More than 25 years after thousands died in the Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, eight senior executives have been found guilty of negligence. They have been sentenced to up to two years in prison. A question of “too little, too late”, campaigners for the victims say.
 

Listen to a Newsline interview with Peter Finnigan:

Thousands of people (some estimates suggest up to 25,000) who lived near the chemical plant died after it leaked highly toxic gas in December 1984. Twenty-five years later, people are still suffering as they still live in the contaminated area around the plant, which has never been cleaned up.
 

Court battle
American chemical company Union Carbide, then owner of the plant, and the Indian government have been embroiled in court battles for the past quarter of a century. Today is the first time anyone involved in the incident has been convicted.

The charges against the Union Carbide executives were death by negligence, with a maximum sentence of two years in jail.

Peter Finnigan is the director of The Bhopal Medical Appeal, an aid organisation that runs two health clinics in the Bhopal area, where victims of the gas leak are treated. He is far from satisfied with today's convictions.
 

Too little, too late
“It’s too little, too late”, he says. “I wish that the focus of attention had really been on Union Carbide USA, which has been absconded from justice in India since 1992. It illustrates yet again that the Bhopal disaster is something that started 25 years ago and that carries on to this day”.

He says that the people convicted today are only partly to blame for what happened – “They are not the people who made the strategic, operational decisions on how the plant was operated”, Mr Finnigan says. “These decisions were made in the USA [at the Union Carbide headquarters], but Union Carbide has always simply refused to appear in Indian courts”.

No victory
Mr Finnigan doesn’t see today’s convictions as even a small victory for the victims. “This court case will have no impact on [the victims] at all. What those people need, is proper annihilation of the Union Carbide site. That’s the one thing that will bring this sorry tragedy to an end after a quarter of a century. It doesn’t actually affect the ongoing health of the people of Bhopal, who desperately need help still”.

Mr Finnigan argues that the health situation for those who live in the contaminated area today is worse than ever. “Over a hundred thousand people are chronically ill. They have suffered as a direct result of gas inhalation. There’s also an increasing problem with poisoned water”.

It may come as a surprise that people are actually still living in the vicinity of the disaster area, but Mr Finnigan says most victims simply have no other option than to stay there.
 

Contaminated waste
“The Indian government did take some action, but what they have done is to move highly contaminated waste close to a densely populated village elsewhere”, he says. “That’s not the way to deal with the problem. If the Indian government took the right line on this, it could be done properly”.

So even as the former managers of the now abandoned plant were handed down their sentences, the children of Bhopal were playing on toxic wasteland, Mr Finnigan says.

“I saw it with my own eyes a few weeks ago. I was standing on the factory site and I’d been there for an hour or so and by now my eyes were streaming and my nose was sore. I was watching children playing cricket on barren stretches of land, as nothing will grow there. It makes an ideal cricket pitch, but it’s also a “wonderful” place to breathe in dust that’s highly toxic”.

New era?
Even though Mr Finnigan and other campaigners may not be satisfied with today’s verdicts, it could signal the beginning of a new era in which those who were responsible will finally be brought to justice. But Mr Finnigan is not very hopeful.

“The charges that were brought against them were nowhere where they could or should have been. It also doesn’t address the core issue, which is the ongoing health problem. So yes, it’s fine that these people have been convicted, but it’s small beer compared to the liability of Union Carbide and that’s where the pressure should be put on. This court case does not clean up the Bhopal plant”.