The proceedings of the Empowered Group of Ministers does not inspire much confidence that the lakhs of victims of the catastrophic Bhopal gas leak will get justice. In fact, it almost seems as if a second betrayal is on the cards. There are reports that the EGoM wants the Madhya Pradesh government to bury and clean up the toxic waste. This is shocking at a time when, following a petition in the high court, a technical subcommittee of the task force for removal of toxic waste has placed the onus on Dow Chemicals USA, which bought Union Carbide in 2001. It said Dow should take the entire toxic waste to the US for remediation.
While compensation and the rehabilitation of victims are important, it is equally necessary that all those in Union Carbide India Ltd who were responsible for this outrage be brought to book. Warren Anderson is not the only culprit who has gone scot-free. It is important to bring Warren Womar, who was UCIL's works manager, as well as Robert Kennedy, who succeeded Mr Anderson as chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, to stand trial in India. Mr Womar had shut down the Bhopal plant's refrigeration system — used to cool the methyl isocyanate (MIC) — in 1982, two years before disaster struck. The only time he used to switch on the refrigeration was when this extremely volatile and noxious chemical MIC was being transferred into the scevin pot for preparing the pesticide. The operation manual, on the other hand, clearly mandates that MIC should be kept below freezing point at all times. When the disaster took place, there was no safety system in place. Mr Kennedy took key decisions on to the plant's design, and he was aware that its safety system was substandard.
The CBI, in a chargesheet filed in December 1987, had said it wanted to investigate the American officials involved as well as inspect UCC's pesticide plant at Institute in West Virgina. It wanted to demonstrate that UCC had used double standards: that the Bhopal plant had inferior safety systems. The CBI team, accompanied by a leading scientist, went to the US in November 1988, but was told by the US justice department to first obtain permission from West Virginia state. The state authorities did not permit the visit. The justice department later granted permission, but it was too late. Coincidentally, on that day — February 14, 1989 — suddenly there was a Supreme Court-assisted $470 million compensation settlement between UCC and the Indian government. One of its conditions was quashing of all criminal cases, and due to this the inspection could not be carried out. The settlement — which incidentally was less than one-sixth of the $3 billion that the Indian government had initially demanded — was not the issue before the court. The issue was the Rs 350-crore interim relief granted by Bhopal's chief metropolitan magistrate, challenged by UCIL in the high court, which reduced it to Rs 250 crores, which in turn was challenged by both the Union of India and UCIL in the Supreme Court. This betrayal of Bhopal's victims by both the Indian government and the US multinational must now be undone by the EGoM.
Equally urgent is for the EGoM to get Dow Chemicals to accept responsibility for cleaning up the Bhopal plant and its surrounding area, or to get out of our country. Dow bought UCC in February 2001 and it cannot be released from its liability. Both the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti and the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan had in February 2001 asked the Bhopal magistrate to serve notice on Dow to appear on behalf of UCC in the ongoing criminal case. The magistrate's notice was, however, stayed by the MP high court in Jabalpur in January 2005, and Dow managed to get away. Instances of betrayal and scuttle in favour of the American company are too many to mention here, but now it is up to the EGoM to undo these and ensure real justice is delivered to the victims of Bhopal, who have had to wait far too long.
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