Fwd: Ex-CEO should face charges for Bhopal disaster
Prakriti (A call to return to the nature)
From: Mohan Gupta <mgu...@rogers.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 5:56 PM
Subject: Ex-CEO should face charges for Bhopal disaster
To: out...@outlookindia.com
Ex-CEO should face charges for Bhopal disaster
By Amitabh Pal
Justice in Bhopal is incomplete.
http://news.therecord.com/article/725631
On June 7, an Indian court finally handed out guilty verdicts against eight former Indian employees of the U.S. multinational Union Carbide for a gas leak at its pesticide plant on Dec. 3, 1984, in Bhopal that killed 20,000 people. But the then-CEO of the firm, Warren Anderson, has eluded trial.
Anderson was arrested during a visit to India soon after the calamity and charged with manslaughter. He was released on bail and has been on the lam ever since. Last July, Bhopal’s chief magistrate issued another arrest warrant for him, but the United States hasn’t been willing to apprehend or extradite him. That’s why he was not part of the case decided on June 7.
“As far as Anderson is concerned, the case is not closed,” Veerappa Moily, India’s cabinet member in charge of legal affairs, said after the verdict. “He has absconded.”
The case is a strong one. An affidavit by Edward Munoz, former managing director of Union Carbide India, revealed that the company’s decision to store the deadly methyl isocyanate gas in massive tanks for efficiency reasons was the reason for the catastrophe. Crucial safety systems—a cooling mechanism for the gas, a decontamination tank and a flare—were all switched off. Union Carbide’s executives in the United States were not only ultimately responsible for their subsidiary. They were also informed about much of the cost-cutting.
Union Carbide grudgingly paid out $470 million to the victims, a woefully insufficient amount that it claimed absolved it of any further responsibility. Dow Chemical, which purchased Union Carbide, refuses to do anything more. It claims that Union Carbide did all it could and that Dow is not responsible because it didn’t own the company at the time of the disaster.
The misery of the victims hasn’t ended. The factory site remains contaminated, heavily polluting the environment for nearby dwellers. These families “have no option but to drink the available water and they complain of aches and pains, rashes, fevers, eruptions of boils, headaches, nausea, lack of appetite, dizziness and constant exhaustion,” the Brisbane Times of Australia reported on the 25th anniversary of the disaster last December.
“Lead, mercury and organochlorines have been found in the milk of nursing mothers living near the factory, with the result that women are terrified to breastfeed their babies.”
The United States should extradite Warren Anderson to India, where he should stand trial. It’s not too hard to track down Anderson. Four years ago, a reporter for The Progressive magazine, which I work for, found him at a retirement community in Vero Beach, Fla.
President Barack Obama is due to visit India later this year. It would be a nice gift to the residents of Bhopal if he brought with him the extradition papers for Anderson.
Amitabh Pal is the co-editor of the Progressive Media Project and the managing editor of The Progressive magazine in Madison, Wis. (McClatchy-Tribune)
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When the entire country is shocked about the Bhopal gas verdict and when congress party is not able to open the mouth regarding why the CEO of the company Anderson was flown one expects BJP to be aggressive.But sadly it's not the case.Apart from few statesments nothing is comming out from them which means they have let congress to get away with it.And not to forget this is one of the biggest factory accident in india and in few months Indian parliaament is going to debate on nuclear liablity bill.
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Prakriti
(A call to return to the nature)
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