JOHANNESBURG, Aug 27: Victims of the world’s biggest industrial disaster denounced the Earth Summit on Tuesday as an attempt to “greenwash” the worst corporate crime in history as a court in Bhopal began hearing a landmark case into the mass poisoning.

An estimated 3,500 to 7,500 people were killed and more than half a million seriously injured when toxic gas leaked from a chemical factory in Bhopal, India, owned by the now defunct US company Union Carbide on the night of Dec 3, 1984.

Victims’ groups say that at least another 10,000 deaths have been linked to the leak.

Rasheeda Bi, who lost six members of her family in the disaster, slammed the UN summit which started in Johannesburg Monday as a farce which lent respectability to the culprit.

“This is a charade ... we had come with a lot of hope but now we find that it has been hijacked by multinationals, especially Dow Chemical Company,” which merged with Union Carbide on Feb 6, 2001, she said.

“This is a summit about protecting the environment and people. Dow has no role but has come nonetheless. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Amit Srivastava of CorpWatch India said Dow was trying to “greenwash the worst corporate crime in history,” adding: “William Stavropoulos, president of Dow Chemical, is partipating here as a member of the executive committee of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.”

Bi said: “In the United States, Dow had accepted the liabilities of Union Carbide through the merger. But it has not done so in India. These are double standards.”

A 715-million-dollar compensation payout from Union Carbide has been delayed by Indian bureaucracy and has not yet reached those affected by the leak, survivors said.

Hernandez said the amount was laughable.

“As for damages over a period of 18 years, the Indian victims say it is equal to a cup of tea every day.

“This is a summit about life, about hope. The delegates should arise from their stupor and stop skirting the issue of corporate crime.”

Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, said the Indian government had succumbed to pressure to allow former Union Carbide boss Anderson to become a “roaming terrorist”.

“The government has sold out to multinationals,” he said.

Victims say congenital defects, infertility in women and other health and mental problems have been rife in Bhopal since the tragedy.

But activists at Johannesburg said all was not lost.

Sarangi said a hunger strike had recently started “involving our friends in 10 countries. Our American friend Diane Wilson scaled a Dow factory in Texas yesterday and planted a flag saying Dow was responsible for Bhopal. She was arrested.”

Bi said the victims would get justice one day.

“I say to you beat Dow with a broom,” she said raising a broom — the ultimate insult in India. “Dow beware, we will fight you, our children will fight you and their children will fight you.”—AFP