A member of the 2012 London Olympics ethics watchdog has quit the body in protest of links between the Dow Chemical Company’s link to the infamous Bhopal disaster and its involvement in the design of London’s Olympic Stadium.
The BBC reported that Meredith Alexander, who sat on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 (CSL), stepped down from the role, saying that she didn’t want to have any part in the “defense of Dow Chemicals”.
As many as 25,000 people died in the 1984 Bhopal disaster, while thousands more suffered terrible injuries when poisonous gases escaped from a Union Carbide chemical factory. The incident is viewed as one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
Dow Chemical late bought out Union Carbide in a 2001 takeover, yet the company refuses to accept any responsibility for Carbide’s liabilities in the Bhopal disaster.
Explaining her decision to quit the ethics committee, Alexander pointed to the fact that Dow Chemical have done nothing to clean up contamination around the site:
“It is appalling that 27 years on, the site has still not been cleaned up and thousands upon thousands of people are still suffering. I believe people should be free to enjoy London 2012 without this toxic legacy on their conscience.”
Dow Chemical have been a partner in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2010, and have provided funding to the tune of £20 million for the 2012 Olympic Stadium.
Alexander’s resignation follows a protest last month in which hundreds of Bhopal survivors burned effigies of Lord Sebastian Coe, the London Olympics 2012 chairman, and Vijay Kumar Malhotra, India’s Olympic Committee chief.
For its part, Dow Chemical maintains that it has no legal responsibilities towards Bhopal survivors or the disaster site. It says that it did not own or operate the plant when the disaster occurred, and that all legal claims regarding the disaster had been resolved when Union Carbide paid $470 million in compensation to victims back in 1989.
A spokesman for London Olympics 2012 said that Dow Chemical was selected to be the supplier of the Olympic Stadium’s hi-tech fabric wrap in August 2011, following a competitive procurement process. According to the Huffington Post, the spokesman said that Dow Chemical had met the criteria for delivering a sustainable solution by some distance from competitor bids:
“The process has been independently validated by the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012. Dow is a financially sound, well-run international company with over 700 employees across 14 sites in the UK and has been a worldwide sponsor of the Olympic movement since 2010.”
Alexander, who was handpicked to serve on the CSL by London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson, announced her resignation in a joint statement with Amnesty International, another partner of the IOC, who have also called for the London Game’s committee to admit they made a mistake in selecting Dow.
About Mike Wheatley
My gratitude to this conscientious, brave lady. May her tribe increase.