The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.
The British press recently was full of full page advertisements recently pointing out that birth defects, which showed a huge uptick, after the disaster, are rising again. Children are now being born dead and malformed in numbers not seen since the early days.
The ads were placed by the British charity, The Bhopal Medical Appeal. UCA News reports:
The advertisements show pictures of severely malformed or brain damaged children and the text says: “Some injuries are too harrowing to show, like the eye engulfed by a raw tumour that left a small girl in agony until it finally killed her.”
The charity, which funds two clinics in Bhopal, has also funded a “huge, rigorous study covering more than 100,000 people exposed to gas, to poisoned water, and to both.
“The work is almost finished. Results have to be confirmed and analysed but indications are that many families have been poisoned twice, first by Carbide’s gases, then by contaminated water.
“In poisoned areas birth defects are occurring at rates many times the Indian average.”
The advertisements say that after the gas leak, the Union Carbide plant was abandoned with the lethal pesticides still inside, while nearby were lakes of toxic waste, despite fears that local water supplies would be affected.
As early as 1999, a Greenpeace study found many wells contaminated with heavy metals and chemicals. The same contaminants were in the blood and breast milk of women living downstream from the factory.
In 2006 doctors visiting the affected areas found almost half the children they examined were brain damaged. Since then, the charity says, the situation has worsened.
As the Economic Times writes:
The government of India initially sued Union Carbide for $3 billion, and settled for $370 million, and obtained the stamp of the Supreme Court of India on that settlement, discharging Union Carbide of any further obligation in the matter. This sell-out was in 1989.
The number of victims was far in excess of initial estimates, but the compensation amount remained the same. Only depreciation of the rupee and the interest accrued on the original deposit, as the courts decided to whom and how the money would be disbursed, enhanced the corpus.
But the compensation received by the victims from the sum obtained from Union Carbide was paltry.
In June of this year, The Business Standard Reports:
Janki Bai Sahu, a survivor of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, who filed a case in a US court on behalf of herself and her family and sought damages from Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), has had her appeal petition dismissed on several grounds, including the statute of limitations.
She and others had their petitioned dismissed last year and had appealed before a higher court. The case was originally filed in 2004. The petition was on the pollution of soil and groundwater by hazardous waste generated in the factory, site of what is considered the world's worst industrial disaster, when toxic gas leaked from it in December 1984, killing thousands then and many more from the after-effects in later years.
Capital gets away with mass murder. Capitalists make billions and walk away scott free while thousands suffer. Global capital rules all, some would say, and they would be pretty correct. The multitudes and in this case the victims have fought a long and hard battle and they are not giving up. We need to be there with them. Their fight is our fight. The Empire which has wrecked havoc on them, is the same Empire we face in our own backyard. The people of Bhopal were casualties of the war the Empire wages on us all. They are some of the most horrible examples of the disregard of Capital for the people of the planet, and for the planet itself.
There are two posts below. The first from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal is a reaction to the recent US court ruling. The second from Bhopal.net contains information and a petition about the chief henchmen in all this and the on going attempt to bring him to some kind of justice.
A Sad Day for Bhopalis and The World
After a 9 year Battle, the US Federal Court this month dismissed an appeal to hold Union Carbide liable for the pollution of soil and groundwater by hazardous waste generated by the abandoned factory. Survivors Groups are indignant, but not defeated. Please read the following Press Statement:
June 29 2013. Five Bhopal based organizations active on the issue of ongoing toxic contamination in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal today condemned the recent decision of the US Federal court that dismissed an appeal filed by a group of plaintiffs last year.
The organizations said that the decision of the Appellate court was a gross miscarriage of justice as it deliberately ignored the documentary evidence presented in court in the last nine years. The organizations said that they would now persuade the Indian government, owner of the contaminated lands, to intervene in the case pending before the US court.
Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action said that internal corporate documents presented before the three Appellate court “unambiguously demonstrates that Union Carbide Corporation, USA, and not its Indian subsidiary, had designed the waste disposal system in the Bhopal plant as well as supervised its operation and monitored the harmful consequences of the hazardous design.” She alleged that the judges turned a blind eye to the facts on record simply in order to avoid making American corporations accountable for crimes committed outside the U.S.
Nawab Khan, President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha said that the original case seeking clean up of the contamination by the US corporation and its former chairman remained within the New York court system and lawyers representing Bhopali plaintiffs were “exploring all options” to continue the legal fight. “It took survivors of the Nazi holocaust 50 years to obtain redress through the courts,” Mr. Khan said. “Like them, we will not give up until we receive complete justice for the wrongs done to our families.”
Balkrishna Namdeo, President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha pointed out that the U.S. judges have clarified that the decision to absolve the parent corporation, a majority partner in the Indian subsidiary, could not be cited as a precedent for other cases. “That is the best illustration of how unsure the judges themselves are about the legal validity of their decision.” he said.
The case in the U.S. Federal court concerns the pollution of soil and groundwater by hazardous waste generated in the factory that was the site of the world's worst industrial disaster when toxic gases leaked from it in December 1984.
Louise Christian, world renowned British human rights lawyer expressing solidarity with the survivors, said "This decision to deny justice to poor and vulnerable people caused irreparable harm by big business should shame the world. The United States Appeal Court has ignored compelling evidence about the central role played by the Union Carbon Corporation based in the US in equipping overseeing and enabling the Indian offshoot of the company to produce UCC's own product, the insecticide Sevin. UCC failed to give advice which would have ensured not only that the leak of gas itself did not happen but also prevented the contamination which has poisoned the drinking water in a large area around where the plant was.
Those who run multinational corporations should not be allowed to escape liability for grievous harm by creating complex corporate structures and hiding behind them. The paltry compensation paid in India to the victims and the failure to prosecute anyone over Bhopal is a disgrace.
The history should be reviewed by the United Nations with a view to introducing international law mechanisms for securing justice in this and other cases".
Sign the Petition to Extradite former Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, Warren Anderson for his crimes in Bhopal
Dear Sisters and Brothers of USA,
We, the survivors of the world’s worst industrial disaster in Bhopal ask your help in extraditing Warren Anderson, former Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation who has jumped bail and refuses to face criminal charges related to thousands of deaths.
SIGN THIS PETITION http://wh.gov/l3cJi
You need to be have a address in US.
If the petition gets 100,000 American signatures by 13th July 2013 then the White House will respond.
Extradite Warren Anderson, fugitive and bail-jumper, to India to face charges related to thousands of deaths
Former Union Carbide Chairman / CEO Warren Anderson skipped bail in India and fled to the US more than 28 years ago. In 1992 and again in 2009 the Indian courts issued warrants for Anderson’s arrest for manslaughter. The 1984 Bhopal disaster has killed as many as 25,000 people and 120,000 continue to battle chronic illnesses. Cancer and Tuberculosis are rampant and next generation is also marked by Carbide poisons. There is abundant evidence that shows that the disaster in Bhopal was foreseeable and preventable and that it occurred because of deliberate criminal negligence by Anderson and his colleagues. Anderson lives comfortably in his three homes in the Hamptons, Florida and Connecticut. The president of USA and the US Departments of State and Justice need to stop harboring one of the world’s most wanted criminals. Extradite Anderson before he dies of old age.
ANDERSON CRIMES IN BHOPAL
Union Carbide Factory, Bhopal, India
Anderson was part of the 11 member managerial committee that approved untested technology in the Bhopal plant to cut cost by 25%.
TIMELINE
On 7th December 1984, Warren Anderson along with Indian officials was arrested in Bhopal and released on bail. He promised to return back in his Bail Bond.
On 1 December 1987, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed charge sheet against Warren Anderson, chairman of UCC, and eleven other accused individuals and corporations. Warren Anderson is charged under Indian Penal Code sections 304 [culpable homicide, punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment and fine], 320 [causing grievous hurt punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment and fine], 324 [causing hurt, punishable by 3 years imprisonment and/or fine] and 429 [causing death and poisoning of animals, punishable by 3 years imprisonment and/or fine]
Anderson has not shown up in Bhopal Court despite several summons through Interpol.
On 10th April 1992 CJM, Bhopal issues Non-Bailable Warrant of arrest against Warren Anderson and orders the Government of India to seek extradition of Anderson from the United States.
May 2003: Ministry of External Affairs sends request for extradition of Warren Anderson to Department of State and Department of Justice, USA.
On 24th July 2003, the Department of State, United States rejects the application for Warren Anderson’s extradition. Copy of rejection of Anderson’s extradition obtained under Freedom of Information Act.
In 2004, 2005 and 2008 Government of India took up the matter again with the US Government to reconsider its decision on the basis of additional inputs. However all the requests were turned down.
On 28th April 2011 Indian Government through Ministry of External Affairs sent another request for extradition of Warren Anderson.
This request is still pending with the US Department of Justice and till today (March 2013) no decision has been taken by them regarding extradition of Warren Anderson.Updated presented by Indian Govt to the CJM, Bhopal.
Warren Anderson is currently 92 years old.
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