Yoga therapies have produced some of the most remarkable results. Chronic respiratory disorders are Bhopal gas victims' most prevalent complaint. A two-year study Sambhavna conducted indicates that regular yoga produces significant improvement in lung function; more than half of all yoga patients were able to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs treating breathlessness.

The clinic's staff includes community health workers who go door to door to monitor public health in Bhopal -- a key task since official monitoring stopped in 1994. These surveys aid doctors by showing which diseases are increasing. More broadly, the surveys prove that, 20 years later, locals continue to fall sick and die in large numbers.

Sambhavna's holistic approach sees both illness and healing in a social context. The clinic thus insists that the long-term solution to disasters like Bhopal is to eliminate hazardous chemicals from the environment altogether. Until then, "exemplary punishment" of corporate polluters is essential -- not only to achieving justice for Bhopal but to preventing future Bhopals elsewhere.

Along with activists from around the world, Bee and Shukla are seizing upon the 20th anniversary of the disaster this week to launch a renewed campaign for justice in Bhopal and, more broadly, to demand meaningful international regulation of toxic substances and the corporations that produce them. The Web site of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal lists numerous planned actions and media events.

The most important development is the addition of Amnesty International to the campaign for justice in Bhopal. The human rights group's reputation for fearless evenhandedness lends weight to the conclusions in its "Clouds of Injustice" report. The report charges Union Carbide with "serious failures" at Bhopal, including ignoring "overwhelming evidence" of safety problems before the disaster, withholding information from doctors and investigators, and trying to avoid its legal and financial responsibilities for the disaster by shifting corporate ownership and dodging court dates.

The legal case against Union Carbide is complicated by the fact that Dow Chemical purchased all shares of Union Carbide in 2001 yet denies any legal responsibility for Carbide's past actions. "Dow remains firm in its position that in acquiring the shares of Union Carbide it acquired no new liability," says spokesman Musser.

This novel legal theory -- that one company can buy another company's assets but not its liabilities -- may soon be tested. Nitynand Jayaraman of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal says that activists plan to press the Indian government to include Dow Chemical in the outstanding criminal case against Union Carbide; the government could then attach Dow's assets if it refused to appear in court. Gary Cohen, the director of the Environmental Health Fund in Washington, says, "Dow wants to expand in India, and we're going to make that very difficult" -- by raising questions about the trustworthiness of a corporation that refuses to heed a court summons.

Amnesty International has urged Dow Chemical, as Union Carbide's new corporate parent, to take a series of actions to make amends. Those actions include paying for a full cleanup of the Bhopal site and its contaminated groundwater, standing trial as requested in India, and paying full economic, medical and environmental reparations to the victims. More broadly, Amnesty echoes activists' call for tougher regulation of chemical production, especially in impoverished communities and countries. "Clouds of Injustice" proposes that the United Nations adopt an "international human rights framework that can be applied to companies directly" to ensure "transparency and public participation in ... the operation of industries using hazardous materials."

A further complication to this case is that Union Carbide did pay $470 million to the government of India in 1989 to settle all claims related to Bhopal. But there is much less to that settlement than meets the eye. The $470 million figure was based on now-discredited estimates that only 3,000 people died at Bhopal; the actual death toll is at least seven times that many. What's more, says Bee, "Carbide made that settlement with the government, not with the people affected. We don't accept it." And $330 million of the settlement money has been tied up in legal wrangling instead of reaching victims. When India's Supreme Court ordered in July that the $330 million be distributed forthwith, activists appealed the ruling, arguing that victims deserve four times that much.

Independent experts, including authors Arun Subramaniam and Ward Morehouse in their book "The Bhopal Tragedy," have estimated the total damages of the disaster -- including healthcare for survivors, compensation for families left without breadwinners, and restoration of local ecosystems -- total anywhere from $1.3 billion to $4 billion. Activists have filed a civil suit in the United States in an effort to force Dow Chemical to pay proper compensation.

Whatever the exact amount owed, it's clear that the people of Bhopal have been terribly mistreated. First they were left defenseless against a horrific but predictable disaster; then they were given a legal runaround for 20 years instead of just compensation for their suffering. There are many shades of gray in life, but sometimes the truth is black and white: It is shameful for Dow Chemical/Union Carbide to keep ducking its obligations in Bhopal and shameful for the U.S. State Department to help it do so. Doing the right thing -- standing trial and facing a court's judgment -- may cost the company financially, but continuing to stonewall could blacken its reputation forever.

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