Bhopal

The tragedy of gas
Sifts through history like holocaust.

In this age of mighty crush the weak
There is no sympathy for those who can’t fight back –
Those so weakened and demoralized
That treat each day as a crusade
Against an absent enemy, omnipresent and all-powerful,
Conquering them forever through disease
And pestilence to steal their lives but never courage.

Union carbide took 8,000 lives in just one week
As if it were Verdun, the Battle of the Somme,
But where the French and Germans stayed to bury dead
Warren Anderson ignored his crime –
As a camp administrator might at Nuremburg.

390 tonnes of toxic chemicals abandoned
Continue to leak, pollute the groundwater
In a region that affects the thousands
Of Bhopal residents who depend upon it.

Dow Chemicals bought Union Carbide
Yet refuse to clean the poison up.

The tragedy of gas
Sifts through history like holocaust.
.