“Drink Bhopal Water!“: Protesters Challenge Dow Chemical Olympic Sponsorship

While Britain's Olympic organisers were counting the last 200 days to the start of the games protesters in London marked the event for a very different reason.             

They want Dow Chemical dropped as Olympic sponsors because of links to the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India.
             
They're challenging officials to drink water from the scene of the lethal gas leak that killed thousands.             

[Barry Gardiner, UK Opposition Member of Parliament]:             
"They have a responsibility to clean up the site at Bhopal which was the scene of the worst chemical tragedy in human history."             

Activists estimate 25, 000 people died when toxic gas leaked from the Bhopal pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide.
             
They say about 100, 000 more still suffer health problems.
             
Union Carbide paid 470 million dollars compensation in 1989. It was bought a decade later by Dow Chemical which denies any responsibility.             

Farah Khan now lives in London but saw the dead and dying as a ten-year-old in Bhopal.
            
She says it's unthinkable that Dow Chemical's name could appear on the huge decorative wrap that will cover the Olympic Stadium before the games.             

[Farah Khan, Bhopal Survivor]:              
"I will be saddened and really hurt and so will all those people who are living in Bhopal to see the huge wrap, to know that the company which poisoned us, their wrap is around the stadium and they are being sponsored in advertising their company and they have actually poisoned and killed and are still killing people.  What about the children who haven't been born as yet?"             

Dow Chemical announced last month it would not have its brand name on the stadium wrap.

It also said its logo would not appear on decorative test panels for the venue which its plastics division is making.

The U.S. giant is one of 11 worldwide Olympic partners backing the London games.