Bhopal mothers soldier on with their gas tragedy awareness drive

Two Bhopal mothers who won a prestigious award for their work raising international awareness of the gas tragedy in their city, have been visiting London to tell supporters what they intend to do with their money.

Champa Devi Shukla and Rashida Bee are joint winners of the $125,000 Goldman prize, known as the Nobel Prize for the environment. They say they intend to use the money to set up their own award in India for fighting corporate crime.

Champa's home was only a few minutes walk from the US-owned pesticide factory that leaked tons of lethal gas in 1984, killing an estimated 20,000 people.

She has one grandchild born with congenital deformities and lost her husband and her health.

Nineteen years after the disaster most survivors have received less than $500 of Union Carbide's $470 million compensation payout. Warren Anderson, the chief executive of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal tragedy, and Union Carbide itself remain fugitives from justice in India, on the run from charges of culpable homicide.

Union Carbide blames the leak on "employee sabotage" while Dow Chemical, which merged with Union Carbide in 2001, claims it has no responsibility for the disaster.

Last year Rashida and Champa, who have become powerful and passionate advocates for justice, presented brooms to Dow as part of their "Jharoo maro Dow ko" ( Beat Dow with a broomstick) campaign.

"We wanted to give them a clear message," Rashida told friends and supporters in London last week. "We took 5,000 used broomsticks from households in Bhopal with contaminated water and soil. Our message was 'if you don't take responsibility, we will sweep your business away from the face of the earth.'"

They subsequently confronted Dow officials at their offices in Mumbai and the Netherlands with hand delivered samples of toxic waste. The company responded with a $10,000 lawsuit citing "loss of business." Subsequently, a tour of more than 10 cities across the US led to protests, a hunger strike and a rally on Wall Street.

Students from colleges and universities organised rallies and thousands of people joined protests in the UK, China, Spain, Thailand and Canada.

Last month Rashida and Champa, along with other Bhopal survivors, went to Dow's annual shareholders' meeting in Michigan to support a resolution seeking a full disclosure of the disaster, warning of the "reputation risk" to the company if it continues to ignore Bhopal survivors' demands.

The resolution failed, but the campaigners intend to try again next year. In spite of two ongoing court cases, Dow still maintains that all liabilities were resolved in 1989 when Union Carbide paid $470 million to residents. Dow also said it examined the issue before the acquisition of Union carbide and found no outstanding liability.

Despite the rebuttal, Rashida has explained how Dow tried to portray campaigners and victims as unreasonable people with unreasonable demands. Such a portrayal, however, has only strengthened their resolve.

The women now want to raise awareness of the wider global implications of the case. "Bhopal was a disaster that happened overnight, and it should never happen again", Rashida told her friends here.

"Now there are slow Bhopals happening all over the world and we do not know the real truth about how many poisonous substances are affecting our environment."

Along with Champa and her fellow campaigners she is determined that the name of Bhopal will be kept alive, despite the strength of large corporations that seem to be more powerful than the US and Indian governments.

Her parting comments before returning home to India were, "We believe there is a lot to achieve just through the unity of ordinary people like us."