Bhopal: Thirty years on -- and still seeking justice

(The Atlantic - Focus)

BHOPAL (India) -- History's worst industrial disaster happened on the night of December 2, 1984. That night, toxic gas had leaked from a factory run by Union Carbide India Ltd spreading fumes over a large residential area in Bhopal. The media in Spain and many other countries have reflected on the fact that justice has never been served for the people of Bhopal who suffered so very badly from the disaster. The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, yesterday published a personal article on the subject. Pictures of the results are numerous, but a very good selection appears in The Atlantic. The fact that Union Carbide was taken over by another US company, Dow Chemical, largely, it was intimated, as a shield against multi-million dollar legal claims, makes no difference to the victims, mainly a relatively uneducated, non-powerful, almost-invisible population. It is also true that at the time, the Indian government held a non-controlling 49% interest in Union Carbide. Yet it has never lifted a financial finger to help its own countrymen, women and children.