Two decades on, no justice, no lessons learnedThe Bhopal Disaster |
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Patrick Scott |
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In 1984 a mass leakage of toxic gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal created the world’s worst industrial disaster. Thousands died immediately, thousands more have since died and continue to die through health complications after breathing the toxic gas. According to the most conservative estimates the death toll to date is 20,000 and it is still rising. The impact of the disaster continues to the present though in other ways. The local water supply became contaminated and remains so today. In 2004 the Indian Supreme Court ruled that because of contamination local communities had to be provided with safe drinking water from outside. Needless to say this ruling was ignored by local politicians. Since 1984 there has also been a substantial increase in the number of babies born with birth defects in the Bhopal area. Twenty three years later the people of Bhopal are still seeking proper restitution from the US based Union Carbide Corporation. That the Bhopal disaster was caused by gross negligence is beyond dispute. Documents uncovered in 2002 during a lawsuit against Union Carbide in the US revealed that the company had knowingly exported technology to Bhopal that was both untested and hazardous. Furthermore this had all been authorised by Union Carbide’s chief executive Warren Anderson. Anderson himself had been arrested by the Indian authorities in 1984 on manslaughter and other charges but jumped bail back to the US where he still is. Wholly inadequate compensation of US$ 470 million was agreed in 1989 between Union Carbide and the Indian government. And much of this money has found its way into the hands of corrupt government officials rather than those who suffered in the disaster. Union Carbide abandoned its Bhopal plant in 1984 without cleaning it up, ensuring that it remains a source of pollution. In 2001, the company was taken over by Dow Chemical. Dow are very mindful of the fact that when they bought Union Carbide they not only bought the assets of the company but its liabilities as well. Naturally this includes Bhopal and currently Dow Chemical is offering to clean up the Bhopal plant and provide further investment in India. However all this is conditional on the Indian government guaranteeing that there will be no further litigation in the Indian courts against Union Carbide/Dow over the Bhopal disaster. The arrogant, cynical and downright criminal actions of Union Carbide and now Dow Chemical are not just motivated by corporate greed. They are also underpinned by a thoroughly white racist mindset. It is inconceivable that Union Carbide would have allowed the same dangerous practices that caused the Bhopal disaster in any of its US plants. If it had, and a disaster on the scale of Bhopal has happened in one of Union Carbide’s US plants the story would have been very different. The company would very probably have been bankrupted under the impact of numerous lawsuits and its top executives might have ended up serving lengthy jail sentences. For Union Carbide though India was a distant country and on top of that its inhabitants had a different skin colour. In a neoliberal world the possibility of a disaster on the scale of Bhopal is if anything more likely today than in 1984. The drive to maximise profits through economic deregulation includes reducing regulations ensuring safe working practices and ensuring the environment and people’s lives are protected against industrial contamination. As such it is not so much a question of if there will be another Bhopal disaster, more a question of when and where. Online Sources International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal www.bhopal.net Students for Bhopal, www.studentsforbhopal.org |
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