Bhopal survivors awarded

Bhopal survivors awarded

Andrea Orr, Reuters, San Francisco, California

Twenty years after a Union Carbide gas leak killed 20,000 people
in Bhopal, India, two survivors have won a prestigious
environmental prize for fighting to hold the company and its
parent, Dow Chemical Co., accountable.

Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla were named on Monday in a
group of winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which
recognizes grass-roots environmental activists.

The two women will share a US$125,000 award, and said in an
interview they planned to use it to establish their own award in
India to recognize individuals who fight corporate crime.

Bee and Shukla, who lived within miles of the Union Carbide
plant in Bhopal, were recognized for organizing a global hunger
strike to help sustain international awareness of the lingering
effects of the disaster, and for fighting to get Dow Chemical to
pay for ongoing medical care of the survivors and their children,
as well as environmental cleanup.

Union Carbide became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical
in 1999, 15 years after the disastrous gas leak.

"The whole world wept, but then people forgot about Bhopal,"
Bee said. She and Shukla said they both suffer multiple health
problems including headaches, shortness of breath, burning
sensations, insomnia and bone pain.

In an interview with Reuters, Bee recalled the horrifying
winter night 20 years ago when she woke to the sound of her
nephew coughing and was surrounded by a toxic cloud.

"All of us started coughing," she said. "It was as though our
lungs were on fire. We started running and I had to pry my eyes
open to see. I saw mothers running and leaving their children
behind, people coughing up blood and (excrement) running down
their legs."

In addition to their own health problems, Bee and Shukla said
the community near Bhopal continues to see elevated rates of
cancer, anemia, and that women show high concentrations of toxins
in their breast milk.

"You can imagine the health of people who begin life with
poisoned milk," said Bee.

The two women said their efforts have helped persuade the
Indian government to pursue criminal charges against former Union
Carbide chairman Warren Anderson, who is now retired in New York
state.

They continue to seek more monetary damages from Dow Chemical.
Under terms of an original settlement, survivors received about
US$500 while relatives of those killed got about $2,000, they
said.

A spokeswoman for Dow Chemical said it had no involvement in
the Bhopal tragedy and considered the original terms of the
settlement between Union Carbide and the victims to be final.

Other winners of the 2004 Goldman Environmental Prize include
Margie Richard, who successfully led a campaign to get Royal
Dutch/Shell to pay for the relocation of people living near a
Shell Chemical plant in Norco, Louisiana.

In Africa, the prize was awarded to Rudolf Amenga-Etego of
Ghana, who worked to suspend a water privatization project that
would have limited access to clean drinking water.

South American social worker Libia Grueso Castelblanco won for
securing 2.4 million hectares in territorial rights for rural
communities in Colombia, where armed conflict and aggressive
development have displaced many people.

In Europe, Manana Kochladze won for fighting a multi-
corporation plan to build the world's largest oil pipeline
through Georgia. His work won concessions to protect villagers
and forced a larger examination of the project's environmental
and health impact.