"In the early hours of December 3, 1984, chaos and panic broke out as a poisonous cloud, twice as heavy as air, enveloped the Indian city of Bhopal, wafting into homes, schools, temples, everywhere.....
This was the world’s worst industrial disaster: 25,000 people died while another 100,000 to 200,000 people were estimated to have crippling injuries, according to independent sources."
Nearly 26 years after what still stands as one the worst industrial "accidents" in the world, an Indian Court found 7 former employees of Union Carbide (now owned by Dow Chemical) guilty of criminal neglience.The men were sentenced two years in prison and fined 100,000 rupees, or $2,100. The verdict caused outrage among the crowd gathered to hear the verdict.
Activists and gas victims swarmed to the courtroom to hear the judgment. Hameeda Bi, whose granddaughter died 20 days after the gas leak, said the sentence was much too light.
"The convicts should be given life sentence," Ms. Bi said. "They killed thousands of people, and we fought for justice for 25 years."....
Abdul Jabbar, an activist who survived the gas leak, said the sentence would encourage corporate impunity.
"This judgment will not have any deterring impact on big companies," he said. "In fact it will tell them that you can get out of it so easily."
Despite evidence of criminal neglience at its' pesticide production plant, these have been the only criminal cases prosecuted. Charges are pending against former Union Carbide Chairman Warren M. Anderson, but he has refused to return to the scene of the crime and the United States has refused to extradite him to India.
Union Carbide ultimately paid out only $470 million dollars in damages,an average of $550 per victim. Beyond the immediate death toll, it is estimated that more than half a million Indians are still impacted by the more than 425 tons of toxic waste that still have not been removed from the site.
There is no justice for the victims of Bhopol, and were this an exception, that would be sin enough. But the story of Bhopol is a familar tale endlessly reprised over and over and over.
Chernobyl, Love Canal, Minamata Bay, Niger Delta, Seveso, TVA Coal Sludge Spill, the Khian Sea, Cancer Alley, Exxon-Valdez, BP....
Corporate greed and neglience, cost cutting at the expense of safety and sanity, slow-griding legal systems with endless delays and no real consequences -- merely the illusion of regulation, disproportionate harm to the poor and communitites of color, immeasureable death and destruction for generations to come, and collective failure to connect the dots.
Collective failure to realize there is no such thing as "clean-up.
Collective failure to hold corproate criminals accountable with meaningful rules and proportionate penalties.
Collective failure to change our ways.
More than 20 years later we are still "recovering" from Exxon-Valdez.
25+ years from now we will still be litigating the Gusher in the Gulf.
25+ years from now we will still be surveying the environmental wreckage..
And what else??
Are you really ready for the long haul??
Clearly some are not. Before the flow is even stymied, some Lousiana residents are clamoring to lift the off-shore drilling ban; jobs right now are worth the risk. Even James Carville suppressed his feigned outrage long enough to attend Rush Limbaugh's fourth wedding
Well...
Environmental justice takes more than 15 minutes.. It takes 25+ years and then some..
It takes a lifetime.
"You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder.
It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you."
Vandana Shiva