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| U.S. Lawmakers Tell Dow: Clean Up Bhopal | | By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN | | | indiawest.com | June 25, 2009 06:31:00 PM |
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Twenty-seven U.S. Congressmen, including such staunch India supporters as current House India Caucus co-chair Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.; Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J.; and Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., have signed a blunt letter to U.S. multinational giant Dow Chemical, asking it to clean up the toxic residue and contamination that remains years after an explosion in 1984 resulted in the release of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, causing the world’s largest industrial disaster.
“The Bhopal chemical disaster marks 25 years of corporate negligence. As Union Carbide's successor company, Dow Chemical is responsible for the disaster. I have been galvanizing support for the people of Bhopal to show that American companies can no longer operate with double standards,” Pallone told India-West in an e-mail response. “People who have less resources cannot be mistreated by one of the world’s wealthiest corporations. Congress will continue to put pressure on Dow to stop evading responsibility.”
 Members of Congress wrote to Dow Chemical Company CEO Andrew Liveris and Dow’s board of directors, urging the company to face their criminal and civil liabilities for the tragedy that occurred at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in December 1984. The letter endorsed the survivors’ demands for remediation — as put forth by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal — chiefly that Dow provide medical and economic rehabilitation and clean up the factory and groundwater contamination.
Nearly half a million people were exposed to poisonous methyl isocyanate during a runaway chemical reaction at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal on Dec. 3, 1984. Since then, more than 22,000 people have died and 150,000 survivors continue to be chronically ill, as the Indian government and Dow have repeatedly failed to address their role in the atrocities of this ongoing disaster in Bhopal.
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who is the co-chair of the India Caucus, said he hoped Dow got the message.
“When so many members of Congress sign a letter like this it sends a powerful message and I hope it is received,” McDermott told India-West. “There is no reason the principle, ‘polluter pays’, should not apply here, and our signatures reflect this, and the fact that this problem hasn’t gone away for the victims of the disaster and their children, so it won’t go away for us.”
McDermott said he was moved when he met the Bhopal survivors.
“Representatives from Bhopal came to visit me in Washington; they told me their personal stories and of the struggles their community faces in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster,” McDermott said. “I thought the company responsible ought to at least pay to clean up the toxic waste and provide basic medical and economic rehabilitation for the victims.”
ICJB advocates say broad support from across the United States is a reflection of the enthusiasm generated by the recent national tour led by two Bhopal second-generation survivors, Safreen Khan and Sarita Malviya, both 16, who live with their families in one of the water-contaminated communities. The survivors met with Pallone and other members of Congress in Washington, D.C. on their tour.
"Dow has been evading justice in Bhopal since they acquired Union Carbide in 2001. Dow has ignored summons to appear in Indian courts, as well as a request for a $22 million deposit on clean-up costs,” Shana Ortman, U.S. coordinator for ICJB, told India-West. “It has been 25 years since the world’s worst industrial disaster, and we are glad to see U.S. lawmakers step in and ensure that justice is finally served. Dow claims that they have no responsibility for the water and soil contamination that their subsidiary left in Bhopal when they abandoned the plant there. If this is so, than why is Dow afraid to appear in court? U.S. lawmakers are now urging Dow to do just that: Follow the law in India and let the courts decide."
Engineer-turned activist Satinath Sarangi, who toured the U.S. recently with the Bhopal survivors, expressed satisfaction to India-West in an e-mail communication from Bhopal.
"The joint letter by the U.S. congressmen is a very hopeful development in our effort to get justice in Bhopal. We already see that Dow Chemical, that has for the last eight years refused to listen to the poisoned people in Bhopal, the Indian courts and the Indian government, is now paying attention to the voice of the American lawmakers,” Sarangi said. “We request the Indian community in the U.S. to help us achieve justice by increasing the pressure on Dow Chemical within the U.S. We would like them to write to their senators requesting a similar initiative in the form of a collective letter to Dow's Liveris and to remember the ongoing disaster in Bhopal through holding public events on the 25th anniversary of the disaster on Dec. 3, 2009."
McDermott said the Bhopal issue had much broader implications.
“As a medical doctor and member of Congress, I believe we are discussing nothing less than social and economic justice,” he told India-West. “There is a moral imperative in all of this and I hope that shining the light of truth on the situation will be enough to make the difference that is needed.” |
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