India to ask London to drop Dow Chemical

Updated: 2011-12-16 07:38

(China Daily)

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NEW DELHI - The Indian Olympic Association will formally ask organizers of the London Games to drop Dow Chemical as a sponsor over its links to the Bhopal disaster, acting chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra said on Wednesday.

"We will express our displeasure to London Games organizers and ask them to drop Dow as one of their sponsors," Malhotra told AFP, adding that the company's role was "unacceptable".

In 2001, Dow Chemical bought fellow chemical company Union Carbide, whose pesticide plant leaked gas into the central Indian city of Bhopal in 1984, killing tens of thousands in the world's worst industrial accident.

Malhotra said the Indian Olympic Association would formulate its demand over Dow at a two-day meeting of the body in New Delhi that was set to begin on Thursday. He stressed that India would not boycott the event.

Indian activists have been battling for more compensation money with protests being led by Shivraj Chauhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state where Bhopal is located.

Malhotra said he had received a petition on Wednesday signed by 11,000 campaigners for Bhopal victims, led by former hockey Olympian Aslam Sher Khan.

Union Carbide settled with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million for the Bhopal victims.

Dow, which is sponsoring a fabric shroud to be installed on the main Olympic Stadium, says all liabilities for the disaster were resolved with this payment.

Malhotra, an influential member of the main opposition Bhartiya Janata Party, has sent letters to Sports Minister Ajay Maken and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking their advice on the contentious issue.

"Olympics are about love, brotherhood and transparency and this company (Dow) is linked with (Union Carbide), which was responsible for killing thousands of Indian people," he said.

"It's unacceptable that such a company is a sponsor in the Olympics."

Maken last week described the row as a "sensitive issue" and said he has asked India's Olympic body "to take a strong decision on the issue".

London Olympic chief Sebastian Coe has defended the Dow Chemical sponsorship deal but Labour politician Ken Livingstone, who was mayor of London when the city won the right to host the Games, has urged a rethink.

"I understand the human scale of that suffering, but these are two completely different issues," Coe said last month.

"Dow were never the operators or the owners of that chemical plant in 1984, nor were they the operators or the owners of the plant in 1989 when the final settlement was agreed.

"I feel comfortable after analyzing the history of this case," the two-time Olympic 1,500m gold medallist added.

Malhotra holds temporary charge of the IOA as his predecessor Suresh Kalmadi is in jail over corruption charges stemming from last year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Agence France-Presse