Remembering the Bhopal victims
December 2004 marked the 20th anniversary of the World’s worst industrial disaster, in Bhopal, India which left some 5000 people dead in its immediate aftermath of 72 hours. That figure has doubled, and according to some estimates even tripled and more, in the two decades since then. Half a million people have been permanently disabled. In terms of human suffering, Bhopal was unparalleled until the December 2005 Tsunami.
The twenty years since the Bhopal carnage has witnessed a heroic but vain struggle for justice on the part of the Bhopal victims. The lessons learned from such struggle must help ensure that the Tsunami victims do not suffer a similar fate.
The response to Bhopal, both governmental and nongovernmental; from the legal profession and the media reveals many lessons it would be tragic to ignore:
Deny and downplay: Both killer multinational Union Carbide and local and national government repeatedly were misleading about the seriousness of the disaster and about its human toll.
- Procrastinate and prevaricate: Till today, killer Carbide has refused to disclose its corporate information about the toxic effects of the deadly chemicals it was working with. Truth was ravaged by a shameful parade of diversionary strategies including sabotage theories.
- Blame the victims: notably a mythical disgruntled worker turned saboteur.
- A life is a life: but some lives are worth more than others. This was the guiding principle explicit in killer Carbide’s legal strategy and in the thinking of the judge when the case reached the U.S.
- Match crocodile tears with acts of heartless callousness: notably by imposing an insultingly inadequate “settlement”, against their will upon the victims through a corrupt and unholy alliance between corporate power and government, generously aided and abetted by some of the doyens of the legal profession.
- They do it with mirrors: thanks to media co-optation and complicity a huge human tragedy slips into invisibility except on occasions such as the 20th anniversary.
- Relief, rehabilitation and compensation are inextricably linked with power, patronage and submission.
- Rehabilitation and development schemes degenerate into instruments of control, domination and exploitation.
- Business as usual replaces the spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and the deep wellsprings of human concern that typified the initial response to the disaster.
- Accountability remains forever elusive.
Honoring the Tsunami victims:
Bhopal pales by comparison with the death, destruction and devastation of human lives and livelihoods that has been wrought by the recent Tsunami. The response from individuals, civil society, most governments and the international community has been heartwarming and restores one’s faith in humanity. But if such fate is not to gradually turn into despair, post-Tsunami relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, development, and creation of international mechanisms for prevention, warning and response must heed the lessons learned from Bhopal and strive to ensure:
“The truth shall set you free”: Denial and downplay must be replaced by candor and comprehensiveness in both ascertaining and informing what happened (the true scale of the toll); why ( in terms of warning, bureaucratic response and truth-telling); what is being done ( by way of relief , rehabilitation and reconstruction); for whom; and why.
- The recovery of truth: This must be achieved through local, national and international solidarity and co-operation. Procrastination and prevarication must not be allowed to hamper local, national and international efforts to recover the truth: the full truth and nothing but the truth.
- Respecting the victims: their dignity, their autonomy and authority. It is crucial that victims both individual and collective not be patronized, condescended, or even worse disempowered, dominated and exploited: either willfully or unwittingly.
- A life is a life: deaths of foreigners are indeed as tragic as those of locals and demand attention in the media, but no more so.
- Wanton callousness or disinterest: must not be the inevitable result of the passage of time which inevitably brings new problems, new demands and new priorities. “To live and let die” is not an acceptable response.
- Life in a goldfish bowl: is what the IT revolution makes possible. Media needs to make full and effective use of such technology to ensure transparency, not just in the months ahead but over the long-haul. Transparency must be seen as key to truth, compassion, and accountability.
- Nondiscrimination, equity and justice: must be principles strictly adhered to in all activities of relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development.
- The will of the victims must be the basis of the authority of all activities of relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. The victims must be allowed to take the lead in all activities from recovery of truth; through determination of needs and setting of priorities; and design, implementation and evaluation of responses.
- Business can not be as usual: Multinational corporations and hegemonic super powers must not be allowed to hover as vultures over the scene of human carnage, converting reconstruction into prime opportunities for corruption and fraud. Governments, local authorities and entrepreneurs must not be allowed to convert human tragedy into an opportunity for amassing windfall wealth or consolidating control, domination and exploitation.
Accountability: must not only be a hallmark characteristic but also a primary objective of whatever post-Tsunami international mechanism is created for prevention, warning and response.
The victims of Bhopal and the 2005 Tsunami hunger and thirst for justice. For those who seek to ensure that they shall have their fill, it behooves us not to go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Clarence J. Dias
January 22, 2005.
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