by Edward Hasbrouck
October 4, 2001
I've been thinking a lot lately about Warren Anderson
Around midnight on the night of 2-3 December 1984, two tanks of chemicals at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India ruptured, releasing 40-45 tons of poison gases over the next hour. In accordance with company policy ("to avoid causing panic"), no alarm was sounded and no evacuation was ordered, although the factory was surrounded by residential areas of the city of more than a million people. Although the gas cloud lingered and continued to cause permanent injuries for days, Union Carbide told neighbors of the factory that the danger was past.
Between 3,000 and 6,000 people died within days, and perhaps another 10,000 have died since from the effects of the poison gas. Between 100,000 and 500,000 people suffered permanent injuries.
Evidence was presented to the Indian courts -- which operate under procedures largely inherited from the British, and which are generally considered fair and independent -- sufficient to warrant charges of criminal negligence against Union Carbide and its corporate officers.
When Warren Anderson, president of Union Carbide, arrived in Bhopal to express his condolences to those who had "accidentally" been killed and crippled, he was duly arrested on charges of culpable homicide.
He posted bail, and promised to appear in court for trial. He jumped bail, and snuck out of India (and back to the USA). When representatives of the victims sued for damages in the USA, Anderson and Union Carbide got the lawsuits dismissed by arguing that the proper venue for lawsuits was in India. They (again) promised -- this time to courts in the USA -- that they would appear in court to face charges in India. But they didn't.
The Indian courts ordered Anderson's bail forfeited, declared him a fugitive, and sent a warrant for his arrest to the USA through Interpol.
Anderson -- now a fugitive from international justice, wanted for mass murder and under indictment by the courts of a friendly country with which the USA maintains diplomatic relations - - has since retired as CEO of Union Carbide, and has never returned to India. When attorneys for the Bhopal victims attempted to serve Union Carbide with a summons for Anderson, Union Carbide claimed they didn't know where he is (although they continue to pay him his pension). The USA has, of course, neither arrested nor extradited Anderson on the basis of the Interpol warrants.
Union Carbide has since been acquired by Dow Chemical as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow. But Union Carbide's headquarters remains in the same place: an isolated complex outside Danbury, Connecticut, in the middle of over 100 acres of company-owned private forest. No trace of the outside world or human presence (not even the entrance road itself) can be seen from the office windows, and no trace of the building -- nothing but the guardhouse on the road -- can be seen from any publicly-accessible land.
So what if a team of Indian commandos were to descend on Anderson's last reported address in Florida, kidnap him, and take him back to India to stand trial?
Or what if India's aircraft carrier (yes, they have one) were to be positioned in Long Island Sound, and some Indian bombers were sent to suitable locations in neighboring countries: Toronto and the Bahamas, say. And what if an ultimatum were to be given: "You are harboring a criminal, and you know where he is. No innocent people will be harmed if we destroy your Union Carbide compound -- no one but your employees and contractors is allowed within sight. Hand him over in three days, or else."
Of course, these are purely hypothetical questions. Nothing like that would ever happen, would it?
[posted 10/4/01]
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