Bhopal victims urge UK government to drop Dow as 2012 sponsor

The Bhopal disaster is the worst industrial tragedy in India's history. Here, protestors demonstrate

                                           Victims and  campaigners from the Bhopal disaster of 1984 have staged a "die-in" outside the UK's sports ministry to protest at the sponsorship role Dow Chemical Company will play in the London 2012 Olympics.
The demonstrators object to the International Olympic Committee's 10-year deal with Dow, who in 2001 became owners of the firm that caused one of the worst industrial disasters in India, when nearly 4,000 people were killed by a gas leak at the Union Carbide plant.
An estimated 45,000 others were said to be affected by the emission of poisonous gas at the site in Bhopal, which has caused cancer, disability and renal failure.
The demonstrators want the Indian government to boycott the 2012 Games if the IOC keeps Dow as a sponsor, and said they will continue their protests after the Olympic body insisted their partner was not responsible for the tragedy.
The campaigners are lobbying the UK government to rectify what it claims are "transparent errors of moral judgment and legal reasoning" in its failure to remove all support for Dow's sponsorship.
India's government has written to the IOC to ask it to drop ties with Dow, while the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has threatened to withdraw from the Games if no action is taken.
In a letter to the IOA, Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, said: "IOC recognizes that the Bhopal tragedy in 1984 was an horrific event for India and the world.
"The Olympic Movement sympathizes with the grief of the victims' families and regrets the ongoing suffering people face in the region.
"Dow had no connection with the Bhopal tragedy. Dow did not have any ownership stake in Union Carbide until 16 years after the accident and 12 years after the $470 million compensation agreement was approved by the Indian Supreme Court.
"We only enter into partnerships with organizations that we believe work in accordance with the values of the Olympic Movement."
But with the Indian Supreme Court reviewing the case for a third time, the protestors claimed Dow was engaged in an "unethical refusal to deal with its unresolved legal and moral liabilities in Bhopal."
They also claimed Dow are misrepresenting facts and "prolonging the suffering of thousands of people in Bhopal, including that of unborn generations."
Officials from the protest group met with representatives from the UK's high commission and handed over a petition complete with 21,000 signatures that asked for Dow to be dropped as an Olympic sponsor.