24 July 2004	Saturday	06 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

NEW DELHI: This week's judgment by India's Supreme Court, ordering further payment of compensation to the victims of the Bhopal disaster, highlights the continuing and abiding relevance of bringing justice to the victims of the world's worst-ever industrial accident.

But nearly 20 years after the December 1984 tragedy, the pursuit of justice has been a race against time - and growing human suffering. Since the gas leak disaster, the death toll has risen five- fold from 3,000 to 15,310, according to the latest official figures.

At least 100,000 people continue to suffer in the central Indian city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh state, from multiple disabilities and persistent damage, especially to their lungs, other organs and immune systems.

The additional compensation amount ordered by the court on July 19, totalling barely 330 million US dollars, will be distributed among some 550,000 claimants. Each will get an average of just 600 dollars, an unspeakably paltry sum by any standards.

This will be an addition of 80 per cent over what has already been disbursed by way of compensation agreed under a 1989 out-of- court-settlement between the Indian government and Union Carbide Corporation of the United States, which was responsible for the catastrophic release of 60,000 kilograms of extremely toxic chemicals from the Bhopal pesticides plant in 1984.

The abysmally low compensation of 1,000 dollars for acute injuries and grave and persistent chronic disorders as well as prolonged suffering for many of the victims, and the long delay in its disbursal, speak of the abject failure of India's justice delivery system and its medical relief set-up.

They highlight gross North-South inequalities and the difficulty of bringing rogue corporations to book, especially in the Third World, for gross malfeasance, for causing harm on a mass scale, and for outright criminality.

Yet, Bhopal is also a story of a dogged, persistent and heroic struggle by the victims, most of them wretchedly poor. They are still pursuing Carbide and its successor Dow Chemicals in the courts in the United States and India.

They faced many setbacks. The US courts sent the original suit to India. The callous Indian government repeatedly betrayed the victims after promising to help them. The medical relief and treatment apparatus set up for the victims proved appallingly callous and ineffectual.

Worst of all, the government reached a settlement with Union Carbide which let it off the liability hook for a measly sum: a total of just 470 million dollars - less than a sixth of the amount originally demanded by the government, and barely half of the value of Carbide's insurance cover.

If Bhopal's first tragedy was caused by the release of toxic gases from Carbide plant due to flawed plant design and criminally negligent operating practices, the second tragedy was triggered by the patently unjust settlement.

It showed that the Indian government colluded with Carbide and other corporate interests, and the US government. It had little hesitation in sacrificing the interests of some of its most underprivileged citizens, the gas victims, for the cause of closer Indo-US relations, "investor confidence", "the right investment climate" and "market sentiment".

Only a bad, unequal and unjust compromise would have settled for a mere 470 million dollars for all the claims for the 3,000- plus dead and 150,000-plus injured, about half of them seriously - to the point of suffering life-long disability.

Even by Indian standards, the sum should have been four or six times higher. In a US court, the damages would have run into tens of billions of dollars and instantly thrown Carbide into bankruptcy.

It was precisely to evade trial in the United States that Carbide pleaded 'forum non conveniens' (inconvenient forum). The suit was sent to India. The government did not handle it well. It had taken over individual suits filed by the victims under the doctrine of state as parent (or protector) of people.

Four years into the litigation, it sold the interests of its wards into the river. Bhopal's third tragedy followed. The authorities allowed the claimants' number to be bloated five-fold, through bogus documents. The real victims, those who have suffered extensive health damage and sustained serious disabilities were thus marginalized.

Claims were settled on arbitrary criteria and through forced bribery. Instead of categorising victims according to severity of exposure and health damage, just two classes were made: death and injury. Ninety-five per cent of the victims received a disgraceful 330 dollars for a lifetime of injury.

Meanwhile, the government has done its best not to seriously pursue criminal charges against Carbide officials - despite the Supreme Court's direction to the contrary. For 12 years, the government has failed to serve an arrest warrant on former Carbide chairman Warren Anderson, falsely - and preposterously - claiming that his whereabouts are unknown.

Underlying this disgraceful state of affairs is a deep pathology of the Indian power elite with its profound apathy, even contempt, toward the underprivileged. This is compounded by acute social disparities, and greed and corruption in state and society.

Anything between a third and one-half of the average 330- dollar compensation that the claimants received probably went toward bribery and repaying debts.

These confronted Bhopal's victims with near-insuperable odds. But they have struggled for justice with a deep commitment and unshakeable faith. Thousands of demonstrations, marches, vigils and hunger strikes have kept alive the Bhopal agenda for justice.

The victims also moved a US federal court in New York with a new suit under the Alien Torts Claims Act, which gives civil remedies for criminal acts committed overseas. That court has held Dow Chemicals, which took over Carbide's assets, responsible for environmental damage not covered by the 1989 settlement.

Dow will have to pay for cleaning up the Bhopal plant of the large toxic residues that remain there. It must compensate people who have been forced to consume water contaminated by these residues, as it must pay for the health monitoring of the affected people.

The victims and their organisations are also exploring other legal forums in the United States and India to bring Carbide/Dow to justice. Whether they succeed or not, the victims' spirit has proved indomitable.

They have empowered themselves through collective struggle, reaffirmed their moral agency, and recovered their human dignity - unlike US corporate interests or the Indian elite. -Dawn/The InterPress News Service.