On December 3, 1984 the city of Bhopal, India awoke to a thick cloud of poisonous vapors seeping into homes and asphyxiating many in their sleep. An explosion at the nearby Union Carbide chemical plant had released huge quantities of cyanide-based gas into the air and water in the crowded city. The explosion, a result of mismanagement of the plant, was made more destructive by the failure of all six of the plant’s safety systems.

More than twenty years later, neither the local government nor the companies involved in the disaster have done their parts to alleviate the suffering. Over 150,000 people have been affected by illness or disability as a result of the disaster, and some 22,000 have died.

Since that time, Dow Chemical has purchased the Union Carbide Company and, supposedly, assumed Union Carbide’s liabilities. However, the leadership at Dow Chemical refuses to acknowledge the company’s responsibility in one of the largest industrial catastrophes in history. Instead, they continually take steps to draw the public eye away from this and other catastrophes they have caused (e.g. Agent Orange, Napalm), most recently with their $30 million “Human Element” PR campaign.

The local government charged Warren Anderson, Union Carbide’s CEO at the time, with manslaughter, but all of the involved parties from Union Carbide Company have failed to appear in court in both India and the United States. Anderson, who had been in hiding until recently, was found living a luxurious life in the Hamptons and no attempt has been made to extradite him.

While corporate wrongdoers evade justice, the state government has refused to distribute aid from the Indian national government to affected people in Bhopal. They have resisted the national government’s demands that pipelines be built to carry safe drinking water to the area. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the city are forced to continue drinking horribly contaminated water. Most of Bhopal’s inhabitants are poor Muslims, a fact that may contribute to the Hindu state government’s apparent apathy.

The world must continue to demand justice for the people of Bhopal. People like Anderson should not be allowed to hide from the consequences of their actions behind their wealth. No child should be forced to drink breast milk and water that contains lead and cyanide, among other unknown chemicals (Dow maintains that the composition of the poison is a trade secret). Corruption should not keep clean water out of reach of those who need it most.

On Tuesday, Feb. 20, survivors of the disaster will begin a hunger strike to pressure their state government to use the money allocated by the Indian national government to build a pipeline for clean water. In support, Amnesty International will have letters to the state government and a photo petition to Dow Chemical available at the Campus Center and MoCon at lunch and at 9:30 p.m. in Olin. Contact Betty at ekolod@wesleyan.edu for more information on supporting Bhopali chemical disaster survivors or human rights in general.