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Bhopal
tragedy victims to protest during Obama visit
Wednesday November 03, 2010 05:31:32 PM,
IANS
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Bhopal: Bhopal gas tragedy
survivors who have been fighting for justice for the last 26 years
plan to bring their plight to the notice of US President Barack
Obama, who will visit India Nov 6-9, a representative of the
victims said Wednesday.
For this, they will stage a sit-in at Jantar Mantar in Delhi Nov 8
when Obama will be present in the capital, the representative
said.
Tonnes of poisonous methyl-iso-cyanate gas spewed out of the
now-shut pesticide plant of Union Carbide India located in a
congested part of Bhopal Dec 2-3 night in 1984, killing over 3,000
overnight.
In the years that followed, people exposed to the gas kept dying
or suffered from life-long ailments and complications. The deaths
in the world's worst industrial disaster is believed to be about
25,000.
At least five organisations working for the gas tragedy victims
held a joint press conference in Bhopal Wednesday and briefed
reporters about their plans.
"We are going to ask Obama to use his presidential powers to make
US corporations Union Carbide and Dow Chemical (which took over
Union Carbide) answerable to Indian courts," said Rashida Bee,
president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari
Sangh.
On June 7, a Bhopal court held seven officials of the Union
Carbide India plant and the company itself guilty of criminal
negligence and causing th industrial; disaster.
But as the guilty were bailed out within minutes of the verdict,
survivors and activists called it a mockery of justice.
Rashida Bee said Union Carbide's authorised executives and its
former chairman Warren Anderson charged with serious offences,
including culpable homicide, had been avoiding Indian courts all
these years.
She said that the other US corporation evading legal liability in
the case was Dow Chemical, owner of the Union Carbide since 2001.
For the last five years, Dow Chemical has been refusing to submit
to the jurisdiction of the Madhya Pradesh High Court where a case
related to contamination of ground water and soil was still going
on, she said.
"Over a hundred thousand people are chronically ill and hundreds
are dying due to exposure to Union Carbide's poison clouds in
1984. Even today hundreds of babies are being born with
deformities, while their parents suffer from damaged liver, kidney
and lungs. But Dow Chemical refuses to own up its legal liability
for contaminating the soil," she said.
"For years, the US government has deliberately chosen not to take
action against the two corporations," said Balkrishna Namdeo,
president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi
Sangharsh Morcha.
"We will ask Obama to take the first steps towards reversing this
inglorious history of the US government with regard to justice in
Bhopal," he said.
Safreen Khan, a teenaged activist, said: "Obama has taken rather
strong steps against British Petroleum's environmental crimes in
the Gulf of Mexico. We expect Obama to push for similar corporate
accountability with respect to the Bhopal tragedy."
Abdul Jabbar, another activist said, he along with 5,000 gas
victims would stage a sit-in Nov 10 in Bhopal and Nov 22 in Delhi
during parliament session.
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