BHOPAL, India, Dec. 3, Reuter: A 15yearold boy, orphaned by the Bhopal gas disaster, led a children’s protest as a strike on Thursday crippled the Central Indian city on the third anniversary of the poison leak.

Sunil Kumar, who lost his parents, a brother and a sister in the disaster, led more than 100 gas affected children in burning and kicking effigies of former Union Carbide Corporation Chairman Warren Anderson.

The children, some as young as four, waved banners and placards saying “Children Against Carbide”, “We Want Justice” and “We Want To Live” as they marched more than one km (one mile) to the former pesticide plant,

About 2,400 people were killed and more than 200,000 injured in

The world’s worst industrial accident when poisonous methyl isocyanine gas leaded from the plant belonging to Carbide’s Indian subsidiary on December 3, 1984. More than half million people have filed claims and the government has demanded 3.3 billion dollars in compensation, but negotiations for an out of court settlement broke down last Friday. Officials said they were preparing for a long court battle after the failure of talks to settle thieve before an Indian court, Elsewhere in Bhopal, hundreds of gas victims held scattered protest marches before gathering for a rally outside the plant to demand for speedier compensation from the U.S. multinational corporation, Police manned barricades outuit side the factory as protesters gathered in tents and held prayer meetings, of, in the words of an organizer “pay tribute to the people who slept to eternity three years ago.

They city itself was crippled by a strike after the Madya Pradesh State government had declared Thursday a public holiday and ‘ordered all government offices 10 remain shut.

Most shops were also downed shutters but public buses were not interrupted.

State Chief Minister Moti Lal Vora announced at a seminar for Bas. Affected women that the government planned to launch a 2.22 billion rupee (170 million dollar) action plan for Bhopal victims. He gave no details of the plan.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  December 11, 1987