Dow Action Diary: The Fast Ends, But the Work Continues

Early Monday morning, Aug. 26, on the eve of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, around 5:45am, Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman turned environmentalist, threw a blanket over a 5-foot barbed-wire fence, climbed over and scaled a 70-feet tower, and chained herself in the ethylene oxide unit of the Dow Chemical factory on TX 185 in her hometown of Seadrift, a fishing village with a population of 1,092, just off the Gulf Coast on the San Antonio Bay in Texas.

Before chaining herself to the tower, 52-year-old Diane hung a 12-foot banner from the top of the tower that read: "DOW: RESPONSIBLE FOR BHOPAL."

What follows is the text of the statement Diane made from her mobile phone from the top of the tower:

"The Government of India, in a bid to protect Dow's money and reputation and also not to set a "bad example" for potential foreign investment in India, has offered to clean up soil and groundwater contaminated with toxins that have been leaking from Carbide's abandoned pesticide factory (Union Carbide is now wholly owned by Dow Chemical) in Bhopal, using the $280 million remaining in the Bhopal Gas Affected survivors' compensation funds.

"By allowing this, and not paying for clean-up themselves, Dow is in effect robbing survivors of their compensation money. If a similar thing happened in the U.S., it would have been a public outrage. Not only would the site be declared a Superfund, but also Dow would have been forced to pay billions of dollars for clean up and damages. So Dirty Dow is not only a robber of the poor and sick but also an operator of double standards. Where is the conscience of this company? Does it even exist?

"Even after 18 years, almost 30 people still die every month as a result of long-term effects of the exposure in 1984. Dow has a moral, legal responsibility to fully rehabilitate the Bhopal survivors. Instead of settling its liabilities, the company has sent its president, William Stavropoulos, to Johannesburg to talk sustainable development. Utter hogwash!

"The company must think we’re stupid enough to forgive and forget the world’s worst corporate crime, and let Dow-Carbide off the hook."

Justice Not Yet Done

When Diane ended her fast after 30 days, on Aug. 15, the 55th anniversary of India’s Independence Day, more than 700 people had already joined the worldwide hunger strike. That number is now well over 1,000 (details on www.bhopal.net). Despite more than two months of continuous international protest, Dow Chemical has refused to relent. To add insult to injury, a Dow-Carbide spokesperson Kathy Hunt declares that "$500 is plenty good for an Indian," referring to the meager compensation amount that survivors of the disaster got.

Diane has also made public the results of the first ever citizen initiative to test air samples near Seadrift. "According to Bucket Brigade officials who helped us obtain air buckets to collect samples which we then sent off for analyses, there were 18 different partially formed chemicals. It’s a toxic soup out here. For most of these chemicals, there are no safe level figures available. They haven't even been studied....which means we are all guinea pigs here."

When asked why she felt so passionately driven to join the Bhopal people’s struggle for justice, Diane said, "The pain of up to l50,000 Bhopalis who continue to bear Dow/Union Carbide's toxic legacy in their bodies, is the world's pain and justice's unfinished business. The pain of a mother in Bhopal, whose breast milk is poisoned with Dow’s toxins, is my pain. The pain of 18-year-old Shabnam* who has never had a period in her life, is my pain. The pain of 27-year-old childless Mira* who has already reached menopause, is my pain. These toxins once released into the environment, travel thousands of miles killing everything in their way. They know no boundaries, species, age, race or religion. So why should I?"