Completely ignored, of course, by the mainstream media, who are
completely focused on the "war on terror". The thousands who were
killed, crippled or blinded from deadly chemicals in Bhopal suffered
no less than the thousands of Kurds who died from Saddam's deadly
chemicals in Jalabja. Deliberate indifference on the part of Union Carbide
destroyed as many lives as deliberate use of chemical weapons by
Saddam Hussein. So, how about a war on "corporate terror"?
Craig Gingold
++++++++++++++++++++++
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 1, 2006
4:15 PM
CONTACT: The International Campaign for Justice in
Bhopal
http://www.bhopal.net/index1.html
http://bhopal.aidindia.org/blog
www.studentsforbhopal.org
US: Diana Ruiz 415-999-9074 (PT-Cell)
Carolyn Oppenheim, 413-584-9642 (ET)
India: Madhumita Dutta, + 91 (11)
26105472/41652451-52 (office), mdutta@xxxxxxxx
Nishant Jain, + 91 (11) 9811764745
Bush's India Trip Touches Nerve on US Business Human Rights Record
Bush burned in effigy in Bhopal, Survivors March on Delhi, Protest Dow
Expansion in India
March 1 - While some in the Indian business community hope for expanded trade
from the
Bush visit, ?another India? is protesting expanded US business until past human
rights
violations are resolved. Anti-Bush events lampoon the American President around
the
country and Bush was burned in effigy in one state capital - Bhopal. Anger
about
practices of US corporations including Coca Cola and Dow Chemical Company are
feeding the fire.
Survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Chemical Disaster are a week into a month-long
March to
New Delhi, to demand the Indian government stop US-based Dow Chemical?s
expansion
in India until it faces charges of culpable homicide for the disaster. Already
pressure
from the survivors blocked a deal between Indian Oil and Dow. Survivors want
Dow to stop
aggressively marketing its neurotoxic pesticide Dursban in India, which is
banned for
home use in the US after the severe poisoning of several children. The
survivors are also
demanding clean water and medical care from the Indian Government after 21
years of
death and pollution caused by Dow Chemical?s current subsidiary Union Carbide.
The Bush administration thwarted efforts to extradite former Union Carbide CEO
Warren
Anderson to India to face trial. Freedom of Information documents indicate
possible
collusion between lawyers for Union Carbide and the US State Dept. The
Survivors
meanwhile march on, having gained support from 18 members of Congress headed by
Rep. Frank Pallone in the past few years, along with city councils in Seattle
and San
Francisco. Civil cases for clean up of the contaminated plant site are pending
in US
and Indian Courts.
As Bush visits with students in Hyderabad, other Indian students will be
supporting the
Bhopal March. Coca Cola?s poisoning of rural water supplies, as well as high
pesticide
levels in its product, has generated campus boycotts of Coke in the US and
India. These
actions serve as a warning for business expansion in India that does not take
in basic
human rights in its calculations.
An Amnesty International report that used Bhopal as a case study, calls for
International
Human Rights Norms for Business. US-controlled Union Carbide built a poorly
designed
pesticide plant that poisoned local water - killing animals, driving reporters
to warn of
catastrophe, and causing workers to quit in droves in the 1980s. An estimated
8,000
people died almost overnight on December 3rd, 1984 when a toxic gas leak swept
from
the plant into the city. Today over 100,000 people are permanently disabled. Of
a half
million survivors, 10-15 still die monthly from the disaster?s effects and the
poisoned
water, ~22,000 have died in total. Union Carbide abandoned the site and paid a
meagre
settlement averaging ~$300-500 per person. Carbide has been declared a
?fugitive from
justice? by Indian Courts; the company?s current owner Dow Chemical refuses to
face
the charges.
Some Indians fear repeating with the US, the history of corporate colonialism
that began
with the East India Company consuming India for the British Empire. The rush of
US
investment, profiting from India?s cheap, skilled labor has often resulted in
pollution,
worker death and in the most tragic case, the Bhopal Chemical Disaster of 1984.
ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: To arrange interviews with Bhopal marchers contact
Madhumita Dutta or Nishant Jain and for US based support groups contact Diana
Ruiz.
Video footage of the march available upon request.
===============================================================
New Pacifica Working Group
http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica
'Save Our Stations!'
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