The Indian government says Dow Chemicals – a key London 2012 sponsor – is “tainted” because it now owns Union Carbide, the firm held responsible for the chemical disaster at Bophal, in India.
The Indian government is protesting against a key sponsor of the London 2012 Games – as the country’s officials said that the event shouldn’t be associated with a ‘tainted’ firm.
Dow Chemical Company was awarded the contract to build the decorative outside wrap around the Olympic stadium. However a cross-party coalition of MPs, survivors of the Bhopal disaster and Indian Olympians has launched a campaign against the decision.
On Monday the Indian government got involved, with the sports minister asking the Olympic association to intervene and promising to take it up at the highest level. The Indian Olympic Association said they were not happy that the sporting extravaganza should be linked to what they called a ‘tainted’ organisation.
In 2001 Dow bought the company Union Carbide Corporation, which was responsible for the gas leak in Bhopal, India in 1984 that was the world’s worst industrial disaster. Thousands of people died and tens of thousands were injured as a result of exposure to poisonous gas from the factory.Health and human rights groups in Bhopal continue to report high rates of congenital deformities and cancers among families who are forced to use contaminated groundwater sources.
Locog – the London Olympic organising comittee – says that Dow is a sustainable and appropriate sponsor. Dow maintains that it acquired Union Carbide long after the disaster and that legal claims were resolved after Union Carbide paid $470m as compensation.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, MP Tessa Jowell, the shadow Olympics minister, said that Dow should withdraw from sponsorship of the wrap.