Dear Members,
I am getting a large no. of request for re-sending the Attachment of Bhopal PMO files.pdf. Since the file is large enough it is not attached. Therefore, pl. click on the link
http://groups.google.com/group/bharat-chintan/files?hl=en_IN
and you will get the Bhopal PMO files.pdf Click, download and read. In case of further problem pl. let me know.
vns
–
Dr.V.N.Sharma
This is being sent to you through an initiative in Bhopal with the request to sign on please – by June 15, 2010. (Please circulate on your lists).
It will be delivered to the President by colleagues in the US.
Vinod Raina
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Mr. Barack Obama
President
United States of America
Dear President Obama,
With a great deal of interest we have been following your tough stand against British Petroleum for the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico, particularly your demand to know whose ‘ass needs to be kicked’. We think your demand for corporate accountability for causing huge environmental damages is worthy of emulation by other governments around the World.
May we draw your attention to a bigger disaster that took place in the city of Bhopal in India in December 1984 that has officially killed over 15,000 people (about 25,000 people unofficially) and seriously injured nearly half a million people by now (the situation after twenty five years is attached for ready reference). This disaster was caused by another mega corporate entity called Union Carbide, headquartered in the United States of America, unlike BP that belongs to Great Britain.
Through ‘friendly’ interventions of the Reagan administration that ruled the US in 1984, not only was Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide sent back from India even though he was arrested and cases were registered against him and the Union Carbide, but similar overtures resulted in all criminal cases against Union Carbide to be dropped in a shameful out of court settlement for a paltry US$470m. Twenty six years later, the local court in Bhopal, fettered by these collusive legal manipulations could at best convict six Indian officials of the Union Carbide India Limited for two years of jail, for which all the accused were given instant bail. The parent company based in the US, against whom charges exist in Indian Courts, is unanswerable. So no one pays for the death of over 15,000 people! Another giant US corporate, Dow Chemicals, that bought Union Carbide some years ago refuses to accept its liability for cleaning up the toxic wastes at the closed factory, that is still harming citizens of Bhopal, mainly from water that is contaminated with leached poisons stored in the abandoned factory.
Is it too much to expect that you use the same yardsticks of accountability you are using for BP for the terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, for corporations based in the country you rule?. Whose ‘ass’ should the citizens of Bhopal kick if governments selectively shield their corporations and officials from legal accountability? How would you react, for example, if because of the pressure of the British media that is asking Prime Minister Cameron to stand up to you, Mr. Cameron made a ‘friendly overture’ to you to back off from ‘kicking anyone’s ass’, meaning British Petroleum’s? If you wouldn’t back off, then consistent with your stand, the citizens of Bhopal and the whole World demand from you that:
1. You signal/order that judicial processes be allowed, both in the US and India, to take their
course in fixing responsibility of corporations and individuals of the US, responsible
for the Bhopal carnage; dismantling the manipulative obstacles put up in these intervening
years. This is necessary to restore the subverted system of justice.
2. You set processes in motion that make Dow Chemicals own up their responsibility for
cleaning up the toxic mess that resides in the closed factory they now own.
3. You work with the same sense of collaboration with the Indian government on this issue to
provide justice and proper compensation to Bhopal victims, that you proclaim you have
achieved with the Indian government on the issue of ‘global terrorism’.
Yours sincerely,
1. Abdul Jabbar – Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (biggest organisation
of Bhopal gas victims)
2. Vinod Raina – a resident of Bhopal
.
.
(cc: Prime Minister of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh)
