Warren Anderson
From The Matrix
Warren Anderson (1921 - ) was the chairman of Union Carbide during the Bhopal Disaster that took place in an plant belonging to an Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide India Ltd. in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
The Indian subsidiary was founded as part of the official policy of the then Indian government under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to import Western industrial technologies and set up industries, factories and manufacturing plants as part of an effort at force-marching India's industrial development. The Bhopal plant's plans were approved by the governments and municipal authorities of India, Madhya Pradesh state and Bhopal city, respectively.
As part of Indian legislation, these subsidiaries were established with an Indian crony capitalist and state institutional participations as majority partners, 51%, with only a few select businesses possessing very desirable technologies permitted to own 51%, among which was included Union Carbide.
At the same time, Western businesses took the precaution of exporting only outdated technolgies and plant plans to India, in order to prevent these exports becoming a threat to themselves in the world markets.
For context, it is useful to consder another example of this policy — the purchase of the rights to Fiat's 1944 automobile model, which was licensed to the Premier Automobiles Ltd. and manufactured as the Padmini, still plying Indian streets in many places, especially in Bombay, where they dominate the taxi trade.
As the head of Union Carbide, Anderson knew of a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant that found 30 serious hazards; Anderson did not fix any of these hazards in the Bhopal plant, which was not under his direct management control, but fixed an identical plant in the U.S.
On December 3, 1984, due to disputed causes, an explosion in the Bhopal plant released forty metric tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) into the city, killing an estimated 8,000 people, and injured 500,000 others.
Even today, tens of thousands of people living in the affected areas are exposed to the toxic groundwater and soil that results from the remains of the contamination — Union Carbide arranged with Eveready Industries, successor of Union Carbide India Ltd to continue the cleaning up of these remains, but in 1998, the government of Madhya Pradesh took on itself this responsibility, since when it has languished.
Anderson expressed a desire to visit Bhopal, and the Government of India formally promised him that he would not be arrested; however, after he flew in (via Bombay), to his surprise, Bhopal police immediately arrested him.
Following this, he was jailed and only released on bail after several days in custody; once released, to the surprise of the Bhopal police, he jumped bail and flew back by private jet to the US, and has since never returned to India.
Anderson is currently considered an absconded fugitive by the Indian police and judiciary and susceptible to immediate arrest, but lives freely in the United States, while U.S. courts, till date, have consistently dismissed Indian demands for his extradition.
Nevertheless, despite rejecting liability for the disaster, Union Carbide agreed to a settlement in U.S. courts in accordance with which it transfered in 1992, $470 million to the Government of India, which the government did not disburse immediately, but used to balance its budget deficits, until forced to disburse by the Indian courts, a process still not completed, with some $330 million remaining with the government in 2004.
Anderson steered Union Carbide through the glare of the Bhopal investigation, designating a safety and environmental affairs unit to focus on the investigation itself while renewing the company's focus on its base chemicals, intermediates and industrial gases businesses. Anderson and the Union Carbide board later successfully staved off a hostile takeover attempt by GAF and its chairman Samuel Heyman, but had to sell off Union Carbide's lucrative consumer products division to meet the crushing debt commitments of the Bhopal defense.
Anderson was born in 1921 in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York to Swedish immigrants. He was named for the President of the United States Warren Harding. He later attended the Naval Pre-Flight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he played on the Pre-Flight football team with Otto Graham, who later enjoyed success with the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
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