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Warren Anderson of Union Carbide dead

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Warren Anderson
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For nearly 30 years, Warren Anderson's was the face of the horrors that unbridled corporate greed had wreaked on their lives that night of December 3, 1984 when the Union Carbide pesticides factory in Bhopal leaked poisonous methyl-isocynate gas into the winter air.

And now with his death, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy survivors' hopes for getting justice have become remote. Anderson's extradition to India had been one of the key demands of the Bhopal survivors. Anderson, they allege had been directly involved, as he had approved the design of the factory with its compromised safety measures.

Shehzadi Bee, a survivor, is indignant: "Why did they not reveal the news of his death? Were they afraid of the reactions here?"

Anderson, then CEO of Union Carbide, died on September 29 in Vero Beach, Florida, but news of his death went viral only on Friday when the New York Times reported it.

In a release to the media circulated by various survivors' organizations, Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, said: "He faced grave criminal charges of homicide, grievous assault and killing and poisoning of animals and if convicted would have spent a lifetime in jail. Yet this man who killed more than 25,000 people and poisoned over half a million never spent a day in jail because the US government protected him to his dying day."

"The Indian government took 11 years to send its first request for extradition of Anderson and then did nothing when the government of USA rejected that request on specious grounds. A second request still remains pending with the US state and justice departments and there has been no attempt by the Indian government to expedite matters in the last three years," said Balkrishna Namdeo of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogee Sangharsh Morcha.

The survivors' organisations gathered outside the abandoned Union Carbide factory to spit on a photograph of Anderson and garland him with chappals.

They will also continue with their agitation for justice and more compensation. "On November 10, we plan to begin a fast in Delhi in support of our demand for more compensation," said Shehzadi Bee. "All those affected by the leak have got Rs25,000 as compensation. We demand that the government pay every survivor a revised compensation of Rs 644,000 and also amend the figures of the dead and injured," she added.

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