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Union
Carbide plant in Bhopal
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By
IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, Sept 14 (IslamOnline) - As the world was busy commemorating the
devastating attacks of September 11, India’s ace photographer Raghu
Rai mounted an exhibition of some of the most stunning images of mass
death, not in New York or Washington, but in Bhopal (central India).
As
another exhibition of some of the most dramatic photographs of
September 11 attack by celebrated American photographers was on
somewhere else in New Delhi, Rai opened his exhibition of photographs
of Bhopal gas disaster of December 3, 1984.
On
that fateful night, 40 tons of lethal methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas
leaked out of the (American) Union Carbide pesticide factory in
Bhopal, killing 20,000 people and poisoning half a million others.
In
stark, black and white images of “burial of unknown children, mass
cremations, aborted foetuses, cluttered hospitals,” Rai brings out
the enormity of the crime of Union Carbide and the scale of the
tragedy that was far bigger than the September 11 attacks.
One
of the photographs in the exhibition shows women carrying placards
announcing “You want Osama, give us Anderson.” When pointed out
that the exhibition might detract from the September 11 events, Rai
explains, “What happened in New York is a universal tragedy, but the
world is full of too much suffering to contain just one dominating
tragedy.”
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Some
of the thousands of people struck by the gas leak
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Rai
says we must all join in search for Osama and bring him to justice.
“But will America deliver to the victims of Bhopal, Warren Anderson,
at the time Union Carbide’s CEO against whom the Bhopal court of
justice issued a warrant for culpable homicide?.” Anderson, an
American citizen, is at large. Reportedly he is hiding somewhere in,
out of all places, New York
Last
year, America’s Dow Chemicals bought Union Carbide, merging the two
companies. Dow-Carbide has not shown any interest in the Bhopal gas
tragedy, the greatest industrial disaster of history. This is in sharp
contrast to Dow’s acceptance of Union Carbide’s liabilities in
Texas, where they recently settled an asbestos-related lawsuit.
Large,
multinational companies like Dow-Carbide have a dual system of work,
under which they respect labour and environment laws in the West but
are indifferent to such laws in the Third World.
The
current exhibition, commissioned by Greenpeace, provides insight into
the devastation wrought on ordinary people for no fault of their own.
“What I saw was to change my life,” says Rai, winner of some of
the highest international awards in photography.
“It
was an unprecedented scene of chaos. What startled me was the silence
of death,” reminisces Rai, once the chief photographer of India’s
premier newsmagazine India Today.
“Thousands
of people had already died; thousands more than died in 11 September
attack on the World Trade Centre,” Rai says. He is concerned over
the multinational corporations shirking responsibility for people hurt
in the Third World because of their practices.
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Masked
protesters holding posters demanding repatriation of Carbide
chahirman Anderson
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“I
vowed then and there to work to show the world what happens when
corporations are not held liable for their operations, when they are
allowed to cut costs and safety standards when they operate abroad,”
Rai says.
Rai’s
photographs were earlier launched as a touring exhibition by
Greenpeace in Cape Town, South Africa in August to coincide with the
Earth Summit “to urge governments to commit to an international
agreement on corporate accountability and liability to stem the tide
of corporate environmental abuses.”
The
South African exhibition was supported by a Greenpeace report which
compiled cases of corporate crime from various industrial sectors,
including the chemical, forest, mining, genetic engineering, nuclear
and oil industries from different parts of the world.
Greenpeace
is working in India with a coalition of NGOs called Action Against
Corporate Crime and Toxic Terror. Rai has for the last several years
been associated with Magnum, an international agency specializing in
documentary and reportage photography.
