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From Private Eye;
Bhopal: Another Poisonous Release.
Dow Chemicals, a company heavily criticised for the chemical weapons it supplied in the Vietnam War, is in trouble again - this time over the deaths of 20,000 people in India.
On 3 December it issued a press release headed: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION.
The position is that in 1984 a pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, owned by Union Carbide, sprung a leak. Poisonous gases and chemicals killed 5,000 people almost at once and another 15,000 (at least) when the chemicals seeped into the water supply. Union Carbide was later taken over by Dow.
The Dow press release quoted Michael D. Parker, Dow's president, as saying: "We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years. But that just isn't true. Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the corporation to admit its responsibility, so that the public can then decide on the best course of action, as is appropriate in any democracy. Unfortunately we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being clear about this has been a very big step".
The release also quoted Dow spokesperson Bob Questra as saying: "We understand the anger and hurt. But Dow does not and cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did, not only would we be required to expend many billions of dollars on clean-up and compensation- much worse the public could then point to Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took responsibility; why can't you?' Amoco, HP, Shell and Exxon all have ongoing problems that would just get much worse. We are unable to set this precedent for ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
The Eye assumed the press release was a spoof, a heartless satire on the hypocrisy of multinational companies. So we contacted Dow headquarters and asked if the release could possibly be authentic. Back came an immediate and irritated reply to the effect that of course the release was genuine and the company was proud of it. |
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