IndiaPost.com - Bhopal hunger striker arrested at Indian Consulate in Houston

HOUSTON: Police arrested activist Diane Wilson on June 23, at the Indian Consulate in Houston. Wilson is on an indefinite fast in solidarity with nine survivors of the Union Carbide Gas Disaster in New Delhi, India.

Through her actions, Wilson, a fourth generation fisherwoman, has urged the Government of India to fulfill the survivor's demands for clean water, health care and justice. She refers to the survivors 'my sisters and brothers,' as she is also from a community polluted by Dow/Carbide in Seadrift, Texas. On December 3, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant; thousands more are now being poisoned by toxic waste from the abandoned factory site.

Wilson believes firmly that the Indian government and Carbide parent company Dow Chemical must be held accountable for the ongoing disaster there.

Diane Wilson summed up her commitment to justice and connection the Bhopal survivors: "As one of the Bhopalis said, 'What else can people do when their government ignores their pain and cries of injustice? Agitate, agitate!'" Diane's fast is part of an ongoing Global Fasting Relay, which is being supported by nearly 400 concerned individuals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and India. (The full list of fasters available at www.bhopal.net) In North America, actions have taken place in Boston, San Francisco and Toronto, with further action planned at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC.

The brave yet perilous decision to begin an indefinite fast has been undertaken by Wilson and others only after numerous unsuccessful attempts to focus the attention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toward the grave situation in Bhopal. Diane Wilson, a mother of five, became aware of the Dow/Carbide crimes in Bhopal after learning her own Texas County, located near several chemical plants including a Carbide/Dow plant, was the most polluted in the US.

After Ms. Wilson was arrested after a protest at her local Dow facility, she toured the country refusing to go to jail until the former CEO of Union Carbide was jailed. Former Carbide CEO Warren Anderson jumped bail after the Bhopal Disaster and has refused to face manslaughter charges in India.