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Bhopal 15 years on: NGOs decry 'sacrifice of people and environment at the altar of free trade and profits'

Several social organisations today demanded that the central government set up a national commission on Bhopal to respond to the demands of the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster. Today marks the 15th anniversary.

About 20,000 people died over a period of five years, 3,000 of them on the day of the accident, when killer gas methyl-icocynate leaked out from a chemical tank inside the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal.

The government must make public a clear statement of accounts of the money it claims to have spent on relief and rehabilitation. It must account for the interest it is earning on the settlement sum that was arrived at by the Supreme Court, government of India and the Union Carbide Corporation, activists demanded.

The organisations said the government must compel Union Carbide to release the composition of chemicals and become an active participant in determining curative measures for those who survive.

Some 500,000 victims continue to suffer countless multi-systematic injuries like mental and physical suffering, breathlessness, diminished vision, menstrual irregularities, recurrent fever, persistent cough and neurological disorders.

To prove its commitment towards the survivors of the disaster, the government must evolve and monitor courses of treatment being offered to the gas survivors, both in public and private hospitals.

The organisations said the findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research's 24 research projects on Bhopal should be made public immediately.

The government must also conduct a full fledged inquiry into the Bhopal Hospital scam and bring the beneficiaries to book. They alleged that the single member Bhopal Hospital Trust set up in London by Union Carbide had siphoned off Rs 117 million from India between 1995 and 1997 instead of providing relief to the survivors.

"It is clear that the people of Bhopal have not given up, and neither can we. The significance of Union Carbide disaster extends well beyond Bhopal. At the turn of the century, global corporations have emerged as major agents of destruction, with an ideology that condones the sacrifice of people and environment at the altar of free trade and profits,'' a joint statement released by various non-government organisations said.

UNI

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