| 1 | 1 | | The leak of toxic gases at Bhopal, India, in 1984was one of the worst man-made |
| 2 | | disasters the world has yet experienced. Estimates of those who have died vary from |
| 3 | | 4,300 to nearly 20,000, and five years later more than one gas victim still dies every day. |
| 4 | | The disaster caused not only death, but disability and diseases. The gases are reported to |
| 5 | | have genetic after-effects, and a new generation of gas victims is now being born. |
| 2 | 6 | | In all perhaps 445,000 poor people have been affected. For five years they have |
| 7 | | been left to suffer, starve and die. The strategy of Union Carbide, the American |
| 8 | | multinational company responsible, has been to minimise the damage to itself and the |
| 9 | | chemical industry worldwide and to reduce the compensation paid to the barest |
| 10 | | minimum. The then Indian government finally agreed to a shameful compromise which |
| 11 | | was worth just £115 for any permanently disabled victim. |
| 3 | 12 | | The Western press has been quite indifferent, writing off the death toll as the cost |
| 13 | | of increased food production and economic development from which the Third World |
| 14 | | benefits. This is of course a myth that the Third World, which controls less than 5 per |
| 15 | | cent of the world's media output, has not been in a strong position to prove false. |
| 4 | 16 | | One of the scarcely noted decisions the new J.P. Singh government in India has |
| 17 | | taken, has been to re-open the whole Bhopal case and to promise relief to the victims. |
| 18 | | This has outraged Union Carbide, which talks patronisingly about the rule of law. Vet |
| 19 | | the Indian government's original compromise, taken over the heads of the victims and |
| 20 | | extinguishing all further civil and criminal proceedings, made a mockery of the law. In a |
| 21 | | real sense, Singh's government is revaluing the rule of law in India. |
| 5 | 22 | | The Bhopal disaster is not simply a tragic example of Western exploitation of the |
| 23 | | Third World. It carries a brutal warning for the first world too: disasters may well occur |
| 24 | | in the metropolitan heartlands of Europe, the US and Japan. Further, the hazards that |
| 25 | | toxic chemicals create don't stop short at spectacular outrages like Bhopal. It is necessary |
| 26 | | also to consider not only 'possible Bhopals', but also 'mini-Bhopals' and 'slow-motion |
| 27 | | Bhopals' - smaller fatal leaks, routine releases of toxic chemicals into air and water, the |
| 28 | | slow poisoning associated with toxic dumps, the long-term exposure of workers and the |
| 29 | | general population to low levels of toxic chemicals. |
| 6 | 30 | | At the very least, the Bhopal disaster should have inspired demands for |
| 31 | | compensation which took a real measure of the worth of human life, involving long-term |
| 32 | | monitoring and a trust fund to compensate people for unforeseen after-effects: and a |
| 33 | | major, and of course expensive, regulation of the chemical industry globally. |
| 7 | 34 | | But we have seen in other areas that bureaucratic regulation frequently achieves |
| 35 | | very little. At the very least, regulation requires the active participation of the workforce |
| 36 | | and outside community, and a freedom of information which is so far denied in the cause |
| 37 | | of commercial freedom. The investment in highly toxic chemicals is a major gamble, |
| 38 | | taken by the few, with the future of us all. |
| 8 | 39 | | It is about time that we questioned the way in which toxic chemicals have become |
| 40 | | part of our lives and asked how we can free ourselves of their continuing use. But we |
| 41 | | also need to question the international economy and the power of multinational |
| 42 | | companies to escape local, national and global control. |
| | | |
| | | from 'New Statesman & Society', January 26, 1990 |
