Indian Government Concedes to Bhopal Demands

New Delhi: The government of India announced today that it would set up an “Empowered Commission” to investigate issues and claims surrounding rehabilitation of the victims of the 1984 Bhopal pesticide plant explosion, and cleanup of the hazardous waste and environmental damage remaining in the area.

The poison gas disaster killed more than 3,500 people immediately and some 15,000 total over the years since the explosion. Areas of Bhopal remain contaminated, and safe drinking water is unavailable to many residents. The government announcement ended months of protests and a global hunger strike relay.

Union Minister for Chemical and Fertilizers, Ram Vilas Paswan, delivered the news to survivors of India’s worst industrial disaster who have been protesting in the capital. The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal declared that the announcement "finally represents a full response to the 172 day 'Walk Your Talk' campaign begun by Bhopalis on February 20th, 2008. The object of the campaign - the longest sustained campaign by the Bhopalis yet - was fulfillment of a set of clear demands."

Rachna Dhingra, spokeswoman for a Bhopal victims group, told AFP: "The government today promised to set up a new panel with more powers to look into medical, environmental and economic support." She said that survivors will be represented on the new commission.
"I was 28-years-old then. Our fight has been going on for 24 years, and we will keep up the pressure on the government," said survivor Hazari Bee, according to the AFP.

The campaign for justice will monitor progress of the new commission, and continue to press for holding Dow Chemical responsible for paying for cleanup and rehabilitation, and prosecuting Dow for registering pesticides in India via bribery.

“The tragedy of Bhopal should remind us all that Dow and other chemical corporations are responsible for widespread human suffering and environmental damage caused by the production and use of extremely hazardous pesticides,” said Kathryn Gilje, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America. “None of us are safe until these companies are held accountable and we adopt more sustainable farming practices, in India, the United States and around the world.”

International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal Press Reslease

Contact:

Shana Ortman, ICJB U.S. Coordinator, +1-415-746-0306, shana@panna.org
Aquene Freechild, ICJB US Strategy Coordinator, +1-617-378-2579, afreechild@environmentalhealthfund.org
*photos and government statement available upon request

Major Victory for Bhopal Survivors: Indian gov't to pursue Dow for Bhopal clean up costs, address health disaster 

 
NEW DELHI - The Government of India has announced that it will take legal action on the civil and criminal liabilities of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal, India. This landmark announcement comes after over 5 months of campaigning by Bhopal survivors and their international supporters, which included a 500-mile march and a 130 day sit-in on the streets of Delhi by survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster.
 
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Ram Vilas Paswan announced that the government will vigorously pursue Union Carbide and Dow Chemical, when he visited the Bhopal sit-in camp today. Dow Chemical has not presented Union Carbide in Indian criminal court, and has been fighting to avoid cleaning up the toxic site left by Carbide in Bhopal that has poisoned the drinking water for 25,000 people in Bhopal.
 
Paswan also announced the establishment of an empowered Commission on Bhopal.  The Commission will address the health and welfare needs of the Bhopal survivors as well as environmental, social, economic and medical rehabilitation. The Commission will be empowered to allocate resources to different rehabilitation schemes or research projects, issue tenders, identify implementing Central or State Government agencies, and change the agencies if their work is unsatisfactory.
 
"We have won our demands only after facing undue harassment at the hands of the Government and Delhi Police," the survivor organizations that make up ICJB said in a statement, "We expect the Government to go hammer and tongs after Dow Chemical, now that the law ministry has indicated that Union Carbide's civil liabilities can be passed on to Dow."
 
It was a long campaign that brought hundreds of Bhopalis to India's capital. After 50 survivors endured a month long walk from Bhopal to Delhi, other Bhopalis joined them along with their young children, many with horrific birth defects. Children born to survivors suffer from growth retardation, cleft palate, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy at higher rates than children born to unexposed parents.
 
"Dow has been using a red herring argument about ownership of the site to distract from the fact that it's responsible for cleaning up Bhopal, as well as facing criminal proceedings for Bhopal. Next year, the Bhopal survivors will be celebrating 25 years of courage in the face of corporate crime; with the Indian government on the case, Dow will be hearing the call for justice around the world," said Aquene Freechild of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
 
This announcement has brought another roadblock to Dow’s plans to invest in India. The government announced that it will block any further sale of Union Carbide (Dow’s subsidiary) patented technologies, some of which are valuable to Dow's plastics business. The Ministry of Law has already determined that should Carbide be found guilty in ongoing criminal and civil proceedings, Dow would be held liable. Just last month, after a peaceful six-month blockade by villagers of Dow's construction site in Pune, India, a sympathetic outside group torched facilities and equipment. Dow was also an alleged investor in a failed Special Economic Zone in Nandigram, India which led to a showdown between villagers and police and 14 villager deaths in 2007. In 2005, Dow lost a $2 million deal with the Indian Oil Company because it was ultimately revealed to be involving Union Carbide patented technology.
 
After 70 days of sitting-in in Delhi with no response from the government, 9 Bhopalis launched an indefinite fast lasting 21 days. More than 800 people from at least 10 countries joined them in solidarity by fasting for a day or longer. Diane Wilson, a noted peace and environmental activist from the US, award-winning author of Animal's People Indra Sinha and an environmental activist from Chennai joined the Bhopalis in their indefinite fast.
 
International support for the campaign has been massive. Nearly 6,000 faxes were sent by supporters to the Prime Minister's office. Sixteen US congresspersons and more than 80 British Members of Parliaments added their voice in support of the Bhopalis' demands, urging the Prime Minister to meet the demands and hold Dow Chemical accountable for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal. Meanwhile, Non-Resident Indians and other supporters organized demonstrations at Indian embassies.
 
Nearly half a million people were exposed to poisonous methyl isocyanate during a runaway chemical reaction at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal on December 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 liabilities for the atrocities of the world’s worst industrial disaster.

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