“Dow Shalt Not Kill!”

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

Central Office: C – 141, Sainik Nagar, New Delhi – 110059 Phone: 011-25332343

Email : info@cpiml.in; Website: www.cpiml.in

Press Statement                                                                                                                     12^th December 2011

“Dow Shalt Not Kill!”

It is unfortunate that the London Olympics organizers insist on retaining Dow Chemicals as a sponsor. Dow Chemicals is, of course, the notorious successor of Union Carbide Corporation, which it brought over in 1999 and which was responsible for the Bhopal Gas disaster in 1984. That the people are languishing with health effects which will last for many generations and were sold out by their own Government for a measly settlement of $ 470 million as against a the Government’s own claim of $ 3.3 billion. Many people are even today trying to get justice from UCC (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals) and the Government.

But this is not the only mass murderous episode in the history of Dow Chemicals. Dow Chemicals has flourished on war and mass destruction. In World War I Dow Chemicals produced magnesium for incendiary flares, monochlorobenzene and phenol for explosives and bromine for tear gas. It has been reported that by 1918, 90% of the company’s production was for war.

During the 2^nd World War, Dow Chemicals is known to have transferred technology to I. G. Farben, one of the largest industrial houses supporting Hitler, thereby profiting from armament related sales to both sides.

After the 2^nd World War, when the US Government decided to produce Hydrogen Bombs, the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) chose Dow Chemicals Company to manage the bomb production facility at Rocky Flats. This plant produced plutonium triggers for the bombs. There were numerous incidents of radioactive contamination, due to fires and leakage of plutonium into the surrounding areas. Upto 1975, numerous investigations found high levels of radioactivity in the vicinity of the site. Finally, Dow Chemical Company was removed as the contractor.

During the Vietnam war, Dow Chemicals produced napalm and “Agent Orange” for bombing the Vietnamese. After protests all other manufacturers of napalm pulled out and Dow Chemicals remained the sole producer of napalm for the US army. During the anti-Vietnam protests by students in 1967 slogans such as “Dow makes Napalm – Napalm kills babies” and “Dow shalt not kill!” were common among the protestors.

Until the late 1970s, Dow produced DBCP (1,2-dibromo,3-chloropropane) which was proved to cause sterility among its male workers. Even after banning it in the US, Dow continued to sell it in Latin America. The Latin American Courts awarded the workers there $ 600 million in damages, but they have been unable to collect on this award. Some workers then sued in the US and in 2007 a Los Angeles jury awarded them $ 3.2 million in damages.

Dow, in association with Corning formed Dow Corning which was one of the makers of silicone breast implants. They were repeatedly sued for ruptured implants which ultimately led to their settling a huge class action suit in 1998. As a result Dow Corning was in bankruptcy protection till end 2004.

Dow marketed the household and garden insecticide, chloropyrifos, under the brand name of Dursban till 2000 in the US. The ill effects of chloropyrifos have been proved and were known to Dow even before they became public knowledge. In 1995, they were fined $ 732000 for not sending the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency of US) its findings on 249 incidents of Dursban poisoning. Further, in 2003, Dow agreed to pay $2 million - the largest penalty ever in a pesticide case - to the state of New York, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General to end Dow's illegal advertising of Dursban as "safe". Dursban was subsequently banned in the US. However, in India, even today, Dow continues to sell Dursban and its website says, “It has sufficient margins of safety to mammals.”

These are only a few of the disasters that Dow has perpetrated. It has been associated with the release of dioxins in rivers. Besides it has been associated with numerous accidents resulting in toxic waste being released. The number of such “accidents” makes it clear that they are not accidents but merely express the discount that Dow puts on human life as against profits. Dow has been known to indulge in viral marketing, that is, manipulating information on the internet to blank out references to their negative points. There have been many report about Dow Chemicals bribing Indian ministers. (As in the Hindu or 1^st April 2011). In 2007, Dow Chemical was fined $325,000 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over Indian bribery charges.

The Chairman of the Olympics Organising Committee, Sebastian Coe, has stated that Dow Chemicals cannot be held responsible for the Bhopal disaster since they bought UCC only 17 years after the disaster. However, he cannot deny that Dow Chemicals is responsible for Rocky Flats, or for Dursban or for dioxins. The point is not they were responsible for Bhopal but that they are responsible for not giving a decent settlement to the people of Bhopal.

The motto of the Olympic movement is “Citius, Altius, Fortius” which means “faster, higher, stronger”. The only way in which Dow Chemicals can be associated with this motto is they have the possibly the fastest, highest and strongest history as concerns the release of chemicals of mass destruction.

We call upon all the democratic people in India and the world over to boycott the Olympic games as long as they are sponsored by Dow Chemicals.

Workers of the World Unite

The true Olympic Spirit lies in encouraging sport – not profit

Yours sincerely,

KN Ramachandran

 General Secretary, CPI (ML)

Dated 8 December, 2011

With Dow Chemicals as Sponsors, Can India Participate in london Olympics?

In spite of the protests from India, the London Olympics chief has arrogantly announced that Dow Chemicals will continue as a sponsor of the event. The whole world know that the Union Carbide merged in to Dow Chemicals to escape from the wrath of the world people and to save itself from compensating the victims of the worst industrial disaster and massacre in history as a result of which hundreds of thousands are still suffering. Dow chemicals are cunningly lodging the responsibility for compensating the victims bribing the political leadership, executive and judiciary in this country..How can such a company sponsor such an esteemed sporting event like Olympics? The committee which organizes the Olympics in London should have thought about it.
Since they are not ready for it, and since they are more interested in the dollars drenched with the blood of Bhopal disaster victims, it is the responsibility of the democratic forces all over the world to protest against it.
In this situation, we have to raise the demand that India should boycott London Olympics unless Dow Chemicals is removed from among its sponsors immediately. A vigorous campaign should be organized to compel Indian government and the Indian Olympic Committee to declare its decision to boycott London Olympics which is organized with the dollars drenched with the blood of thousands of Bhopal gas disaster victims.

How to Understand the revolutionary line of CPI(ML)?

Friends,
To understand the revolutionary line of CPI(ML), please go through our publications: Red Star, central organ in English, Red Star, central organ in Hindi,and the theoretical tri-monthly journal, The Marxist-Leninist which are available in our website: www.cpiml.in. In our facebook, CPI(ML) we give our immediate reaction to various developments. Besides we are thinking of bringing out an email weekly, ML News, also soon. Our documents and important theoretical-political contributions are also published in the website. You can get hard copies of the organs, theoretical journal and documents from our central office: c-141, Sainik Nagar, New Delhi- 110059 (office no: 011 25332343). Besides our state committees publish organs and books in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali and Punjabi. All these publications provide a comprehensive of the reolutionary line put forward by CPI(ML). Please go through them and through the Marxist Classics, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. You are requested to send your criticisms, differences and anything about our world view and ask for clarifications. You can ask questions regarding these and any other questions about present developments and future prospects. We expect prompt reaction from all friends.

Why New Dawn India?

Friends,

These are days when all the positive humane, renaissance, democratic and socialist values developed during the last many centuries through untiring efforts of the humanity are challenged and suppressed by the barbaric imperialist system. The defeat of fascist forces during the Second World War and the mighty advances made by the forces of national liberation and socialism during the post-War years had given rise to hopes of a new world where democracy, egalitarian values and world peace shall flourish. But the severe set backs suffered by the international communist movement beginning with the degeneration of  Soviet Union and East European countries from the socialist path from 1950s have reversed these gains. Utilizing the opportunity provided by it, the imperialist system, especially the hegemonic US imperialism, have succeeded to impose and intensify the neo-colonial loot and plunder utilizing fascist attacks on the countries which want independence, nations which strive for liberation and people who want revolution.

In spite of this, the imperialist system has not succeeded to overcome the periodic crises it is facing, which has become acute in recent years. The finance capital which is parasitic and speculative has reached extreme levels of crisis and causing repeated meltdowns of the imperialist global system. Even the intensification of the plunder of the proletariat in their own countries and the world people through ‘neo-liberal’ policies, and the  murderous aggressions against, imposing of puppet governments in, and looting of the natural resources of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya like countries have not helped the imperialist system and US to come out of the crisis they are facing. As a result, imperialism is facing the worst ever instability and internal  contradictions.

But as past history and Marxist-Leninist world view teaches us, just because it is confronting the worst ever challenges, the imperialist system will not get reformed or leave the scene on its own. It is a barbarous system and it has to be overthrown. Then only the world proletariat and the oppressed people can create a new world, a socialist world, which shall create conditions for marching forward to a class less communist future. So, our task is to unite the masses, politicize them and to lead them to a countrywide mass uprising which will sweep away the imperialist monsters and their lackeys from the country, creating conditions for completing the tasks of People’s Democratic Revolution and marching towards socialist revolution as part of the world proletarian socialist revolution.

This struggle is significant in another context also. From the time the capitalist system started ‘recreating the world in its own image’, it had started turning the relation between human society and nature in to an antagonistic one. Under imperialist system, especially after the imposition of the ‘neo-liberal’ policies, under the so-called development policies imposed everywhere, the contradiction between capital and nature has become extremely antagonistic. As a result, the human society is facing a catastrophe. A situation is created that without overthrowing the imperialist system the human society cannot survive.

But, this advance is possible only if the challenges confronting the communist movement are overcome and both in theory and practice conditions are created for the onward march of proletarian revolution. This calls for an intensive ideological struggle to expose and defeat all alien tendencies propagated today in the name of Marxist thought and the counter revolutionary imperialist ideological offensive through various means. We have to defeat all shades of reformist, revisionist and reactionary thoughts, defend Marxist-Leninist positions and develop them according to concrete conditions of today.

During the last three decades, from the time the reorganization of the CPI (ML) was taken up, we have initiated an ideological political offensive with this perspective. The successful completion of the Ninth Congress of the CPI (ML) from 7th to 12th November, 2011, at Bhubaneswar, marked a critical point in this. We want to put forward the basic documents put forward by the 2009 Bhopal Conference and the Ninth Congress and to initiate a theoretical debate, discussion of the positions put forward in them together with the worldview of Marxism-Leninism at all levels utilizing all possible avenues. It is in this context this blog: New Dawn India is started. We invite al comrades and friends to put forward all questions concerning the problems confronting the communist movement and concerning the task of changing the world. Let us start a discussion on them and try to develop our theoretical positions so that it helps to transform the world. As Marx said, interpreting the world is not sufficient, we have to change it. Let us try to make this blog another weapon in our struggle to change this world.