Olympics: Bhopal protesters unveil banner outside stadium

Activists calling for Dow Chemical to be dropped as a sponsor of the London 2012 Games due to the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster unfurled a giant protest banner in front of the Olympic Stadium.

Among them was Sanjay Verma, who was born in Bhopal five months before the deadly 1984 gas leak, and who is hoping to meet Olympic officials in London to discuss the Dow deal. “The Olympics is all about ethics and this is something unethical, that Dow Chemical is sponsoring the London Olympics, because they are responsible for thousands of deaths in Bhopal,” he said.

The banner unfurled yesterday showed emotive pictures of victims of Bhopal, alongside victims of napalm and white phosphorous.

 

“People who died that night were lucky because they did not live to struggle,” said Verma, who lost his parents and five siblings in the disaster.

The International Olympic Committee had earlier stated there was no prospect of Dow being axed from the London Games, despite calls for a boycott.

But London's Olympic chiefs said last month they would meet with activists to discuss the issue, and they have also said Dow's name would not appear on the fabric wrap it is sponsoring which will go around the main stadium.