Facing continued violence, Bhopalis are determined to use nonviolent means

The survivors of the Dow Chemical’s 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, through a nonviolent campaign, are walking 800 miles to reach Delhi in order to remind Prime Minister Singh that he promised them an “Empowered Commission on Bhopal.”  Determined to remain in Delhi until their needs are met, they hope that their presence will attest that their suffering has not ended and that their concrete requests for medical and environmental care in Bhopal are daily causes of pain, birth-defects, sicknesses, and on-going premature deaths; and the numbers continue to grow.

One of the group’s representatives shared that they already anticipate acts of direct violence– since the Prime Minister failed to keep his first promise in 2008 to establish the commission and instead has worked closely with other US owned nuclear corporations such as GE and Westinghouse Electric to protect them from liability within India’s borders,  over 70 people from the incident have been subject to arrests and assaults by police, including one 75 year old survivor.