[sacw] SACW | 23 May 01

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire
23 May 2001

----------------------------------

#1. Support for Bangladesh female franchise
#2. Anti World Bank protest by NGO's in Pakistan
#3. Comment on Praful bidwai's article on recent elections in India
#4. Yellow badge of humiliation: Taliban's apartheid against Afghan Hindus
#5. Confessed RSS killer makes it to NCERT
#6. Fear of the poor
#7. Bhopal survivors regroup against new foe

-----------------------------------

#1.

BBC News Online: World: South Asia
Tuesday, 22 May, 2001, 14:58 GMT 15:58 UK

Support for Bangladesh female franchise

By Lipika Pelham

Bangladesh's election commission has said that women voters must be allowed 
to exercise their constitutional right to vote in
forthcoming general elections.

The move came after an investigation into reports that women in rural 
Bangladesh are often prevented from casting their votes by
Islamic religious edicts known as fatwa.

The chief election commissioner, M A Sayed, said that tough action would be 
taken so that all eligible women were enrolled as voters.

Earlier this year the commission said it had launched an investigation 
following newspaper reports that for 85 years, thousands of
women in 12 Bangladeshi villages had been barred from voting in any 
elections by fatwa imposed by hardline Islamic groups.

Punishments

Despite a landmark ruling earlier this year by the high court that such 
religious edicts were illegal, Islamic clerics in rural Bangladesh
often impose fatwas, and almost always they are against women.

Severe punishments including flogging and stoning are reported to have been 
carried out against those who defy the clerics' orders.

Last week a number of leading women rights groups met the election 
commission and demanded an end to what they said was a
political culture which stopped women from making use of their 
constitutional rights.

Election commission officials said they would consider a demand by civil 
rights groups to disqualify candidates in the next general
election who oppose equal political rights for women.

_____

#2.

Revolt Against World Bank Rule

At last Pakistan is in action against the world bank and its policies. The 
silence broke when a number of
organizations which were invited for the consultation on Country Assistance
Strategy (CAS). A large number of people from trade unions and civil society
members gathered around the meeting hall in National Institute of Public
Administration (NIPA) and blocked the way of the World Bank delegation to
the meeting hall. It was only first time when such activity was initiated
against any financial institution in the country.
The same delegation also got resentment by the hands of the organizations
when they were in Karachi three days before. The members of the different
organizations boycotted the meetings at both Karachi and Lahore. They also
passed a resolution and insisted the Bank officials to respond on the
resolution before any further consultation on the new initiatives of the
Bank.
Addressing the protesters, Prise President, Shoaib Bhatti said the activists
have launched a brave struggle to get rid of International Financial
Institutions like World Bank and IMF. He said that short-sighted policies of
the Bank had destroyed the economic infrastructure of the country and it was
the prime time to break the shackles.
Malick Shahbaz Ahmad Tahir urged the people to wake up from deep slumber and
heed to the alarming bells which are real cause of concern. He said that the
World Bank's policies had aggravated poverty in the country and were leading
the nation to a blind alley from there was no return.
Indeed it was the chain of reaction against the IFIs which started from
Seattle and Prague and it was the first such reaction in Pakistan.
The resolution was read as:
"We recognize the key role of the Pakistan decision -makers and the
implementers in the economic crisis facing us to day. Nevertheless-and not
with standing rhetoric to the contrary- we believe the policies promoted by
the World Bank have not helped Pakistan society deal with the crises.
Instead the bank policies have contributed to and greatly aggravated the
crises. Hence our reservation about entering a dialogue with the World Bank.

The record of the World Bank and the IMF economic policies and the pressure
that have increased poverty and deprivation particularly amongst the most
vulnerable sections of effected countries: women and children. This include
Structural Adjustment Program and the conditionalities that make every thing
dependent on the market mechanism (e.g. withdrawal of subsidies and "market
adjusted" utility charges)

The lack of transparency in preparing and implementing policies - including
the present consultation process where the criteria for being consulted is
unknown. The World Bank policies of not revealing the country assistance
strategy (CAS) to citizens without prior approval of the Government,
especially since it is the citizens who are made to bear the costs of the
loans.

The history of failed projects that the bank so far does not even
acknowledge, much less examine, and learn from.

The current push for a corporatization of farming that will encourage the
introduction of multi-national corporations, destroy our indigenous seeds
and the agriculture basis and wipe out the livelihood of million of more
small farmer.

The continuing drive for the privatization, including

Privatisation of the fundamental essentials to life, most importantly water
without which life itself is not possible, and

Essential sectors such as health and education that have been provided to
their citizens by the state in virtually all developed countries.
To promote good governance (the World Bank's stated aim) and to make a
dialogue meaningful requires the following:

The procedures, principles and framework for dialogue are mutually decided
upon by those involved;

Consultations are initiated at the beginning of planning; involve a wide
audience and the outcomes of dialogue are shared with all concerned;

All actions are transparent and, for example, negotiations and agreements
between the Bank (and other financial institutions) and the Government of
Pakistan are made public

With respect to planning, future planning (and consultations for this) can
only be meaningful when it is premised on an honest review and analysis of
past failures as well as successes. Before planning it would be appropriate
for the World Bank to review why poverty doubled from 17.3% in 1988-89 to
32.6% of the population in 1998-99 during precisely the period when
Structural Adjustment Programs were in place. Equally, we would like to know
why the Social Action Program II was introduced when SAP I had already been
proved a failure given is huge expenditures and very modest achievements.

Finally, we strongly believe that the burden of debt and debt servicing has
reached a magnitude that obliterate any possibility of development in
Pakistan, and that there can be no discussion on future development
assistance without first negotiating and settling the question of debt -
relief/cancellation."
Shoaib Bhatti
PRISE
The organization may be contacted for further information on the World Bank
Boycott in Pakistan at prise@l...

____

#3.

From: "Nirmalangshu Mukherji" <somanshu@b...>
To: <aiindex@m...>
Subject: Recent Assembly Elections in India
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:32:36 +0530

Sir,
I wish to add some observations to Praful Bidwai's perceptive analysis of 
recent assembly elections in India (Despatch May 22, Item 6, India: Secular 
Vote For Change). Mr. Bidwai has given enough arguments to suggest that the 
popular vote, overall, was against the BJP and the ruling NDA formation at 
the Center. But it is not clear if the main thrust of the vote was secular 
in character, or even whether it was a central issue in the voter's mind. 
Although BJP is no doubt a largely communal entity, in my opinion, the 
three years of BJP-led rule has exposed other aspects of BJP. It is likely 
that the voter's anger were directed more towards these more fundamental 
aspects, rather than on its communal character.
The first part of the view just sketched requires a revision in the idea 
that it was a secular vote. Consider the Kerala case. It is well-known that 
the communal elements in Kerala gathered under the umbrella of UDF with 
strong subliminal support from the BJP on the ground. The secular forces in 
Kerala are represented, if at all, by the LDF. Yet, the LDF suffered a 
defeat unprecedented even in the context of recent elections in Kerala, 
where loyalties shift every five years. Instead of the usual 2-3% 
anti-incumbency swing, the swing away from LDF this time was nearly 6%. By 
Kerala standards, this is a massive rejection of LDF. Again, there is some 
truth in the claims of local BJP in Assam that, by itself, it would have 
done much better than what it did in association with AGP, which is not a 
communal organisation by any measure. In fact, the AGP's 'softness' in 
dealing with the migrants from Bangladesh might have been one of the causes 
of its defeat. It is difficult to project votes on a hindsight, but roughly 
the same picture might have obtained in West Bengal as well, if Trinamul 
stayed with BJP rather than aligning with Congress. In Tamilnadu, the 
picture is more complicated, yet it is hard to see that the massive defeat 
of DMK could be explained in secularist terms alone, despite the alliance 
between DMK and BJP.
I think there is another major problem with Mr. Bidwai's analysis. If the 
vote this time was supposed to be secular on the evidence of losses to the 
BJP and its allies, the votes in the last decade ought to be viewed as 
communal on the evidence of the phenomenal rise of BJP. We need to look for 
more rational explanations before we castigate whole peoples as communal. 
As noted, the BJP no doubt is communal as evidenced by its encroachments in 
various aspects of cultural life. As such it needs to be resisted from 
every forum available. But the general importance of the secularism issue 
is largely a construction of urban intelligentsia in so far as the economic 
and political prospects of the whole nation is concerned.
In democratic societies, popular elections in the recent history almost 
always signal people's rejection of something, rather than their approval 
of anything. Votes are negative without fail. This applies to the vote in 
West Bengal as well. Disorganised, fragmented and largely silent masses of 
the unempowered get this one chance of showing their anger towards the 
powerful forces in history which affect their very existence as humans. As 
suggested above, this anger, in the large scale at issue, could not have 
been against or for secularism. In my view, there is exactly one option 
here which the President KR Narayanan characterised as the "fast lanes" of 
globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation (GLP). Solid economic 
analysis is beginning to bring out the trampling effects of this trio on 
masses of people across the world; but people see that in their lives every 
day.
>From mid-eighties onwards, especially with the arrogant pronouncements of 
Rajiv Gandhi and his neo-liberal advisors, GLP started taking center-stage 
in shaping the economic and political future of the nation. By early 
nineties, its presence was all too visible in diverse fields of national 
life. This is mentioned by Mr. Bidwai, but the full implications have not 
been drawn. At that point, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar offered an 
indigenous view of affairs in terms of swadeshi and Hindutva, the 
distinction between India and Bharat, the resistance to yankification of 
culture, and so on. It was very natural for people, especially in the 
northern belt, to think of these proclamations as a real alternative to GLP 
which was beginning to eat into their lives. The communal fangs were also 
there, but people were willing to ignore it, may be even endorse it in 
part, if only it will help sustain the promises of resistance in which it 
was embedded.
The last three years of the NDA rule, led by BJP, is thus a complete 
betrayal of people. Not only that no resistance to GLP was even 
contemplated, its expansion and irreversible entrenchment in almost every 
sphere of national life was actively promoted in a scale unprecedented even 
for the Rao-Manmohan Singh axis. As helplessness led to consolidation of 
anger, we began to witness, along with the deaths, starvations and 
suicides, a rising tide of farmers and workers movements across the 
country. The assembly elections ought to be understood in this scenario. 
Quite obviously, ordinary people do not have access to the details of WTO 
agreements, or to the confabulations on disinvestments presided over by the 
World Bank and IMF; but, again, they can see what is there to see.
Thus they threw out the AGP-BJP axis in Assam, and the DMK-BJP alliance in 
Tamilnadu. Notice that, with all the corruption cases and 
disqualifications, Jayalalitha escaped identification with GLP with her 
timely withdrawal from NDA. In West Bengal, obviously, their best bet is 
still with the Left Front; so they retain LF to reject GLP. With no growth 
in votes for the LF and the retention of over 40% for a farcical 
Congress-Trinamul alliance, it will be an exaggeration to think of this 
vote as an approval of left rule. I wonder if the large masses of landless 
labourers and increasing masses of unemployed youth, who have got virtually 
nothing from the left rule of 24 years, would be taken in by the 
'bhadralok' image of Mr. Bhattacharya. In Kerala, the LDF, unfortunately, 
was forced to sit over the worst effects of WTO and withdrawal of QR. It is 
natural that they were equated with the cause, and duly thrown out.
I am neither suggesting that this explanation is the only one covering all 
aspects of the recent vote, nor am I rejecting explanations in terms of 
secularism and other things. But, as Aristotle taught us, human rationality 
lies in clearly distinguishing between primary and secondary causes.
Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Dr. Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Deptt. of Philosophy
Delhi University, Delhi 110007, India
Res: 5/21 University Road
Delhi 110007, India
Phone: +91-11-725-6253

_____

#4.

Yellow badge of humiliation: Taliban's apartheid against Afghan Hindus

Confirming a move that smacks of the Nazi pogrom against Jews last century, 
Afghanistan's Taliban Religious Police Minister Mohammad Wali says that the 
Taliban has ordered all Hindus to wear the colour yellow in order to 
distinguish them from the rest of the populace, reports V K Shashikumar

New Delhi, May 22

http://www.tehelka.com/currentaffairs/may2001/ca052201taliban1.htm

____

#5.

(From the daily STATESMAN, New Delhi dated 2-5-2001.)

THE RSS PRACHARAK BOASTS OF KILLING A MUSLIM GIRL .
Confessed killer makes it to NCERT

RSS chief writes Autobiography foreword

SANJAY SINGH
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, May 1. - What if a man confesses to killing a woman and looting a
locality during a riot? What if 50 MPs write to the Prime Minister informing
him that the man has been rewarded by the government and made a nominated
member of the NCERT selection committee?
The human resource development ministry removes him from that committee,
only to appoint him as departmental advisor on two other committees of the
NCERT. For, Dr Krishna Gopal Rastogi's biggest credential is that he is a
swayamsewak of the RSS and has written an autobiography whose foreword has
been penned by the Sangh chief, Mr KS Sudershan.
In December 1999, 50 MPs cutting cross party lines had written to the Prime
Minister informing him of Dr Rastogi's background. They urged Mr Atal Behari
Vajpayee to remove Dr Rastogi from the selection committee and direct the
HRD ministry not to "subvert secular credentials of education" by making
such appointments.
The minutes of the meetings of the social science and humanities advisory
board of the education department, held on 30 January, and that of the board
of education measurement and evaluation, held on 15 January, at the NCERT
premises confirm that he continues to be a member of at least two
committees.
In chapter seven of the autobiography, titled Pracharak Jiwan, Dr Rastogi
gives a graphic description of how he led a mob of RSS workers to a Muslim
locality called Kaliar, between Roorkee and Hardwar, during post-Partition
riots and how he himself thought it fit to kill a "beautiful" Muslim woman
whose "extraordinary beauty had been distracting assailants led by me from
from real work".
"It was an old locality inhabited by the Muslims. They, armed with daggers,
spears, guns and were fully prepared to meet any situation. When I learnt of
their intentions to attack some Hindu areas, I organised 250 people
including some known gangsters and raided Kaliar", he wrote.
"Then a strange thing happened. While we had been killing men in one of the
houses, we spotted a very beautiful young girl. The assailants led by me
were instantly enamoured. They even started fighting among themselves to
take possession of the girl. I faced an extremely awkward situation and did
not know what to do. I tried my best to get the assailants to focus on real
issues. I abused and threatened them but they would not listen to me. And
suddenly, the solution came. The girl was after all causing all this trouble
and had to be eliminated. I took my gun and shot her. She died.
"My associates were shocked and returned to the work. Though it was against
our principles t assault a woman but it was done in an emergency and I still
regret it."
In chapter 16 titled Professor Ho Hi Gaya (Eventually Managed to Become a
Professor), Dr Rastogi details how he had to use contacts to get senior
teaching positions.
When contacted, Dr Rastogi admitted to have written these incidents in the
autobiography. "That's an old story and what I wrote was under a different
style of writing." On his membership to the departmental advisory board of
NCERT, he said: "Now I've become old and had a bypass surgery 11 years back.
I'm a member on various boards but don't attend the meetings these days."
When reminded that the minutes say that he attended two meetings in January,
he said: "I don't remember having attended them."

_____

#6.

The Hindu
Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Fear of the poor

By Mohan Rao

IN FEBRUARY last year, the Government of India adopted the National 
Population Policy 2000. This policy is weak on many counts: population is 
not integrated with health, it has population stabilisation rather than the 
health and well-being of the population as a goal and so on. Yet one aspect 
on which the policy is to be hailed is that it resolutely affirms the 
``commitment of the Government towards voluntary and informed choice and 
consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services, 
and continuation of the target free approach in administering family 
planning services''. It is thus surprising that several State Governments 
have announced population policies, which, in very significant manners, 
violate the letter and the spirit of the National Population Policy. 
Equally distressing is that several private members bills are pending in 
Parliament that seek to reinforce a punitive and anti- democratic approach 
to issues of population.

Before considering why these measures are anti-democratic, it might be 
pertinent to recall some of the measures proposed by the States. The Uttar 
Pradesh policy, for instance, disqualifies persons married before the legal 
age of marriage from Government jobs, as if children are responsible for 
child marriages. Further, 10 per cent of financial assistance to panchayats 
is to be based on family planning performance. Indeed, frightfully 
recalling the Emergency, the assessment of the performance of medical 
officers and other health workers is linked to performance in the 
Reproductive and Child Health programme, the new avatar of the family 
welfare programme. The policy also recommends User Fees for Government 
health services when it is widely accepted that these are inaccesible to 
the poor. And in a daring departure from other States, the policy 
recommends the induction of contraceptives such as injectables and implants 
which are both unsafe and dangerous to the health of women.

Madhya Pradesh, besides debarring persons married before the legal age from 
Government jobs, also forbids them from contesting Panchyat elections. As 
in the case of Uttar Pradesh, disbursement of resources to panchayati raj 
institutions is linked to family planning performance. In a piquant twist, 
the provision of rural development schemes, income- generating schemes for 
women, and indeed poverty alleviation programmes as a whole, are all linked 
to performance in family planning.

Rajasthan, besides debarring persons with more than two children from 
panchayat elections, also bars them from other elected bodies such as 
cooperative institutions. It makes adherence to the ``two-child norm'' a 
service condition for State Government employees.

In addition to many of the above, the Maharashtra Government in an order 
announced the two-child norm as an eligibility criterion for a range of 
schemes for the weaker sections, including access to the public 
distribution system and education in Government schools. The Andhra Pradesh 
Government's fervour is exhibited by the fact that performance in the 
Reproductive and Child Health Programme and the Couple Protection Rate will 
determine construction of school buildings, public works, and funding for 
rural development. Performance in the Reproductive and Child Health 
programme is also a criterion for coverage under programmes such as TRYSEM, 
Weaker Section Housing Scheme, Low Cost Sanitation Scheme and DWCRA. 
Allotment of surplus agricultural land and housing sites, and benefits 
under IRDP, the Scheduled Castes Action Plan and the Backward Castes Action 
Plan are to be given in preference to acceptors of family planning. 
Further, educational concessions, subsidies, promotions and Government jobs 
are to be restricted to those accepting the small family norm.

In a macabre metaphor of the lottery that is the life of the poor in the 
country, awards of Rs. 10,000 each are to be given to three couples per 
district chosen by lottery. Eligible couples comprise those with two girl 
children with the mother sterilised, those with one girl child with the 
mother sterilised and couples with two children or less with the father 
sterilised.

These State policies are thus in complete disjunction with the National 
policy and indeed with commitments made by the Government of India at the 
International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. Policy 
makers so anxious to control numbers need to be reminded that such policies 
are unnecessary as a significant demographic transition is under way in 
large parts of the country. Areas where this transition has lagged behind 
need assistance towards strengthening their health and anti- poverty 
programmes and not measures that punish the poor. As the National 
Population Policy itself points out, there is a large unmet need for health 
and family planning services. In such a situation, without meeting this 
unmet need, to propose punitive measures is both irrational and absurd.

The disincentives proposed are particularly anti-poor, anti- Dalit and 
anti-Adivasis, with these weaker sections having to bear the brunt of the 
withdrawal of a range of subsidies and measures to mitigate poverty and 
deprivation. The National Family Health Survey for 1998-99 shows that the 
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 3.15 for Scheduled Castes, 3.06 for Scheduled 
Tribes, 2.66 among Other Backward Castes and 3.47 among illiterate women as 
a whole. In contrast, it is 1.99 among women educated beyond Class X. 
Significant sections among these already deprived populations will thus 
bear the brunt of these policies of disincentives. In addition to 
privatisation that de facto deprives Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 
of jobs in the organised sector, these explicit policy measures will 
further curtail the meager employment opportunities available to them. 
Indeed this measure is pregnant with pro-natalist possibilities.

The disincentives are also anti-women since women in India seldom decide 
the number of children they wish to bear, when to bear them and indeed have 
no control over how many will survive. Debarring such women from contesting 
elections makes a mockery of policies to empower women. Further, they will 
provide an impetus to some women to resort to sex selective abortions and 
female foeticide, worsening an already terrible sex ratio in the country.

Finally, the proposals are deeply anti-democratic and violate several 
provisions of the Constitution (the right to livelihood, the right to life, 
the right to privacy, among others) and several International Covenants 
that India is signatory to, including the Rights of the Child.

The fact that structural adjustment policies have led to the collapse of a 
weak and underfunded public health care system, and that these same 
policies have also led to an increase of infant mortality rates in 10 of 
the 15 major States of the country, do not seem to concern our 
policy-makers. So single-minded are they in their short-sighted policies 
that they do not realise the appalling fact that it is the fearsome pursuit 
of family planning programmes that has led to the distrust of the health 
system among the poor. The fact too is that it was these same people who 
brought down Government for the ``excesses'' of family planning not too 
long back. Is the fear of the poor so strong among our legislators and 
policy-makers that their memories are so short?

(The writer is Associate Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community 
Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)

______

#7.

Asia Times
May 23, 2001

Bhopal survivors regroup against new foe

MUMBAI - Nearly 17 years after the 1984 chemical disaster in the central 
Indian city of Bhopal victims are still trying to press criminal charges - 
and they have stepped up their campaign despite Union Carbide Corp's 
(UCC's) merger with US multinational chemical giant Dow Chemicals in February.

Dow officials have consistently said that the group has "no responsibility 
in the Bhopal case". Union Carbide merged with United States-based Dow on 
February 6 to create the second largest chemical company in the world. 
Union Carbide is now a 100 percent-owned subsidiary of Dow.

Survivors of the accident at Union Carbide's pesticide plant in Bhopal, 
which released toxic gas clouds that killed more than 8,000 people in the 
first three days, are intent on making Dow accountable for criminal 
liability in the world's worst industrial accident.

More than 20,000 people have died from gas-related illnesses and more than 
120,000 are suffering from gas-related chronic disorders. Ten to 15 people 
continue to die every month. Soil and groundwater remain contaminated in 
what the environmental group Greenpeace has called a "toxic hotspot".

In recent months, public protests calling on Dow to assume responsibility 
for UCC's liabilities - including an angry rally in Mumbai in February - 
have led to discussions in early May between representatives of India's Dow 
Chemicals International Pvt Ltd and the newly-established National Campaign 
for Justice in Bhopal (NCJB).

The NCJB is a coalition of Bhopal survivors and other groups working to 
hold Carbide - and now Dow - accountable. Trade unions, students 
organizations, women's groups and human rights networks in Mumbai, New 
Delhi, Bangalore and other cities have expressed strong support for the 
campaign, as have a number of international organizations.

In response to the February 28 demonstrations, Dow Chemicals sued for 
77,000 rupees (US$1,674) against 17 persons and organizations for damages 
done to its office in Mumbai. After that, Dow broached the subject of a 
dialogue as a humanitarian gesture for Bhopal survivors and victims.

Activists were hesitant to discuss the talks held in Mumbai. But at the May 
2 discussions, NCJB officials were reported to have presented a set of 
minimum demands. They asked Dow to release medical data on the Bhopal gases 
to enable proper treatment of survivors and clean contaminated soil and 
groundwater in the area, on which more than 5,000 families depend for 
drinking water.

"Dow has made it quite clear that they will fight any liability claim. This 
does not rule out other forms of assistance," said Tracey Easthope, 
director of the US-based Environmental Health Project and a member of the 
international campaign.

Gary Cohen, executive director of the US Environmental Health Fund, says he 
has reason to believe that Dow is examining technical data on the 
contamination of the accident site. "Dow must acknowledge that the parent 
company in the United States is the responsible party in this matter, and 
it is not just a local matter."

Questions faxed to the Dow representative in Mumbai were not replied to. 
The office of Dow country manager Ravi Muthukrishnan said that he had left 
for an overseas trip and no-one else was authorized to speak on Dow's behalf.

On February 28, 300 women Bhopal survivors travelled to Mumbai and with 
other members of the NJCB stormed Dow's office, demanding that Dow accept 
the criminal and environmental liabilities relating to Bhopal. The group's 
memorandum to Muthukrishnan demanded that Dow also pay for long-term 
medical care and research and the economic rehabilitation of families. 
Muthukrishnan said at the time that he was not authorized to speak on the 
subject. But Dow's US-based spokesperson John Musser was quoted as saying 
in the Times of India newspaper, "The matter ended with UCC paying 
compensation to the victims."

"Though we will never forget the tragedy, there is nothing really that Dow 
Chemicals can do now. This point was carefully considered before the 
merger. We have no responsibility in the Bhopal case," he added.

As for the criminal case pending against UCC in India, Musser said, "That 
is not a matter for Dow Chemicals. It is for the UCC to respond."

At the Dow shareholders' meeting in the United States on May 10, Roshani 
Deraniyagle from the Association for India's Development reminded 
shareholders and the senior management of the Bhopal legacy that Dow had 
inherited with the merger.

"Dow now has an obligation, through its merger with Union Carbide, to take 
action to remedy the dismal health and living situation of these working 
families," Deraniyagle said.

A 1989 settlement of $470 million, negotiated between the Indian government 
and Union Carbide without consulting the Bhopal victims, was paltry even by 
Indian standards. Individual settlements have been in the range of $3,300 
for loss of life and $800 for permanent disability. Union Carbide has since 
abandoned the Bhopal plant that produced pesticides for use in cotton 
production.

Initially the settlement included absolving Union Carbide from criminal 
liability, but following protests and a review petition, the Indian Supreme 
Court ruled that the firm could not escape criminality.

Criminal proceedings began in a Bhopal court. But Union Carbide officials, 
including then chief executive Warren Anderson, neither appeared in court 
nor responded to summons - and were declared absconders.

After plans for the merger were announced in August 1999, critics tried to 
block it through a class action suit that accuses Dow of violating the law 
in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by suppressing 
information on Carbide's pending criminal liability.

When NJCB members at the May 2000 shareholders' meeting asked about Dow's 
taking on UCC's liabilities in a merger, Dow chairman Frank Popoffs was 
quoted as saying. "It's not in my power to take responsibility for an event 
15 years ago with a product we never developed at a location where we never 
operated."

Mumbai-based corporate and banking lawyer Ravi Hazari says the parent 
company normally takes on liabilities, unless specified otherwise in the 
merger application. Neither the merger application before the SEC nor the 
merger announcement on February 6 discussed Dow taking on UCC's 
liabilities, Hazari adds.

"Dow may have used Bhopal as a bargaining chip to depress the takeover 
price, while calculating on the basis of the Indian government's actions 
that it will not pursue the criminal case seriously," Hazari said.

US-based advocate Rajan Sharma, who has fought a number of legal battles on 
NCJB's behalf, says the documents filed by Dow and Union Carbide to get 
approval for their merger "expressly state that there are 'no criminal 
charges, investigations etc" against Union Carbide "or its subsidiaries 
anywhere in the world".

"This is, of course, a blatant falsehood, and is false to Dow Chemical's 
knowledge, as the members of Dow's board have expressly indicated to 
various activists and in public statements," Sharma argues. She adds that 
in oral arguments in a separate class action lawsuit she filed against UCC 
and Anderson in the United States, Carbide's attorney admitted for the 
first time on public record that when India's Supreme Court reinstated 
criminal charges in 1991, "the Indian government knew we were not going to 
appear to face those charges".

"At the very least,'' Sharma says, this suggests collusion between the 
Indian government and Union Carbide in frustrating the actions of the 
Indian Supreme Court. "At worst, this admission by Carbide's attorney - if 
true - would itself amount to a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice in 
the Bhopal criminal prosecution."

The issue of Dow's responsibility has also prompted the NCJB to pressure 
Dow on its behavior in India, attacking the firm's sale of the pesticide 
Dursban although it has been phased out for most uses in the United States 
due to health reasons.

After all, Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action 
says, "The disaster in Bhopal occurred because of Union Carbide's double 
standards."

(Asia Times Online/Inter Press Service)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

SACW is an informal, independent & non-profit citizens wire service run by
South Asia Citizens Web (http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since 1996. Dispatch
archive from 1998 can be accessed at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/act/messages/ . To subscribe send a blank
message to: <act-subscribe@yahoogroups.com> / To unsubscribe send a blank
message to: <act-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
________________________________________
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

[ All interested and concerned by the dangers of Nuclearisation of South
Asia are invited to join South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List. => send a
blank e-mail message to : <saan-subscribe@l...> ]