John Danforth, special envoy of the US to the Sudan since 2001, now also ambassador to the UN, has probably some experience with mass murder and how to deal with it.
The former reliable Special Prosecutor for the Waco disaster is not only an ordained minister ("When one part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all suffer"), he also sat until June 24th on the board of DOW Chemical, who in 2002 issued the press release quoted below:
"In response to growing public outrage over its handling of the Bhopal disaster's legacy, Dow Chemical (http//www.dow-chemical.com) has issued a statement explaining why it is unable to more actively address the problem.
"We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years," said Dow President and CEO Michael D. Parker. "But this just isn't true. Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the corporation to admit its responsibility, so that the public can then decide on the best course of action, as is appropriate in any democracy. "Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being clear about this has been a very big step."
On December 3, 1984, Union Carbide--now part of Dow--accidentally killed 5,000 residents of Bhopal, India, when its pesticide plant sprung a leak. It abandoned the plant without cleaning it up, and since then, an estimated 15,000 more people have died from complications, most resulting from chemicals released into the groundwater.
Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly deny these findings. After the accident, Union Carbide compensated victims' families between US$300 and US$500 per victim. "We understand the anger and hurt," said Dow Spokesperson Bob Questra. "But Dow does not and cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did, not only would we be required to expend many billions of dollars on cleanup and compensation--much worse, the public could then point to Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took responsibility; why can't you?' Amoco, BP, Shell, and Exxon all have ongoing problems that would just get much worse. We are unable to set this precedent for ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
Shareholders reacted to the Dow statement with enthusiasm. "I'm happy that Dow is being clear about its aims," said Panaline Boneril, who owns 10,000 shares, "because Bhopal is a recurrent problem that's clogging our value chain and ultimately keeping the share price from expressing its full potential. Although a real solution is not immediately possible because of Dow's commitments to the larger industry issues, there is new hope in management's exceptional new clarity on the matter."
"It's a slow process," said Questra. "We must learn bit by bit to meet this challenge head-on. For now, this means acknowledging that much as it pains us, our prime responsibilities are to the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole. We simply cannot do anything at this moment for the people of Bhopal."
Dow Chemical is a chemical products and services company devoted to bringing its customers a wide range of chemicals. It furnishes solutions for the agriculture, electronics, manufacturing, and oil and gas industries, including well-known products like Styrofoam, DDT, and Agent Orange, as well as lesser-known brands like Inspire, Retain, Eliminator, Quash, and Woodstalk. For more on the Bhopal catastrophe, please visit Dow at http//www.dow-chemical.com/."
http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release--------------------------------------
And while I'm at it: a few days ago an Iraqi group published THEIR estimate on civilian deaths in Iraq caused by the latest US intervention, does that count as mass murder? What should we do about THAT?:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/66E32EAF-0E4E-4765-9339-594C323A777F.htmIraqi group claims over 37,000 civilian tollBy Ahmed Janabi
Saturday 31 July 2004, 15:31 Makka Time, 12:31 GMT
An Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003.
The People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony, movement said in a statement that it carried out a detailed survey of Iraqi civilian fatalities during September and October 2003.
Its calculation was based on deaths among the Iraqi civilian population only, and did not count losses sustained by the Iraqi military and paramilitary forces.
The deputy general secretary and spokesperson of the movement told Aljazeera.net he could vouch for the accuracy of the figure.
"We are 100% sure that 37,000 civilian deaths is a correct estimate. Our study is the result of two months of hard work which involved hundreds of Iraqi activists and academics. Of course there may be deaths that were not reported to us, but the toll in any case could not be lower than our finding," said Muhammad al-Ubaidi.
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