European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 6, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday november 6, 1985 James Kilpatrick nearly one year after Bhopal f Little has changed remember biiopai.? probably not. Our Nali Onat attention Span is somewhat More than 30 seconds somewhat less than 45. About Long enough for a Beer commercial. But 11 months have passed since this Terri ble Accident and it is Lime Tor an update. The problem is. There is no update. At some Lime on the night of dec. 3-4. I9s4. Something ruptured at the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal. India. An invisible odourless toxic Gas spread through the City. An Esti mated 2.000 persons died an estimated 200.000 others were exposed to the Gas. Many were blinded. It was the most serious Industrial disaster in history. Remember you May recall what happened next and it is this part of the Story that Calls for an updating. Within hours american lawyers descended upon the stricken City. They arrived in circles like vultures plucking at the corpses. To Call this ambulance chasing disgraceful is to put the word disgraceful to a poor and inadequate use. I know i know. It was said if plaintiffs lawyers did t get to the victims first lawyers for Union car bide would. Both sides the company and most of the adversary lawyers have behaved with almost equal indifference to the victims of Bhopal. Back in the Spring. Union Carbide made a Fine Public relations Ges Ture of offering s5 million for interim Relief. Now it is november and not one Nickel of the is million has filtered Down of the victims. When a Legal history is written of the United states Flora Lewis what a chapter this will make there never has been a class action quite like it. More than 2.000 separate suits have been filed in India More than 100 separate suits arc pending in the uni cd states. No one can say How Many individual plaintiffs Are involved possibly 150,000. The prospective damages arc in the Range of is billion. Ana the lawyers if All goes swimmingly will pocket one third to half of whatever is awarded. To my knowledge Only one lawyer. Stanley m. Rosenblatt of Miami is serving the victims without fee. Lie made his views known in a court hearing last april when he urged fellow lawyers in the name of common humanity to serve pro Bono. Ordinarily As Rosenblatt has said publicly he will wrestle alligators in defense of the contingent fee system but Bhopal was Over whelming. In response to his plea All Rosenblatt got was a sea of Rea faces and a chorus of mutters and sputters. The Hundred Law firms that have jumped into the class action Are going to get theirs. To return to the main Issue from the Point of View of pitiful and destitute victims nothing has happened. From the Point of View of the lawyers All kinds of Good things have happened. They have shuffled papers bus ily at si00 to $200 an hour for months upon end. On april 16, . District judge John f. Keenan herded them into a makeshift auditorium. He might usefully have leased Shea stadium. At this Point Rosenblatt made a social error. He asked Why Union Carbide had failed to file an answer to the Basic suit. More sputters. Coughs. Cries of egad the Bounder Union Carbide had responded to the Baic suit with a motion to dismiss on the grounds that every thing should be tried in the courts of India where if would be so very much More convenient to the plaintiff and so very much less costly to the company. Here we arc in november and you will not believe this the motion to dismiss will not even be argued until january of next year. The threshold Issue of a trial forum admittedly is Complex. The Parent Union car bide is a . Corporation but the subsidiary Union Carbide of India ltd., was operating the Plant. There Are plausible arguments on each Side. Yet to this Date not one hour has been de voted to what the lawyers Call judge keen an has appointed a three Man executive committee to act for counsel this executive committee has met sever Al times in private session the hundreds of eager Law yers arc getting restive wanting to know what is going on. Judge Keenan is conducting this affair As of he were leading a symphony of 25 tomcats All yowling at once and meanwhile in the Law offices the Cash registers Are going Ching Ching Ching. What about the victims if the suits Ever go to trill Here or there or a settlement is reached out of court the victims May get something five or 10 years hence. The lawyers will get theirs first. Cd Universal Preu Middle East players All in place for another whirl virtually All the players in the endless Middle East drama Are in motion again. Whether their myriad Sig nals mean at last there is a real Chance for peace negotiations or whether it is just another turn of the old merry go round remains to be seen. The israeli prime minister Shimon Peres talks repeatedly of getting started before the end of this year for Good reason. He has Only until next october in office before he must step Down in favor of liked s Yitzhak Sha Mir under the agreement that created the coalition government. Engagement in talks serious enough to convince the israeli Public that there is a fair Prospect of peace is probably the sole ground on which he could successfully break the Deal. The rotation Accord which looked like a grave weakness when it was made a year ago has strengthened per is s hand considerably. It is a powerful deadline for Jordan because Shamir and his party have made no secret of their desire to Annex occupied lands and refuse any territorial concessions. There is another deadline although the second one is less precise. That is the growing weakness of president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the face of Domestic unrest. Israel has no doubts about his loyalty to their peace treaty but if Mubarak should fall before it is broadened to Jordan a new Leader in Cairo might not hold firm. The two deadlines Are pressing in various ways on All involved parties. King Hussein still seems to Hope that Yasser Arafat will finally carry out the conditions he accepted last Spring so that Jordan can negotiate on behalf of the Plo. To Syria s evident satisfaction Arafat has weakened himself so badly that his Choice May be Only to support Hussein or sit on the sideline. His base in Tunis is shaky. If he has to move once again to Iraq his commandos will still be practically out of striking Dis Tance from Israel. Syria always crucial is an Enigma. But its newly warming relations with Jordan Are not worrying Peres. Presi Dent hafe. Al Assad May be coming to a Guipe to 7jhe prefer a role in an International peace process without Arafat to trying to break it up and risk being left out. Shifts in soviet policy Are of special importance. The soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev is sending messages that he is prepared to move dramatically on jewish emigration and limited relations with lir Tel if the United Stales soviet climate is favourable. The French offer to Airlift jewish emigrants directly from the soviet Union to Tel Aviv is based on private exchanges that make that a real possibility. The russians have told Western diplomats they made a mistake insisting in the past that the people they let out go somewhere other than Israel first be cause then Large numbers went instead to the United states. That undermined the claim that the movement was Only reuniting families not a special exit privilege for jews denied to other Citi Zens. The russians Are aware that under israeli Law arriving jews immediately and automatically receive israeli citizenship. Under United Stales Law they would then have to apply for american visas in the israeli quota rather than the far More generous provisions for admitting refugees. It in t at All Clear what Gorbachev will ask from Reagan. Large scale Emi Gration would be a Brilliant Success for the president s human rights program that should be an additional incentive to make the Summit conference Workwell. The urgent soviet desire to participate in an International conference that would provide an umbrella for israeli jordanian negotiations show that Moscow now lakes the possibility of talks seriously and is determined not to be left out. Recon Fly a High level soviet Diplomat repealed to a senior israeli ambassador that in Moscow s judgment it was a mistake to break relations with Israel after he 1967 War. ?88 surer sing omission of in Middle East from the list of regional trouble spots in his speech at the United nations is a sign that diplomacy on Nis Issue May be too promising to die turn with futile rhetoric. But. But but. There arc bound to be attempts to blow up this delicate dance to the peace table. If the dead pcs arc missed it can take a Long time to line up another Chance. C now York time
