His death, which was not
announced by his family, was confirmed from public records – that brings no
tears miles away in India – for that ghastly incident that occurred almost 30
years ago.
Anderson was born
in New York in 1921, to Swedish immigrants who lived in the borough's Bay Ridge
section. They named him for Warren G Harding, who was the president at the
time. After graduating in 1942, he
enlisted in the Navy and trained to be a fighter pilot, but never saw combat.
After his discharge, he made the rounds of chemical companies and took the
first job offered him - by Union Carbide. He climbed the corporate ladder
rapidly and ruled over an empire with 700 plants in more than three dozen
countries. Then came Bhopal.
The night of Dec 2,
1984 would rankle as a black day in the annals of Indian history. Over 3000 died that night itself ; nearly
12000 died subsequently and thousands maimed
due to diseases induced by methyl-isocyanate that tank 610 of Union Carbide spewed out some 27 tonnes of
a poisonous asphyxiating gas from. The
plant installed in 1969 was to produce a cheap pesticide ‘sevin’ which
ironically killed human lives. Almost 3 decades since that night of terror and
death in Bhopal, which saw a cloud of deadly gases explode out of a faulty tank
in a pesticide factory and silently
spread into the homes of sleeping people – there are still people affected by
the world’s worst industrial disaster ever.
Many who breathed the highly toxic cocktail that night suffered a
horrible death with multiple organ failure. Those who survived have suffered
multiple diseases in the decades that were to come.
Following the
disaster, there was an international outcry for relief for the victims and
punishment to those responsible for the gas leakage. The pesticide plant from
where the gas leaked belonged to Union Carbide India, a subsidiary of the
US-based Union Carbide Company. They were asked to pay compensation and arrange
for medical treatment. The matter immediately got embroiled in legal
controversies. Thus began a long and painful struggle of the victims for
compensation, medical attention and rehabilitation that has spluttered along
for a quarter century. In February 1989,
the Supreme Court announced that it was approving a settlement for Bhopal
victims under which Union Carbide agreed to pay measly Rs.713 crore for
compensation to victims, while the government agreed to drop all criminal cases
against it. However, due to intense public shock and anger at letting off the
culprits, the court agreed to reopen the criminal cases in 1991. Two
installments of compensation — of up to Rs 25,000 each — were given to the injured, one in 1994 and
the next in 2004. Years later Union Carbide announced merger with US-based
Dow Chemicals and Union Carbide refused to take responsibility for its
liability.
There was no
redemption for Warren M. Anderson — accused no. 1 in the criminal case
pertaining to the Bhopal gas tragedy — in life. On Thursday, it seemed there
was none in death. Hearing of his death, a full one month after he passed away
at a nursing home in Vero Beach, Florida, on September 29, survivors of the
Bhopal gas tragedy assembled outside the now-defunct Union Carbide factory and
placed a large portrait of him. Then, one by one, they spat at the photograph.
With his death, the struggle to get the former CEO of Union Carbide extradited
has hit a dead end. Anderson was the chief executive officer of the UCC, owner
of Union Carbide India Ltd., which ran the plant from where the deadly methyl
isocyanate leaked into the densely populated bastis of Old Bhopal.
The Hindu as also
other newspaper reports confirmed that there were so many discrepancies in the
way the accused was allowed to go out of the country. There were reports that Mr. Anderson and
others “were arrested” as soon as they landed in Bhopal from Bombay “under
seven different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) – but there have been
allegations that legal corners were cut to ensure Mr. Anderson was released immediately
and was granted safe passage out of the country. In Feb 1989, CJM, Bhopal,
issued non-bailable warrant of arrest against Warren Anderson for repeatedly
ignoring summons. In 2010, all eight accused, including the then Chairman of
Union Carbide Keshub Mahindra, in the Bhopal Gas disaster case convicted by a
court. With the support of the US government, he escaped extradition. And he
eluded subpoenas in civil cases by living quietly and migrating between his
homes in Vero Beach; Greenwich, Connecticut; and Bridgehampton, New York.
According to NY
Times, his death passed almost unnoticed until an article appeared in Vero
Beach 32963, the weekly newspaper of the Vero Beach barrier island. In 1984, an
article in The Times said that in dealing with Bhopal, Union Carbide, which is
now part of Dow Chemical, had to find a balance between "the instincts of
human compassion, the demands of public relations and the dictates of corporate
survival." The article noted that a paperweight on Anderson's desk quoted
his favourite Chinese proverb, suggesting his preferred light-handed approach: "Leader is best when people barely know he
exists." …………now he is reported passing away in a nursing home in
Florida on 29 September.
Web searches reveal that wayback in
1985, President Reagan commuted the
sentences of 13 people who had been in prison for violations of Federal laws.
One was a boyhood friend of Prime Minister of India, Adil Shahryar, who was
serving 35 years for setting off a firebomb, fraud and other violations in
Florida. Mr. Reagan signed the clemency papers June 11, the day Mr. Gandhi
arrived in Washington for a visit with the President. Unlike other Presidential
papers, grants of clemency are not routinely published by the White House and
made available to the press, accounting for the action's lack of notice. The
Shahryar commutation was reported in the Indian press and confirmed by the
White House press office, which referred a caller to the Justice Department for
comment. A department spokesman, Joseph Krovisky, said he could not go beyond
the text of the official clemency grant, which stated that Mr. Shahryar, then
in the Federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., would not have been eligible
for parole until 1991.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
2nd Nov.
2014.
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