The oil spill in Gulf of Mexico has attracted constant media attention for 2 months now. It is seen as one of the worst ecological disasters. The implications and consequences are going to be far and wide. It has impacted tourism, sea food industry of Louisiana and New Orleans, Oil and anciliary industries, endangered marine life, caused loss of jobs,health hazards ... and so on. I would like to treat it as another example of slackness on part of a big MNC who have been after making money by cutting corners especially on safety issues. There is no doubt that oil industry and BP are life line of the people living in the region of Gulf of Mexico but this uncontrollable spill of millions of barrels of oil has brought doom all over. Inspite of several expensive attempts by BP and US administration the spill has not been contained. This incident has adversely affected the image of BP,brought down its share prices and resulted in a potential loss of tens of billions of dollars in the form of compensation.
I would like to draw some analogy of this disaster with Bhopal gas tregedy which happened couple of decades back. While there are similarities, there are some major differences that underpin the double standards adopted by the governments in handling.
Here are some similarities:
1. Both were man-made disasters caused by irresponsible operations of large multi-nationals
2. In both incidents serious damage to environment has been caused
3.The consequences are far beyond just environment and encompass health, livlihood of thousands of families
4. These incidents have brought big time image and cash loss for the companies
5. Governments of host country and operating MNC are/were actively involved in the handling of the actions
But there are some major differences:
1. The USA oil spill has not caused big loss of life whereas in Bhopal thousands of poor people lost their lives and their kin are compelled to live a hell like life thereafter
2. The US govt. has imposed serious penalties on BP and held it fully accountable for clean-up. But the Indian govt. of that time acted in collusion with Union Carbide(now Dow Chemicals) and let the CEO flee India and even after decades of legal battle the penalties and compensation ($500 each next of kin of those who died)announced were so ridiculous.
3. Now it has become a serious political issue in India and politicians are leaving no chance to encash this tragic incident to their benefit. The current Indian govt. is trying to show that it is making serious efforts for extradition of Warren Anderson and for review of the case to ensure justice for affected people. But it all looks a joke. Why not US President Obama apply the same standards for Dow and Anderson as he is doing in case of BP oil spill ?
4. The speed,sincerity and commitment to justice for affected people, displayed by Indian government and US government are so different and it also clearly shows double standard of a super power towards a developing nation.
As a true world citizen, I appeal to the heads of the nations to stop playing double standards when it comes to incidents affecting human lives. Also the big MNCs must be brought under stringent international laws (may need to bring in new ones) to prevent such type of man-made disasters. Making money at the cost of environment and human life cannot be and must not be allowed any longer.
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Nice and sincere post. But I wonder if something could be done about it.. As you have rightly pointed out that US has uneven eyes over the BP issue vs the Anderson issue, don't you think that people like Obama who are so literate are very well aware of what they are doing! They know it, they ignore it and they move ahead, so basically situations like these leave me clueless of what exactly can be done about taking on the situation with a humanistic approach.
ReplyDeleteRaman