The Killing Fields Of Multi-National Corporations
By Vandana Shiva
19 July, 2010
The Asian Age
The
Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human history.
Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and the
injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years will go
down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever.
The
gas leak in Bhopal in December 1984 was from the Union Carbide
pesticide plant which manufactured "carabaryl" (trade name "sevin") - a
pesticide used mostly in cotton plants. It was, in fact, because of the
Bhopal gas tragedy and the tragedy of extremist violence in Punjab that
I woke up to the fact that agriculture had become a war zone.
Pesticides are war chemicals that kill - every year 220,000 people are
killed by pesticides worldwide.
After research
I realised that we do not need toxic pesticides that kill humans and
other species which maintain the web of life. Pesticides do not control
pests, they create pests by killing beneficial species. We have safer,
non-violent alternatives such as neem. That is why at the time of the
Bhopal disaster I started the campaign "No more Bhopals, plant a neem".
The neem campaign led to challenging the biopiracy of neem in 1994 when
I found that a US multinational, W.R. Grace, had patented neem for use
as pesticide and fungicide and was setting up a neem oil extraction
plant in Tumkur, Karnataka. We fought the biopiracy case for 11 years
and were eventually successful in striking down the biopiracy patent.
Meanwhile,
the old pesticide industry was mutating into the biotechnology and
genetic engineering industry. While genetic engineering was promoted as
an alternative to pesticides, Bt cotton was introduced to end pesticide
use. But Bt cotton has failed to control the bollworm and has instead
created major new pests, leading to an increase in pesticide use.
The
high costs of genetically-modified (GM) seeds and pesticides are
pushing farmers into debt, and indebted farmers are committing suicide.
If one adds the 200,000 farmer suicides in India to the 25,000 killed
in Bhopal, we are witnessing a massive corporate genocide - the killing
of people for super profits. To maintain these super profits, lies are
told about how, without pesticides and genetically-modified organisms
(GMOs), there will be no food. In fact, the conclusions of
International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development, undertaken by the United Nations, shows that ecologically
organic agriculture produces more food and better food at lower cost
than either chemical agriculture or GMOs.
The
agrochemical industry and its new avatar, the biotechnology industry,
do not merely distort and manipulate knowledge, science and public
policy. They also manipulate the law and the justice system. The reason
justice has been denied to the victims of Bhopal is because
corporations want to escape liability. Freedom from liability is, in
fact, the real meaning of "free trade". The tragedy of Bhopal is dual.
Interestingly, the Bhopal disaster happened precisely when corporations
were seeking deregulation and freedom from liability through the
instruments of "free trade", "trade liberalisation" and
"globalisation", both through bilateral pressure and through the
Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which
led to the creation of the World Trade Organisation.
Injustice
for Bhopal has been used to tell corporations that they can get away
with murder. This is what senior politicians communicated to Dow
Chemical. This is what the US-India Commission for Environmental
Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the call
from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one newspaper
commented, Bhopal is being seen as a "road block and impediment to
trade... the recommendations include removing road blocks to commercial
trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear liability regime".
Denial
of justice to Bhopal has been the basis of all toxic investments since
Bhopal, be it Bt cotton, DuPont's nylon plant or the Civil Nuclear
Liability Bill.
Just as Bhopal victims were
paid a mere Rs 12,000 (approximately $250) each, the proposed Nuclear
Liability Bill also seeks to put a ceiling on liability of a mere $100
million on private operations of a nuclear power plant in case of a
nuclear accident. Once again, people can be killed but corporations
should not have to pay.
There has also been an
intense debate in India on GMOs. An attempt was made by Monsanto/Mahyco
to introduce Bt brinjal in 2009. As a result of public hearings across
the country, a moratorium has been put on its commercialisation.
Immediately after the moratorium a bill was introduced for a
Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India -the bill does not only
leave the biotechnology industry free of liability, but it also has a
clause which empowers the government to arrest and fine those of us who
question the need and safety of GMOs.
From
Bhopal to pesticides to GMOs to nuclear plants, there are two lessons
we can draw. One is that corporations introduce hazardous technologies
like pesticides and GMOs for profits, and profits alone. And second
lesson, related to trade, is that corporations are seeking to expand
markets and relocate hazardous and environmentally costly technologies
to countries like India.
Corporates seek to
globalise production but they do not want to globalise justice and
rights. The difference in the treatment of Union Carbide and Dow
Chemical in the context of Bhopal, and of BP in the context of the oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows how an apartheid is being created.
The devaluation of the life of people of the Third World and ecosystems
is built into the project of globalisation. Globalisation is leading to
the outsourcing of pollution - hazardous substances and technologies -
to the Third World. This is at the heart of globalisation - the
economies of genocide.
Lawrence Summers, who
was the World Bank's chief economist and is now chief economic adviser
to the Obama government, in a memo dated December 12, 1991, to senior
World Bank staff, wrote, "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World
Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less
developed countries?"
Since wages are low in
the Third World, economic costs of pollution arising from increased
illness and death are least in the poorest countries. According to Mr
Summers, the logic "of relocation of pollutants in the lowest wage
country is impeccable and we should face up to that".
All
this and Bhopal must teach us to reclaim our universal and common
humanity and build an Earth Democracy in which all are equal, and
corporations are not allowed to get away with crimes against people and
the planet.
Vandana Shiva is an Indian
feminist and environmental activist. She is the founder/director of
Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology.
© 2010 Asian Age
http://www.countercurrents.org/shiva190710.htm
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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