Australia’s Lynas Corp warned against any move by Malaysia’s political opposition to shut the company’s US$200 million (RM630 million) rare earths processing plant, saying today such action would deter other
The women widowed by the tragedy, live in the locality ironically named Vidhwa Colony, many of them barely getting barely a pension of Rs 150. Water is so toxic that none of us can imagine. Life remains the same for lakhs living in clusters like JP Nagar, Qainchi Chhola, Oriya Basti, Qazi Camp and numerous other slums-localities in the area around Union Carbide.
The compensation had to be distributed among around 1.5 lakh people who were gas affected in 1984-85. Them and their children together numbered nearly 2-3 lakh by the next decade.
However, to gain political mileage–the compensation that was meant only for the victims, was distributed in New City also, ahead of elections. Not many got compensation over Rs 1 lakh.
As a result the real victims got much less of what they would have otherwise got. Compensation was distributed among 5 lakh people. Though it was a pittance–just Rs 25,000. Had the 25,000-each given to 4 lakh-odd non-victims, kept for the gas victims, the real victims could have benefited.
But even this colossal human tragedy was communalised. In the aftermath of Babri Masjid-Ram Temple dispute, a campaign to get compensation to New Bhopal residents was launched. The hidden message was that it was the Muslim-majority Old Bhopal that had got money. Ironically, this was also untrue.
Though Walled City in Bhopal has a clear Muslim majority, the areas that were affected had a predominant Hindu population. Among the gas victims, over 62% were Hindus, who were migrant labourers and poor workers. But this ploy did work.
The Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemicals. There was a large quantity of poisonous waste in factory, which remains to this day. The factory had to be cleaned up, as the waste is polluting groundwater in the entire area, causing deadly diseases and producing generations that are frail and always ailing.
Bureaucrats made money, then lost interest
Bureaucrats including many senior IAS officers were interested in Gas Relief ministry and its projects as long as funding was there. When hospitals were being built, they were happy as contracts were awarded for everything from construction to buying of equipments, and they got ‘cut’. There was money in everything: even in calling companies to remove toxic waste remaining in factory.
When the hospitals were established, they lost interest–so what if doctors were not appointed and machines remained unused, even patients turned away, emergency and OPD kept shut at night–after all, there was no money for them now.
A strategy was devised to hush up each and every issue. Everytime a high-flying minister from Delhi would come, he would say that there was no waste, no pollutant and nothing needed. After all, the victims were mostly–poor, unable to fight cases, not like us–and could be ignored. READMORE http://muslimmalaysia786.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/was-najib-conned-lynas-hid-info-on-kuantan-plant-biggest-industrial-disaster-in-the-world-in-waiting-saharnuma-a-friend
foreign investmen like Anderson
Anderson sneered at the establishment that knelt before him; contempt is the umbilical chord of the colonial, or neo-colonial, relationship. The crux of the Bhopal tragedy is summed up in a few sentences uttered by Anderson as he was escorted out of India on December 7, 1984: “House arrest or no house arrest, or bail or no bail, I am free to go home…There is a law of the United States… India, bye bye, thank you.”
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
It is odd that the government should have chosen law and order as its final alibi after some exhausting self-laceration in its search for a credible explanation for the escape of Union Carbide’s Warren Anderson on December 7, 1984.
Why do we say “law and order” rather than “order and law”? Simple. Law comes before order. Law defines the nature of order. Law is the difference between civilization and chaos. Law is evolutionary: the edicts of tribes, chiefs and dynasties lifted human societies from scattered peril to structured coexistence. The laws of democracy have vaulted us to the acme of social cohesion, for they eliminated arbitrary diktat and introduced collective will. The divine right of kings is dead; it has been reborn as the secular right of an elected Parliament.
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
Unsurprisingly, foreign investmen
‘House or no house arrest’: he could not care a damn about those funny-looking policemen (in lathis and khaki shorts?) who had dared to arrest a pillar of the American corporate establishment. ‘Bail or no bail’: what was a rotten piece of paper signed in an Indian court worth to a lord of Wall Street? Not even the decency of silence. Anderson was publicly, even proudly, contemptuous of those who did not have the courage to interrupt his freedom for a mere industrial disaster in which a few thousand semi-slave Indians had been gassed to death within hours and thousands more would die over years.
‘House or no house arrest’: he could not care a damn about those funny-looking policemen (in lathis and khaki shorts?) who had dared to arrest a pillar of the American corporate establishment. ‘Bail or no bail’: what was a rotten piece of paper signed in an Indian court worth to a lord of Wall Street? Not even the decency of silence. Anderson was publicly, even proudly, contemptuous of those who did not have the courage to interrupt his freedom for a mere industrial disaster in which a few thousand semi-slave Indians had been gassed to death within hours and thousands more would die over years.
‘There is a law in the United States’: Anderson had twigged on to a basic truth that the law is a malleable reality for those who are “well-connected” in India. How could Anderson have respect for India’s law when those entrusted with its sanctity had defiled it? Anderson laughed at Indian law, and jeered at the Indian state. Compare this with the fact that his company was scared witless at the prospect of an American trial. Carbide fought hard, and successfully, with predictable help from a comprador Indian establishment, to shift the trial from America to India. Their subsequent collusion with Indian courts touched Supreme heights.
British Petroleum knew the perils of entanglement with American justice and shelled out within six weeks of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Big Oil (which is far bigger than Big Chemical) has been forced to put aside $20 billion for the repair of the environment after an ecological disaster that has not killed a single innocent human being. Technically, BP need not have paid more than $75 million. The first demand on Carbide, 26 years ago was for $15 billion. It has paid the equivalent of just one billion dollars (at today’s prices) for the death of nearly 20,000 people and the horrific maiming of over 100,000.
Barack Obama slipped on a bit of oil himself when the spill began. He thought playing to the gallery would subdue the clamour, while BP contained the damage. He upped the ante (it became an environmental 9/11) even while his National Guard helped BP by hiding affected bird-life from media cameras. Obama began to taunt the British in British Petroleum, perhaps because he found it easier to attack a nation than a multinational; but public opinion was not to be mollified by rhetoric.
BP paid America out of fear, not because of a demand order from its conscience. Carbide had nothing to fear, and never possessed a conscience. QED. BP will not pay a dividend this year. Carbide paid a dividend even after Bhopal.
‘India, bye bye, thank you’: those famous last Anderson words. Bye bye; this is a divorce, not a separation. There might be some alimony in it, but don’t start shopping until the cheque is in the bank.
Accusation is the easy exit route from Bhopal. Introspection will take us back to the beginning. Betrayal is impossible without trust. We did not trust Carbide to be honest. We trusted our political class, and it continues to search for new and inventive ways to betray us again.
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
It is odd that the government should have chosen law and order as its final alibi after some exhausting self-laceration in its search for a credible explanation for the escape of Union Carbide’s Warren Anderson on December 7, 1984.
Why do we say “law and order” rather than “order and law”? Simple. Law comes before order. Law defines the nature of order. Law is the difference between civilization and chaos. Law is evolutionary: the edicts of tribes, chiefs and dynasties lifted human societies from scattered peril to structured coexistence. The laws of democracy have vaulted us to the acme of social cohesion, for they eliminated arbitrary diktat and introduced collective will. The divine right of kings is dead; it has been reborn as the secular right of an elected Parliament.
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
Unsurprisingly, Anderson sneered at the establishment that knelt before him; contempt is the umbilical chord of the colonial, or neo-colonial, relationship. The crux of the Bhopal tragedy is summed up in a few sentences uttered by Anderson as he was escorted out of India on December 7, 1984: “House arrest or no house arrest, or bail or no bail, I am free to go home…There is a law of the United States… India, bye bye, thank you.”
‘House or no house arrest’: he could not care a damn about those funny-looking policemen (in lathis and khaki shorts?) who had dared to arrest a pillar of the American corporate establishment. ‘Bail or no bail’: what was a rotten piece of paper signed in an Indian court worth to a lord of Wall Street? Not even the decency of silence. Anderson was publicly, even proudly, contemptuous of those who did not have the courage to interrupt his freedom for a mere industrial disaster in which a few thousand semi-slave Indians had been gassed to death within hours and thousands more would die over years.
‘There is a law in the United States’: Anderson had twigged on to a basic truth that the law is a malleable reality for those who are “well-connected” in India. How could Anderson have respect for India’s law when those entrusted with its sanctity had defiled it? Anderson laughed at Indian law, and jeered at the Indian state. Compare this with the fact that his company was scared witless at the prospect of an American trial. Carbide fought hard, and successfully, with predictable help from a comprador Indian establishment, to shift the trial from America to India. Their subsequent collusion with Indian courts touched Supreme heights.
British Petroleum knew the perils of entanglement with American justice and shelled out within six weeks of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Big Oil (which is far bigger than Big Chemical) has been forced to put aside $20 billion for the repair of the environment after an ecological disaster that has not killed a single innocent human being. Technically, BP need not have paid more than $75 million. The first demand on Carbide, 26 years ago was for $15 billion. It has paid the equivalent of just one billion dollars (at today’s prices) for the death of nearly 20,000 people and the horrific maiming of over 100,000.
Barack Obama slipped on a bit of oil himself when the spill began. He thought playing to the gallery would subdue the clamour, while BP contained the damage. He upped the ante (it became an environmental 9/11) even while his National Guard helped BP by hiding affected bird-life from media cameras. Obama began to taunt the British in British Petroleum, perhaps because he found it easier to attack a nation than a multinational; but public opinion was not to be mollified by rhetoric.
BP paid America out of fear, not because of a demand order from its conscience. Carbide had nothing to fear, and never possessed a conscience. QED. BP will not pay a dividend this year. Carbide paid a dividend even after Bhopal.
‘India, bye bye, thank you’: those famous last Anderson words. Bye bye; this is a divorce, not a separation. There might be some alimony in it, but don’t start shopping until the cheque is in the bank.
Accusation is the easy exit route from Bhopal. Introspection will take us back to the beginning. Betrayal is impossible without trust. We did not trust Carbide to be honest. We trusted our political class, and it continues to search for new and inventive ways to betray us again. in the country. YOU AND
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
It is odd that the government should have chosen law and order as its final alibi after some exhausting self-laceration in its search for a credible explanation for the escape of Union Carbide’s Warren Anderson on December 7, 1984.
Why do we say “law and order” rather than “order and law”? Simple. Law comes before order. Law defines the nature of order. Law is the difference between civilization and chaos. Law is evolutionary: the edicts of tribes, chiefs and dynasties lifted human societies from scattered peril to structured coexistence. The laws of democracy have vaulted us to the acme of social cohesion, for they eliminated arbitrary diktat and introduced collective will. The divine right of kings is dead; it has been reborn as the secular right of an elected Parliament.
A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
Unsurprisingly, Anderson sneered at the establishment that knelt before him; contempt is the umbilical chord of the colonial, or neo-colonial, relationship. The crux of the Bhopal tragedy is summed up in a few sentences uttered by Anderson as he was escorted out of India on December 7, 1984: “House arrest or no house arrest, or bail or no bail, I am free to go home…There is a law of the United States… India, bye bye, thank you.”
‘House or no house arrest’: he could not care a damn about those funny-looking policemen (in lathis and khaki shorts?) who had dared to arrest a pillar of the American corporate establishment. ‘Bail or no bail’: what was a rotten piece of paper signed in an Indian court worth to a lord of Wall Street? Not even the decency of silence. Anderson was publicly, even proudly, contemptuous of those who did not have the courage to interrupt his freedom for a mere industrial disaster in which a few thousand semi-slave Indians had been gassed to death within hours and thousands more would die over years.
‘There is a law in the United States’: Anderson had twigged on to a basic truth that the law is a malleable reality for those who are “well-connected” in India. How could Anderson have respect for India’s law when those entrusted with its sanctity had defiled it? Anderson laughed at Indian law, and jeered at the Indian state. Compare this with the fact that his company was scared witless at the prospect of an American trial. Carbide fought hard, and successfully, with predictable help from a comprador Indian establishment, to shift the trial from America to India. Their subsequent collusion with Indian courts touched Supreme heights.
British Petroleum knew the perils of entanglement with American justice and shelled out within six weeks of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Big Oil (which is far bigger than Big Chemical) has been forced to put aside $20 billion for the repair of the environment after an ecological disaster that has not killed a single innocent human being. Technically, BP need not have paid more than $75 million. The first demand on Carbide, 26 years ago was for $15 billion. It has paid the equivalent of just one billion dollars (at today’s prices) for the death of nearly 20,000 people and the horrific maiming of over 100,000.
Barack Obama slipped on a bit of oil himself when the spill began. He thought playing to the gallery would subdue the clamour, while BP contained the damage. He upped the ante (it became an environmental 9/11) even while his National Guard helped BP by hiding affected bird-life from media cameras. Obama began to taunt the British in British Petroleum, perhaps because he found it easier to attack a nation than a multinational; but public opinion was not to be mollified by rhetoric.
BP paid America out of fear, not because of a demand order from its conscience. Carbide had nothing to fear, and never possessed a conscience. QED. BP will not pay a dividend this year. Carbide paid a dividend even after Bhopal.
‘India, bye bye, thank you’: those famous last Anderson words. Bye bye; this is a divorce, not a separation. There might be some alimony in it, but don’t start shopping until the cheque is in the bank.
Accusation is the easy exit route from Bhopal. Introspection will take us back to the beginning. Betrayal is impossible without trust. We did not trust Carbide to be honest. We trusted our political class, and it continues to search for new and inventive ways to betray us again.
An opposition member of Parliament for Kuantan, where the controversial plant is being built, yesterday told Reuters the opposition would stop the plant if it won elections expected to be called within months.
Lynas executive chairman Nicholas Curtis (picture)dismissed Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh’s view as only one view within what would make up the political coalition against the government and said the main opposition PAS party supported the Lynas plant.
“She is the only person who has come out and said that the opposition would potentially revoke (a licence). I do not consider the words of a known opponent to carry necessarily the PAS party position at all,” Curtis said, adding that he did not believe her view represented the PKR party’s policy either.
“It would certainly not be stable for foreign direct investment in Malaysia were that situation to occur,” he told analysts and reporters on a conference call.
Lynas is awaiting a temporary licence to start operating the rare earths plant and is expected to receive a decision from the Cabinet of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak next week, based on whether the plant meets safety standards for handling radioactive material.
“We look forward to hearing the final decision of the government in the very near future,” Curtis said, declining to comment on whether any conditions may be attached to the temporary licence.
The plant, which is 91 per cent complete and on track to be able to start producing in the June quarter, will process rare earths from Lynas’s Mount Weld mine in Australia.
The operation is key to breaking China’s grip on the supply or rare earths metals, crucial in high-tech and green products ranging from smartphones to hybrid cars.
Curtis said quotas imposed by China on rare earths exports as it deals with environmental problems at some domestic operations were likely to constrain supply for some time.
“We do expect that prices will continue to reflect a structural deficit in the market for a period of time to come,” Curtis said. — Reuters
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