On the wall of my office hangs a
reproduction of a full-page advertisement by the Union Carbide
Corporation, dated 1961. Most of the ad is a colorful painting
with a short text below it. The headline beneath the painting
reads, "Science helps build a new India." In the bottom
third of the painting, a thin, dark-skinned man wearing a turban
is plowing desert ground, wrestling a large wooden plow pulled by
two skinny oxen yoked together with wood and rope. Two
dark-skinned women wearing traditional saris look on, one holding
a parasol, one balancing a large basket or jug on her head.
Behind this agricultural scene, still in the bottom third of the
painting, is the River Ganges; across the Ganges on the far
shore, bathed in golden sunlight, is a scene that could line the
New Jersey Turnpike as it passes through Linden --an enormous
chemical complex, a tangle of bulky pipes, tall stacks and huge
tanks resembling a petroleum refinery, except that Linden's
refineries are dark with soot and grime while Carbide's rendition
shimmers with the color of gold. In Carbide's ad, the golden
industrial dream is reflected across the wide Ganges, gleaming.
The top two-thirds of the picture is dominated by a huge
disembodied hand, unmistakably the hand of a light-skinned white
male, extending downward from the upper right. The hand is so
large that it covers most of the pale orange sky. The hand is
pouring a clear red fluid out of a chemist's flask, and the red
fluid is streaming down, partially obscuring the agricultural
scene below. The hand seems clearly intended to remind us of the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo depicted the
hand of God bestowing life by touching Adam. The text of the ad
says, in part, "...Union Carbide recently made available its
vast scientific resources to help build a major chemicals and
plastics plant near Bombay." Below the text is the Union
Carbide logo and the slogan, "A hand in things to
come."
It was 12 years ago yesterday that the Union Carbide corporation
killed an estimated 8000 residents of Bhopal, India and injured
300,000 others, some 50,000 to 70,000 of those injuries
permanent.[1,2,3] Starting about two o'clock in the morning,
Carbide's Bhopal pesticide-manufacturing plant leaked 42 metric
tonnes (46.3 tons) of methyl isocyanate, a heavy, deadly gas,
into a sleeping, impoverished community, killing and injuring
hundreds of thousands.
In 1988 --when Indian authorities were still aggressively
pursuing legal remedies against Carbide --the WALL STREET JOURNAL
reported that corporate executives throughout American industry
were following Carbide's case closely because it was the first
major test of a U.S. corporation's liability for an industrial
accident in a third-world country. Carbide almost immediately
accepted "moral responsibility" for the Bhopal
massacre, but the corporation subsequently denied and evaded any
other kind of responsibility. The Indian government initially
sought $3 billion from Carbide. In response, Carbide hired $50
million worth of legal talent to fight the claim and eventually
agreed to pay $470 million to compensate its victims or their
surviving relatives, a settlement that cost Carbide 43 cents per
share of stock. (Later Carbide kicked in another $20 million to
support a hospital in Bhopal.) In return for the settlement, the
government of India agreed to protect Carbide against any further
lawsuits by victims. The day the settlement was announced,
Carbide's stock price rose $2.00 per share on Wall Street because
investors realized that the company's fortunes couldn't be
touched. After all the lawyers and Indian government officials
had taken their fees and bribes, the average claimant received
about $300, which, for most victims, was not enough to pay their
medical bills.
Carbide says a disgruntled employee caused the gas leak that
devastated Bhopal but Carbide has steadfastly refused to allow
this theory to be tested in a court of law under judicial rules
of evidence. It is conclusively known that Carbide's Bhopal plant
was designed in such a way that, after the deadly gas leak began,
the main safety system --water sprays intended to "knock
down" such a leak --could not spray water high enough to
reach the escaping stream of gas. In sum, the plant's safety
systems had been designed negligently. Internal documents show
that the company knew this prior to the disaster, but did nothing
about it.[4,p.12] Small wonder that Carbide officials --for all
their cheap talk about accepting moral responsibility --do not
want the issues of causation and blame adjudicated.
Methyl isocyanate (MIC) burns (in a corrosive chemical sense, not
a fire sense) when it combines with water --water in a person's
eyes, or a person's throat and lungs, for example. Thousands who
survived are blind, or had their lungs burned so badly that they
cannot work or, in many cases, even breathe well enough to walk.
Carbide initially said that MIC injuries would all become
apparent immediately after exposure and no long-term consequences
could be expected. This has turned out to be wishful thinking.
This week, the International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB)
released the results of a multi-year controlled study of people
living in Bhopal and they reported numerous injuries now becoming
apparent in victims who had appeared to recover after their
initial exposure. For example, small airway deterioration --a
kind of emphysema --is apparent among people who have never
smoked tobacco, but who inhaled MIC as youngsters that night 12
years ago. Central nervous system damage is becoming apparent in
another group. As time passes, the harms attributable to the
Bhopal disaster are growing worse and more
numerous.[5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
In December, 1987, India's Central Bureau of Investigation, the
equivalent of the U.S. FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation],
filed criminal charges of "culpable homicide," a crime
just short of murder, against 10 Carbide officials, including
then-president Warren Anderson.
Warren Anderson now lives comfortably in Vero Beach, Florida. He
and his fellow Carbide executives have continued to thumb their
noses at India's courts, where, if convicted, they would face
sentences ranging from 3 years to life in prison. Carbide has
successfully resisted all efforts to extradite those responsible
for the Bhopal massacre, and Carbide's executives remain
fugitives from justice. The Indian government has not pursued the
matter aggressively, for fear of appearing unfriendly to the
petrochemical industry.[4,p.11] Carbide itself has become even
more profitable than it was before the massacre; indeed,
Carbide's chairman, Robert D. Kennedy, described the firm in late
1994 as "a darling of Wall Street."[4,p.10]
Carbide had no choice but to evade liability for its actions,
says Ward Morehouse, one of Carbide's most thorough critics:
"Had they been genuinely forthcoming and made truly
disinterested offers of help on a scale appropriate to the
magnitude of the disaster, they would almost certainly have been
confronted with suits by shareholders seeking to hold the
management accountable for mishandling company
funds...."[12,p.490] In other words, because the Bhopal
massacre was perpetrated by a publicly-held corporation (i.e.,
one in which members of the public can buy stock), the victims
could not possibly have received fair compensation for damages.
The legal nature of the corporate form prevents management from
"doing the right thing" whenever it would cost
investors dearly. (A privately-held corporation could do the
right thing if the stockholders agreed to make an unprofitable
decision.)
This of course tells us that the future holds more Bhopals
because the overseers of publicly-traded corporations now have
real, tangible evidence that they cannot be brought to justice,
no matter how great the crimes they commit. That would appear to
be the dreary lesson that Bhopal portends for things to come. As
HARPER'S magazine said recently (describing Juarez, Mexico, not
Bhopal), "The future is based on the rich getting richer,
the poor getting poorer, and industrial growth producing poverty
faster than it distributes wealth."[13] The Bhopal story
affirms that this is the future promised by a "free
trade" world. Carbide has closed and abandoned its Bhopal
plant, refused to clean up the substantial pollution of water and
soil that it created there, and left town, forsaking its tens of
thousands of victims who must now fend for themselves.
But all is not gloomy. Some good may yet emerge from Bhopal.
** In January 1996, a group of organizations petitioned the New
York Attorney General demanding that Carbide's corporate charter
be revoked. (A corporate charter is a piece of paper issued by a
state legislature giving a corporation the privilege of doing
business.) Under New York law, a corporation's charter can be
revoked if the corporation causes great harm. By any reasonable
standard, Carbide would appear to fall within such a definition.
A charter revocation could be a signpost pointing toward a quite
different future.
** This week 300 groups and individuals issued a new
"Charter on Industrial Hazards and Human Rights" --a
document some are calling a Magna Carta of corporate harms and
human rights. The charter tries to draw positive examples from
the Bhopal experience, gathering all the lessons into one human
rights document that emphasizes the need to address the impact of
industrial hazards on women, indigenous peoples, and minority
groups.[14]
** In Bhopal, a new medical clinic has opened its doors,
dedicated to serving the victims of Carbide's negligence and
managerial malfeasance. The Bhopal People's Health and
Documentation Clinic is real, and is serving the day-to-day needs
of gas victims and their families. You can help by sending a
donation to their U.S. fiscal agent, the Pesticide Action Network
in San Francisco. Make your check out to "Pesticide Action
Network/Bhopal" and mail it to PAN, Suite 810, 116 New
Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. To discuss a
donation, telephone PAN at (415) 541-9253.
Carbide's successful evasion of liability for the Bhopal massacre
stands as a dark statement of things to come in a "free
trade" future. In this new world order, multinational
corporations do whatever feels good for them, and after they've
had their way with a community, they wash their hands and move
on.
On the other hand, the continuing struggle in Bhopal to put
things right is a testament to the power of the human spirit,
which refuses to be crushed.
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
===============
[1] The basis for the estimate of 8,000 deaths and 300,000
injuries, 70,000 of them permanent, is meticulously documented by
the prize-winning journalist, Dan Kurzman, in his book, A KILLING
WIND: INSIDE UNION CARBIDE AND THE BHOPAL CATASTROPHE (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1987), pgs. 130-133. The death count most often
repeated by the NEW YORK TIMES is 2000, but other unofficial
estimates run as high as 20,000. The Indian government now
acknowledges 7072 deaths; see Wil Lepkowski, "Ten years
Later; Bhopal," CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS [C&EN],
December 19, 1994, pg. 12.
[2] R. Bertell and G. Tognoni, "International Medical
Commission, Bhopal: A model for the future," THE NATIONAL
MEDICAL JOURNAL OF INDIA Vol. 9, No. 2 (1996), pgs. 86-91.
[3] P. Cullinan, S.D. Acquilla, and V.R. Dhara, "Long term
Morbidity in survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak," THE
NATIONAL MEDICAL JOURNAL OF INDIA Vol. 9, No. 1 (1996), pgs.
5-10.
[4] Wil Lepkowski, "Ten Years Later; Bhopal," CHEMICAL
& ENGINEERING NEWS [C&EN], December 19, 1994, pgs. 8-18.
[5] Rosalie Bertell, "Twelve years After Bhopal--An
Editorial reflection," INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC
HEALTH Vols. 11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 2-4.
[6] Birger Heinzow, "Results of the International Medical
Commission on Bhopal (IMCB)," INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON
PUBLIC HEALTH Vols. 11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 4-8.
[7] M. Verweij, S.C. Mohapatra and R. Bhatia, "Health
Infrastructure for the Bhopal Gas Victims," INTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC HEALTH Vols. 11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 8-13.
[8] Rajiv Bhatia and Gianni Tognoni, "Pharmaceutical Use in
the Victims of the Carbide Gas Exposure," INTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC HEALTH Vols. 11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 14-22.
[9] J. Jaskowski and others, "Compensation for the Bhopal
Disaster," INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC HEALTH Vols.
11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 23-28.
[10] Ingrid Eckerman, "The Health Situation of Women and
Children in Bhopal; Final Report for the International Medical
Commission on Bhopal 1994," INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON
PUBLIC HEALTH Vols. 11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 29-36.
[11] Thomas J. Callender, "Long-term Neurotoxicity at
Bhopal," INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC HEALTH Vols.
11 and 12 (1996), pgs. 36-41.
[12] Ward Morehouse, "The Ethics of Industrial Disasters in
a Transnational World: The Elusive Quest for Justice and
Accountability in Bhopal," ALTERNATIVES Vol. 18 (1993), pg.
487. See also David Denbo, Ward Morehouse, and Lucinda Wykle,
ABUSE OF POWER; SOCIAL PERFORMANCE OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS:
THE CASE OF UNION CARBIDE (New York: New Horizons Press, 1990).
[13] Charles Bowden, "While You Were Sleeping,"
HARPER'S MAGAZINE December 1996, pg. 44.
[14] Paper copies of the Charter are available from the Council
on International and Public Affairs, Suite 3C, 777 United Nations
Plaza, New York, NY 10017; single copies and small quantities are
free. Telephone: (212) 972-9877. For a free electronic copy via
E-mail, send the word CHARTER in the body of a message (not in
the "subject" line) to info@rachel.clark.net.
Descriptor terms: union carbide; free trade; pesticides; bhopal;
india; methyl isocyanate; mic; industrial disasters; future;
charter on industrial hazards and human rights; human rights;
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