Tata wins Corus, headlines everywhere: India's pride Tata. My question is which Tata? Those who are going to join hands with Dow chemicals. Dow Chemicals which denies responsibility of cleaning Bhopal.Dow chemicals which bought Union Carbide in 2001 shall legally own up liabilities of Union Carbide. But Dow has always denied these liabilities towards cleaning up toxic remains. Dow has long eyed India’s market. It has repeatedly tried technical collaboration with Indianoil. But it was stopped. Now it’s worming its way back through Reliance Industries and now Tata’s.
Now looks like Tata-Dow joint venture is going to happen.
I personally protested on Tata’s website, you are free to take your stand, If you feel the same way you can send a mail to media@tata.com.
and petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/bhopal/
Below is what happened in Bhopal.(Source: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/WhatHappened.htm)
On December 3rd, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled - of whom 22,000 have since died of their injuries - in a disaster now widely acknowledged as the world’s worst-ever industrial disaster.
More than 27 tons of methyl isocyanate and other deadly gases turned Bhopal into a gas chamber. None of the six safety systems at the plant were functional, and Union Carbide’s own documents prove the company designed the plant with “unproven” and “untested” technology, and cut corners on safety and maintenance in order to save money.
Today, twenty years after the Bhopal disaster, at least 50,000 people are too sick to work for a living, and a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed that the children of gas-affected parents are themselves afflicted by Carbide’s poison.
Carbide is still killing in Bhopal. The chemicals that Carbide abandoned in and around their Bhopal factory have contaminated the drinking water of 20,000 people . Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women living near the factory.
Although Dow Chemical acquired Carbide’s liabilities when it purchased the company in 2001 , it still refuses to address its liabilities in Bhopal - or even admit that they exist. Till date, Dow-Carbide has refused to:
1) Clean up the site, which continues to contaminate those near it, or to provide just compensation for those who have been injured or made ill by this poison;
2) Fund medical care, health monitoring and necessary research studies, or even to provide all the information it has on the leaked gases and their medical consequences;
3) Provide alternate livelihood opportunities to victims who can not pursue their usual trade because of their exposure-induced illnesses;
4) Stand trial before the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Bhopal, where Union Carbide faces criminal charges of culpable homicide (manslaughter), and has fled these charges for the past 15 years.
What went wrong and what should have been done: (Source:http://www.petitiononline.com/bhopal/)
I'M OUTRAGED THAT:
1. There was no siren and no warning--people woke with the gases already in their faces, filling their mouths, noses and lungs with excruciating pain.
2. NONE of safety systems were functioning on the night of the disaster—six in all.
3. Union Carbide under-invested in an inherently hazardous facility located in a crowded neighborhood, used admittedly unproven designs, stored lethal MIC in reckless quantities, dismantled safety systems and cut down on safety staff and training in an effort to cut costs.
4. Union Carbide and its new owner, Dow Chemical, continue to blame the disaster on a fictitious and unnamed worker, and deny their own negligence.
5. In the wake of the disaster, Carbide claimed that the gas was harmless, when it knew it was lethal (as described in its own manuals).
6. Dow-Carbide refuses to share all its medical information about the health effects of the gas it released, MIC--information that doctors could use to save lives--claiming the information is a “trade secret”.
7. Union Carbide fled India and abandoned its Bhopal plant, leaving thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals behind, which are now poisoning the water of the same people Carbide first poisoned 20 years ago. As more people grow sick, Dow-Carbide still refuses to clean up its pollution in Bhopal.
8. The Union Carbide Corporation, charged criminally with “culpable homicide” in the wake of the disaster, has refused to appear in court or stand trial. Union Carbide is now an international fugitive from justice, considered an “absconder” under Indian law.
Bhopal remains one of the world's worst examples of corporate crime, but the people of Bhopal continue to persevere in their call for justice. I’m joining Bhopal’s survivors by calling on Dow to:
1. Face Trial: Ensure that prime accused Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide ceases absconding from criminal justice in India and the authorized representatives of the company [Dow-Union Carbide] face trial in the Bhopal criminal court.
2. Provide Long Term Health Care: Assume responsibility for the continuing and long term health consequences among the exposed persons and potentially their future generations. This includes medical care, health monitoring and necessary research studies. The company must provide all information on the leaked gases and their medical consequences.
3. Clean Up The Poison: Remove the contamination of the ground water and soil in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. Provide for supply of safe drinking water to the community.
4. Provide Economic and Social Support: Dow must provide income opportunities to victims who can not pursue their usual trade as a result of exposure-induced illnesses and income support to families rendered destitute due to death or incapacitation of the breadwinner of the family.
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
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