|
July 15, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
July 12, 2002
Sean Donahue
The Other
Harken Energy Scandal: Oil, Death Squads
and Colombia
Walt Brasch
Sin Tax
Scam
"Psst. Cigarettes. A Buck Each."
Steve Perry
A Tale
of Two Twits
Wall Street Burns, Bush Fiddles, But Where's Wellstone?
July 11, 2002
Lloyd Marbet
Arrested
by the Chamber
of Commerce
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
July 10, 2002
CounterPunch Wire
Third Party
Woes
South Carolina Denies Kevin Alexander Gray Ballot Status
Nassar Ibriham &
Majed Nassar
Bush's
Middle East Plan: Always Changing, Never Changing
Robert Fisk
Ain't That
America:
A Strange Kind of Freedom
Dave Marsh
The Return
of CREEP:
Record Cartel Accounting
Bernard Weiner
Hope and
Despair in
the Body Politic
Gary Leupp
European
Worries and
Bush's Terror War
July 9, 2002
St. Clair / Cockburn
The Atomic
Clock is Ticking:
All Roads Lead to Yucca Mtn.
Jack McCarthy
Florida:
a Terrorist Sanctuary for Bush's Bloody Pals?
Robert Fisk
How a Saudi
Billionaire
Does Beirut
Stanton and Madsen
God, Incorporated
Kurt Nimmo
IDF, Gangbanging
with Tanks
Bill Christison
Disastrous
Foreign Policies
of the US Part 3:
What Can We Do About It?
July 8, 2002
Rick Mercier
Yucca
Mountain Bound
Lev Grinberg
The
BUSHARON Global War
Tariq Ali
How Bush
Used 9/11 to Remap the World
Lori Allen
The Tugs
of War:
Palestinian Life Under Curfew
July 7, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
White
House Crooks
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
July
15, 2002
Justice for Bhopal
Corporate Crimes and their Bodycount
by Rahul Mahajan
Recently, Americans have been focused on corporate
crimes that cheated stockholders and taxpayers out of money to
benefit executives and politicians.
This week we must focus on a crime that
cost thousands their lives, as executives and politicians try
to cut a deal to escape what little accountability remains.
To persuade us of its importance, Rashida
Bi -- one victim of that corporate crime -- is risking her life
on hunger strike (click
here for constant updates on the hunger strike, as well as details
about the strikers' demands.)
The story began goes back to the 1984
Union Carbide accident in Bhopal, India, which released a cloud
of methyl isocyanate (MIC), hydrogen cyanide, and other toxins.
Somewhere between 4000 and 8000 people died at the time, and
victims' advocates estimate that in total over 20,000 have died
as a result of this largest industrial accident
ever, with 150,000 suffering continuing injuries and medical
problems.
The cause was extreme corporate malfeasance.
The plant was not up to minimal Union Carbide safety standards
-- large quantities of MIC were unwisely stored in a heavily
populated area, the refrigeration unit for the MIC (which is
supposed to kept at temperatures below 32 F) was deliberately
kept turned off to save $40 per day in Freon costs, the safety
systems were dismantled, and the alarm system was turned off.
This even though the same plant had earlier suffered potentially
lethal accidental releases of gases like the deadly nerve agent
phosgene. Both civil and criminal charges were filed, including
a charge of culpable homicide against Warren Anderson, then Carbide's
CEO.
The civil case was settled, after extreme
obstructionism on the part of Carbide, for a paltry $470 million
-- a few hundred dollars each for victims still suffering a nightmarish
array of cancer, tuberculosis, severe birth defects, reproductive
and menstrual abnormalities, eye problems, and more. The settlement,
reached without consulting the victims, was so favorable that
when it transpired Carbide's stock jumped two points.
Carbide's callousness is so extreme that
it has disclosed neither the exact chemical composition of the
gas cloud, calling it a "trade secret," nor the results
of its own medical studies on the effects of MIC. As a result,
the few doctors available to help the victims have great difficult
working out the best methods of treatment.
The U.S. government has consistently
refused to honor its own extradition treaty with India, which
requires it to send Anderson to be tried in India for his reckless
indifference to human life.
Dow Chemical, which acquired Union Carbide
in 2001, refuses to admit any liability for Carbide's actions.
Dow also plans to mass-market Dursban, a product banned by the
EPA in 2000 because it can cause severe neurological damage (especially
to children), to Indians
as a household insecticide.
This happy state of affairs, however,
is not enough for Dow. It has also pressured the Vajpayee government
in India to reduce the charges on Anderson and others from "culpable
homicide" to "hurt by negligence," a non-extraditable
offense -- and also to use part of the pathetically low compensation
to victims for cleanup of the area, shifting liability from the
polluter to the victims of the pollution. The final decision
on some charges will be made on July 17.
Rashida, another victim named Tara Bai,
and activist Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Action
and Information are ready to fast to the death to prevent these
moves. Although the fast is just into its third week, because
of the extreme heat in Delhi and the crippling effects of gas
injuries, Rashida and Tara are failing fast.
The fast is also intended to draw world
attention to the continuing exigent circumstances of Carbide's
victims. For years, none of the victims had access to any sustained
affordable medical care. More recently, the Sambhavna
trust, a nonprofit NGO, provides some care to about 10,000,
barely 6% of the total number of surviving victims. At least
5000 families must still regularly drink water contaminated by
mercury and roughly a dozen volatile organic compounds as a result
of the accident.
It is easy to focus on the shameful complicity
of the Indian government, which has consistently shown more interest
in courting foreign investors than in the health of its citizens
-- and activists
are calling for Americans to complain to the Indian ambassador.
It's also clear that Dow must be held accountable.
But let's not forget the actions of our
own government, which consistently goes to bat for U.S. corporations,
no matter how disgusting their actions. Enron was a major beneficiary,
with both Clinton and Bush officials on numerous occasions pressuring
India, Mozambique, Argentina, and countless other countries into
signing sweetheart
deals that benefited Enron stockholders and not their own people.
Enron was hardly unusual, however; U.S.
corporations count on this kind of coercion in their international
dealings. Although this latest initiative is still new, and there
is as yet no direct evidence in the news that U.S. government
officials are running interference for Dow, whatever we find
out later -- presumably after the hunger strikers are dead --
will hardly come as a surprise, with the most pro-corporate administration
in U.S. history currently in power.
Recent scandals make it very clear that
we are governed by politicians who are little more than corporate
shills, enriching themselves as they defraud the public. This
is no mere matter of individuals, but a cancer at the heart of
our political system. Rashida and her associates remind us that
these scandals are not just about ill-gotten gains for a few
folks like George W. Bush. They have a body count.
Rahul Mahajan
is the Green Party candidate
for Governor of Texas. He is a member of the Nowar
Collective and serves on the National Board of Peace Action.
He is the author of "The
New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism. His other work can
be seen at http://www.rahulmahajan.com
He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca
Today's Features
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|