ are not repeated elsewhere. But what has the government done to hold the guilty accountable? Nothing. Union Carbide and its former chairperson Warren Anderson, both of whom face charges of culpable homicide and grievous assault, are absconding from Indian courts since 1992. No fresh attempts have been made by the government to enforce their appearance in court.
Unrelated to the gas disaster, but arising from the routine operation of a poorly maintained chemical factory, Union Carbide has also created environmental liabilities for itself — involving the clean-up of toxic wastes and contaminated groundwater, and compensating people hurt by the consumption of the poisoned water. By virtue of its acquisition of Union Carbide in 2001, Dow Chemical has inherited Carbide’s civil liabilities — of clean-up and compensation for water-affected people. Also, in acquiring Union Carbide, Dow was well aware that it was inheriting an absconder. While Dow cannot be held responsible for the original crime of causing the disaster, it is guilty of harbouring an absconder — an offence under Section 212 of the Indian Penal Code.
In April 2006, when the survivors and victims of Bhopal met Manmohan Singh after a 35-day walk, 15-day sit-in and a six-day hungerstrike, the PM promised to explore all options within law to hold Carbide and Dow accountable. Barely a few months later, the Union Commerce Ministry approved collaboration between Reliance and Dow for the transfer of Union Carbide-owned and patented technology. A 900,000-tonne per year polypropylene plant being built by Reliance in its Jamnagar Special Economic Zone will use Carbide’s Unipol PP technology, catalysts and process software. This is illegal. Union Carbide’s assets in India are subject to confiscation as per the 1992 order of the Bhopal magistrate. In 2005, Indian Oil was forced to scrap a deal with Dow involving the Carbide-owned ‘METEOR’ technology. Dow had falsely claimed that the technology to be licensed was its own and not Carbide’s in order to avoid questions about the latter’s absconder status.
Why would the Government of India go out on a limb to help Dow Chemical? A note forwarded by Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has the answer. The approval, the note says, “was greatly appreciated [by Dow] as a signal that Dow was not blacklisted as an investor”.
Dow’s jitters began when the Ministry of Chemical filed an application in the Madhya Pradesh High Court demanding Rs 100 crore from Dow as an advance to cover costs of environmental remediation at Carbide’s Bhopal site. In 2005, Dow began a lobbying operation that roped in the support of a veritable list of influential people in the Government. Indian Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Ratan Tata and the then Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi were soon singing Dow’s tune — that any overtures to hold Dow liable for Bhopal-related issues will scare away Dow’s promised $1 billion investment in India and also discourage other American investors. Once again, issues of investment are clouding issues of justice.
Dow’s crimes in India do not arise only from its association with Union Carbide. In February 2007, US financial regulator, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) fined Dow $325,000. The reason: Dow had paid Rs 80 lakh as a bribe to Indian agriculture ministry officials to expedite registration of three pesticides — Dursban, Nurelle and Pride. Talking to faculty members in IIT-Bombay, Dow India CEO and old Carbide hand Ramesh Ramachandran blamed the bribery scandal on its employees. Dow, he said, took pro-active action against the errant officials. But what he did not mention was that Dow had approved this expenditure in its submission to the SEC. Even worse, the illegally registered products are still being sold freely in India.
In 2000, Dursban was withdrawn from all home and garden products in the US. Announcing this, US Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner declared that this action came after “completing the most extensive scientific review of the potential hazards from a pesticide ever conducted. This action, the result of an agreement with the manufacturers, will significantly minimise potential health risks from exposure to Dursban, also called chlorpyriphos, for all Americans, especially children.”
Responding to a question about the bribery in Parliament, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said in May 2007 that a CBI probe was underway. The probe is concluded. But the report is gathering dust. In the meantime, the illegally registered pesticides are poisoning our children, and those guilty are roaming free.
In demanding that the Dow-Reliance deal is revoked, and that the illegal registration for the pesticides be withdrawn, the people from Bhopal you may have seen outside the Prime Minister’s house on Wednesday are fighting for a cause much larger than their own.
Nityanand Jayaraman is a Chennai-based independent journalist and researcher.
Posted by tim at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2008
A heartless PM?
IT is quite disturbing to note that the country's Prime Minister has no time to meet a group of innocent women and children suffering due to the toxic legacy of the worst ever industrial disaster in modern history. That too when this group of hapless people walked all the way from Bhopal to the national capital — just to remind the PM that he has not delivered on what he had promised them two years back. It leaves one wondering if this government has any concern left for ordinary people — the aam admi by whom it otherwise swears.
The PM's consistent refusal to meet these people, leave alone accede to their demands, has hardened the belief that he is hell bent on doing business with Dow Chemicals and does not want to displease the chemicals giant by giving an appointment to people who want Dow to take on the liability (as well as the assets which it seeks) of Union
Carbide, since it owns Carbide now. What is at stake is the promised investment of $1billion.
Why is Dr Singh keen on this investment from acompany which was penalised in America last year for having bribed Indian agriculture officials for expediting registration of three toxic pesticides in this country? Why did he not take aclear stand when the file was sent to him with the Law Ministry's opinion that Dow's investment can't be immune to its liability? Why has he not taken any action to set up an Empowered Commission on Bhopal, as recommended by the head of his own Group of Ministers on Bhopal? Why is his office stonewalling RTI applications relating to Bhopal? Is the pleasure of an American chemical giant more important to the PM than the wails of kids still being born with congenital deformities in Bhopal? Mr Prime Minister, please do some introspection as you enter your last year in office.
Copyright Permission www.mailtoday.in
Posted by tim at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2008
`Second Bhopal disaster is govt-Created`
Sreelatha Menon, Business Standard, May 18, 2008
Q&A: Satinath Sarangi
Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action tells SREELATHA MENON that activists made a mistake by delaying raising the issue of removal of the 8,000 tonnes of toxic waste from Union Carbide's Bhopal plant.
Where were you when the 1984 disaster in Bhopal took place and what brought you to work there among the survivors?
I am from Orissa. I had done my engineering in metallurgy from Banaras Hindu University and was pursuing my PhD when the disaster took place. I heard of it on radio and decided I will do some relief work. I reached there the next day and could not leave after that. I felt I was needed there.
Who were the others who were providing relief?
There were many people trying to help. They found nothing was being done and so they decided to organise the survivors. I joined them in the Jehrile Gas Kand Sangarsh Morcha. It had three leaders and none of them was a gas victim or survivor. There was someone from the Left. He joined the Congress and then the BJP. There was a lawyer. He made it big due to Bhopal. Then there was Anil Sadgopal. No one is there in the picture now. I and some people from a trade union of Union Carbide formed the Jan Swasthya Kendra as health was the main concern then. People were not getting treatment and their bodies were getting swollen. Bhopal Group for Information and Action was formed after that as we got involved in legal action.
Did you get funds for these activities from international agencies?
We approached the International Labour Organisation, we went to New York to speak to the United Nations, to UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and the International Court of Justice.They all said it would have been easier if it was a natural calamity. Finally, we formed the Sambhavna Trust with individual donations like book royalties of Dominique Lapierre and annual advertisements in The Guardian. These two sources have provided us enough money to run the organisation and to treat 160 people daily since 1991.
What did you do for a living in Bhopal?
Initially, my friends used to send me money. There was Arvind Rajgopal, now a professor in New York University, who was with me and used to help me with money. I used to write for feature agencies. I also worked as a daily-wage worker in a straw board mill near the Bhopal bus stand till they sacked me a year later as there were cases against me.
What cases?
Our organisation started a clinic in June 1989 with a trade union of Carbide workers. We were giving injections that were antidotes to the chemicals. We kept records of the healthy effects of this medicine. But after 21 days, goons and police took away the records of 1,300 patients. We were put in jail for 18 days on charges we were conspiring against government officials. Many scientific studies were done at that time by the government and they all concluded there were no lasting health effects of the chemicals. We came across a study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research on damage to plant life. It was meant only for official use. The government raided our clinic and charged us under the Official Secrets Act for possessing those papers.
The Vardarajan committee report on the disaster talked about toxic waste in 1985. How come neither the government nor the activists picked up on that till Union Carbide left the country and got merged with Dow Chemicals?
The report was bad and I doubt if the committee ever visited the premises. There is also no mention of the 8,000 tonnes of chemicals that are lying buried in the plant premises. It did mention toxic waste. But that was not part of the terms of reference of the panel.
So Carbide kept quiet about the chemicals lying there?
We have records of Union Carbide's 1981 telexes sent to the headquarters in the US that say the solar evaporation ponds are leaking. The government knew in 1982 that cattle were dying of toxic exposure. The latter was settled by a lawyer who later became Bhopal gas relief minister, Babul Lal Goud (sic).
Did you try to probe into the waste left there?
The first time we said waste should be removed was in 1990. We had done a study on water and soil contamination and the result was presented before the government and the Union Carbide AGM in 1990. Scientific agencies were trying to prove there was no damage. The chairman of the state pollution control board, VK Jain, who was later jailed on corruption charges, told me almost every day I met him that there was no contamination of water. He would say abhi to koi mara nahi hai. A Congress minister went to the site with media and drank a glass of water from there. He threw up in two minutes. This was the drama being played before 1998.
But there was no hue and cry about the toxic waste till recently?
Only after the 2004 Supreme Court order that the toxic waste has to be removed as it was contaminating the water there did we get the government to accept there was a problem.
So you blame the government for the second disaster, of continued damage caused by the chemicals left behind by the company.
The second Bhopal disaster is a creation of the government itself. In 1989, Union Carbide gathered evidence that ground water had 100 per cent fish mortality. Then they sponsored a research by NEERI, which gave a report that the factory was contaminated within the four walls but water was drinkable within the 10-km radius. We have internal correspondence between NEERI and Union Carbide advisors where the latter suggests: Let us not say water is potable, let us say it is of good quality.
But the Vardarajan committee report should have prompted some action, legal at least, on removal of toxic waste in the 80s.
Yes, it was a mistake on our part. We should have agitated much earlier. There were reports of contamination. The first report was from the public health engineering department of the Madhya Pradesh government in 1991 that water from 13 locations was dangerously polluted. But it did not mention the waste lying there.
Is the waste visible?
It is visible like a hill. But for several years, no one could go there as Carbide had posted sentries. I used to steal into the premises for samples of soil. The truth is Union Carbide just slipped away.
Posted by tim at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2008
Twenty-four years after
Indra Sinha, Indian Express editorial, May 9, 2008
Damaged children are still being born in Bhopal. So who’s responsible?
Indra Sinha
Recently, the UK’s Guardian newspaper published a shot of what looked like a golf bag containing a pair of clubs. These were in fact the shrivelled, twisted legs of 14-year-old Adil, one of hundreds of children born malformed or brain-damaged to families living near the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal.
The same factory in December 1984 leaked poison gas, killing thousands in the most hideous and disgusting ways. Adil’s mother was caught in the gas but survived. I am lucky, she’d say, but a new terror was already on the way.
People didn’t know that their drinking wells were being poisoned by chemicals leaking from the factory. The water began to smell and taste foul. Held up to the light it appeared full of oily globules which sank to form a tawny layer. The goo was a cocktail of lethal poisons, but at the time no one knew this. Except Union Carbide.
A 1989 secret Carbide memo records proof that it knew soil and water in its factory were badly poisoned by chemicals whose effects included skin and eye damage, cataracts, diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, liver and kidney damage, convulsions, brain damage, anaemia, birth defects and cancers.
Despite the obvious danger to nearby communities, Carbide’s bosses issued no warning. Many families were already ill from its poison gas leak. Carbide watched in silence, and allowed them to be poisoned a second time. In the debate about who is responsible for clean-up we should never forget this inhuman and criminal act of negligence.
By 1993, Adil’s mother was married, pregnant with Adil, and Carbide’s silence had lasted four years. When environmentalists, alarmed by soaring rates of cancer, birth-defects and early deaths near the plant, expressed fears that chemicals might be poisoning the water supply, Carbide denounced them as mischief-makers.
In 1999 Greenpeace tested soil and water in 14 areas near the factory. They found mercury levels 6,000,000 times higher than normal and more than 30 chemicals in the water — many proven to cause birth defects and cancers. A 2001 study found lead, mercury and the factory’s signature poisons in the breast milk of nursing mothers. In some communities 95 per cent of women are anaemic. During Carbide’s ten years of silence, hundreds of children were born with terrible injuries. If you are willing to risk being seriously upset, you can see their pictures on www.bhopal.org.
Union Carbide’s final act of contempt was to leave Bhopal without cleaning its factory. Twenty-four years after the gas disaster, chemicals spill from rotting sacks and drums. People still have to drink poisoned water. Damaged children are still being born.
Union Carbide (US), majority shareholder in the factory, disclaims responsibility for the ongoing poisoning. For 16 years it has also refused to appear in the Bhopal court where it is faces serious criminal charges relating to the gas disaster. Carbide is now 100 per cent owned by Dow Chemical, which set aside $2.3 billion to meet Carbide’s US asbestos liabilities, but refuses to accept Carbide’s Indian liabilities. Dow’s managers sit on Carbide’s board, but Dow pretends it has no power to produce its wholly-owned subsidiary in court.
Dow spokesmen disingenuously add that all Carbide’s liabilities in India were covered by the 1989 settlement. Untrue. The water poisoning was never part of that settlement.
Now Dow would like to expand its business in India. It has found allies in heartless and irresponsible politicians who have done nothing to clean the factory or provide clean water but who seek ways to free Dow of its Bhopal liabilities.
Promises made to the Bhopali survivors two years ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been dishonoured. A Supreme Court order dated 2004 to provide clean water has been ignored. The Bhopalis recently walked 800 kilometres to meet Manmohan Singh. For more than a month he and his law minister have not found time to meet them.
Those poisoned in Bhopal continue to sicken and die, without help, without compassion, without justice.
Sinha is author of ‘Animal’s People’
Posted by tim at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)