Nearly 20 years after the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, known as the "Hiroshima of the chemical industry," it remains the worst industrial disaster in human history.

Shortly after midnight on 3rd December 1984, a pesticide factory owned by Union Carbide spewed poison gas out across the sleeping city of Bhopal, killing thousands. How many thousands, no one knows. Carbide says 3,800. Municipal workers who picked up bodies with their own hands, loading them onto trucks for burial in mass graves or to be burned on mass pyres, reckon they shifted at least 15,000 bodies. Survivors, basing their estimates on the number of shrouds sold in the city, conservatively claim about 8,000 died in the first week. Such body counts become meaningless when you know that the dying has never stopped.

Remembers Aziza Sultan, a survivor: "At about 12.30 am I woke to the sound of my baby coughing badly. In the half light I saw that the room was filled with a white cloud. I heard a lot of people shouting. They were shouting 'run, run'. Then I started coughing with each breath seeming as if I was breathing in fire. My eyes were burning."

In those apocalyptic moments no one knew what was happening. People simply started dying in the most hideous ways. Some vomited uncontrollably, went into convulsions and fell dead. Others choked to death, drowning in their own body fluids. Many were crushed in the stampedes through narrow gullies where street lamps burned a dim brown through clouds of gas.

"The force of the human torrent wrenched children's hands from their parents' grasp. Families were whirled apart," reported the Bhopal Medical Appeal in 1994. "The poison cloud was so dense and searing that people were reduced to near blindness. As they gasped for breath its effects grew ever more suffocating. The gases burned the tissues of their eyes and lungs and attacked their nervous systems. People lost control of their bodies. Urine and feces ran down their legs. Women lost their unborn children as they ran, their wombs spontaneously opening in bloody abortion."

Those who lived through "that night" know better than anyone that Carbide's greed had doomed them from the start. In order to retain control of its Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide decided to reduce the amount of its proposed investment in the Bhopal plant from $28 million to $20.6 million, and this meant the use of “unproven” and “untested” technologies. When the plant, which never reached its full capacity, began to lose money, the company systematically cut costs by compromising on safety and maintenance systems. Although these decisions contributed directly to the disaster—on the night of the gas leak, not one of six safety systems were functional—the company cynically blamed the disaster on an unnamed “disgruntled worker” in an attempt to shield itself from public outrage. Indeed, even 20 years later, Union Carbide and its new owner Dow Chemical continue to cling to this outrageous and unproven “blame the workers” defense.

Yet when the Independent speaks of "rape", the Guardian of "disgrace" and Jon Snow of "a crime against humanity", they are not talking about THAT NIGHT -- but of what has happened since to those who survived it. Today, 20 years after the disaster, more than 120,000 people in Bhopal are still ill. Their breathless bodies no longer able to push handcarts and lift heavy loads, thousands have fallen into destitution and their families have learned the lessons of the abyss, giving children unable to sleep from hunger water to fill their empty bellies. Fifteen to thirty people continue to die in Bhopal each month because of their gas exposure, contributing to a death toll now well over 20,000.

Carbide fled India after the disaster, leaving behind a site so contaminated that its chemicals have seeped into the drinking water for 20,000 Bhopalis, poisoning those Carbide first poisoned 20 years ago. And although two courts in the United States and India continue to hear arguments in the case, both Carbide and Dow continue to claim that they retain no liability related to Bhopal. This oft-repeated refrain is particularly galling to the survivors, who have been waiting 15 years for Union Carbide and its former CEO, Warren Anderson, to answer a summons and appear to face criminal charges of “culpable homicide” or manslaughter. If convicted, Anderson faces 10 years in prison for his crimes; Carbide, a fine which has no upper limit. Both the corporation and the man are considered international fugitives from justice by the Indian Government.

The Campaign
Yet for the past two decades, some of the poorest people on earth, sick, living on the edge of starvation, illiterate, without funds, powerful friends or political influence, have continued struggling against one of the world's biggest and richest corporations, backed by the government, military, and, it often seems, even the judiciary of the world's most powerful nation.

The corporation and its allies have it all - wealth, power, political influence, lawyers, PR companies, the ear of presidents and prime ministers, the power to bend policy to their will, and manipulate the courts and laws of two countries to avoid justice in either.

The 'nothing people' have literally nothing. If thirty-five thousand of them clubbed together they could not afford one American attorney. Their efforts to obtain justice have been thwarted in every way possible by the corporation that killed their families and ruined their lives. Naively trusting that the Indian government would come to their rescue, they were instead abandoned, sold down the river by politicians and judges, obstructed and swindled by corrupt bureaucrats, cheated by unscrupulous quacks and not infrequently beaten by their own police for daring to complain.

The campaign itself has been conducted on the most unequal terms. On one side, multi-million dollar budgets and the best professional brains money can buy - armies of corporate lawyers, political lobbyists, spindoctors and media manipulators (including Burson Marstellar, the world's biggest PR company) - on the other a handful of unpaid volunteers often without money for stamps, photocopying, telephone bills, or travel.

It's David against an army of Goliaths.

Yet the campaign for justice continues, and as it prepares to mark its 20th anniversary it can celebrate more victories this year than ever before. In March, the Indian Supreme Court ordered the state government of Madhya Pradesh to begin supplying safe drinking water to the 20,000 Bhopali residents exposed to Carbide’s deadly chemicals on a daily basis. In July, the same court ordered the immediate distribution of $370 million in compensation, left for fifteen years in the hands of the Indian Government, to the survivors. In April, Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, two leaders of a women’s trade union of gas-affected stationary workers, were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for the environment”, for their work as leaders of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. And most significantly for the campaign and international law, the Indian Government was forced to buckle under the pressure of thousands of faxes, emails and phone calls from our international supporters, and issue a “no objection” statement, which allows the Southern District Court of New York to order Union Carbide to clean up the factory site it abandoned in India 20 years ago.

The international solidarity we’ve received has allowed the Bhopal Campaign to win some important victories, but there’s still much work to be done. Our demands of Dow and Carbide include a comprehensive cleanup of the site, medical treatment and alternative employment for those who need it, and justice—Carbide and its former CEO should answer the summons of the Indian Government and stand trial. This December 3rd will mark the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, and to mark the event we’re organizing a Global Day of Action for Justice in Bhopal, and against corporate crime. Your solidarity is welcome and needed—please visit the website of the campaign, at www.bhopal.net, to read more about the Day of Action, look over the list of action ideas, and register.

The Bhopal Campaign is one of the longest-running and most important struggles against corporate crime in the world. Despite the horror of "that night" and the chemical terror that its survivors have endured, the people of Bhopal continue their struggle for justice, for corporate accountability, and for their basic human right to an environment free of chemical poisons. The outcome will have lasting implications for the future of globalization, the labor and environmental movements, and the health and well-being of the people of Bhopal.

The only memorial ever built in Bhopal was privately funded, designed by a survivor of the Holocaust. In bold letters, the inscription reads, “NO HIROSHIMA, NO BHOPAL, WE WANT TO LIVE.” With your help and that of others, the justice that has been so long delayed in Bhopal cannot be denied.

Ryan Bodanyi is the Student Coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

Related Articles and Links:
www.bhopal.net
www.studentsforbhopal.org
www.bhopal.org