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| Sunday, 17 February 2002 |
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Living through Bhopal by Satinath Sarangi Bob Berzok is your regular corporate exec with a three piece suit and lines on his face that come from libido worries. The first and only time I saw him, the Director of Public Relations for Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was through the plexi-glass screen in Texas state prison, Houston city. It was the middle of the night and from my freezing cell, I was brought into the visiting room because his company had realised that keeping us (two gas victims and myself) in jail on charges of criminal trespass would make bad PR. Bob was scared of bad PR. On the previous morning, UCC had got us arrested by cops they had hired to police the annual shareholders meeting at the Hyatt, for the simple act of distributing a fact sheet on Bhopal. "We are concerned about your suffering", said Bob, "I have the bail money with me and a limo waiting for you outside." "If your company is really concerned about human suffering," I said into the phone that connected us through the plexi-glass screen, looking into his eyes, "you would release all the medical information you have on the gases that leaked and are killing people in Bhopal to this day." I was watching for a change in his expression as he listened to my alien accent. Nothing happened. He repeated in words and tone exactly what he had just said. Where you and me have eyes, he had frozen cubes. He wished me a polite good night. Two years later in 1991, with my friend and comrade, T.R. Chouhan - a former plant operator in Bhopal Union Carbide - I met with Joseph Geoghen in New York city. Again a regular senior exec and Vice-President UCC, USA. He had a lawyer sitting either side of him and a secretary taking notes. To Joe I repeated the same request that I had made to Bob. "Your company is the inventor of industrial production of methyl isocyanate (MIC), one of the gases that leaked in Bhopal. You have been doing research on MIC and other chemicals and their effect on life systems for at east 30 years at your labs in Research Triangle Park, Raleigh. There is mention of at least 16 research studies that you have chosen not to publish, at least one of which is on 'human volunteers'. It does not cost you to give us the information you have generated over the years and for all one knows, this information may be vital in finding the painfully elusive 'proper line of treatment' for those exposed." While the lawyers whispered behind Joe, and Joe waited for their conclusion, Chouhan described for their benefit, the regularity with which samples of workers' blood, urine and other substances had been taken at the factory. These reports were never released. The lawyers had finished their discussion by then and one of them, the Indian guy, whispered into Joe's left ear. We got our answer: he advised us to contact the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for MSDS data sheets and to take out grievances to the Indian Government. With an accent as close to Joe's as I could manage and in as few words as possible, (because I could see he was getting impatient) I described the pain of a family from my neighbourhood in Bhopal, who had not known one day's respite from exposure-related illnesses and despite their extreme poverty had left no doctor or hospital unvisited. One of the lawyers indicated he had to catch a flight. I looked at Joe, Joe was looking at his watch. I knew I had little time. I appealed to him not to invoke the Trade Secrets Act and attempt to justify their continued and deliberate withholding of medical information. As politely as I could I reminded him that their denial of information was compounding the injuries they had caused - not only were they impeding development of specific therapies but they were also the direct cause of doctors prescribing drugs that were doing serious damage to peoples' bodies. When I think of the disaster and try to fathom the minds that decided that it was right and proper to produce one of the most toxic chemicals in the midst of populated settlements; to deliberately under-design the factory that would produce that chemical, and then, to direct a global 'economy drive' that, among other things, resulted in the shutting down of the refrigeration plant (to save Rs.700 per day) I draw a blank. In my generous moments I can see them just doing a job to send their children to the right school, have their wives look good at parties and keep up on the golf course. They didn't really know that a mega disaster would result from routine decisions taken as part of normal corporate practice, that of making a bigger profit than last year. When I think of the medical disaster that followed and is likely to continue for as long as you and I are alive, I have no generous way of thinking of the regular guys who are the principal authors of this tragedy. From the little that I know there was only one published paper on the health effects of MIC before the disaster. The only available information was held by UCC. They knew - and possibly know more now - about what MIC does in the acute and the chronic phase. They know what it does to the lungs, to the eyes, to the brain, to the reproductive cycle and other systems. They know that by withholding information, they are prolonging the suffering they began, compounding the injuries they originally caused. What Bob and Joe did was mislead people and doctors to think that MIC was nothing but a potent tear gas, scuttled the use of the only antidote known (sodium thiosulphate), send spin doctors and Pentagon toxicologists as specialists to help the Bhopal people, financially ruin the Red Cross Hospitals that were running in Bhopal and much more. Bob I hear has retired. What has become of Joe I don't know. Bob's Position has been renamed Corporate Communications Manager and is held by Tom Sprick. Mahesh Mathai, maker of the movie, Bhopal Express invited Tom to the New York premiere in April this year. Tom declined on behalf of UCC but assured Mahesh that "the tragedy continues to be a source of anguish for Union Carbide." Tom is just another guy with a normal career. How criminal could that career get, though? (Satinath Sarangi has been working with Bhopal gas affected people since the Union Carbide disaster on December 3, 1984.) (Credit: The Ecologist) |
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