Following is the letter with the list of endorsements till 16th evening, when it was sent to the US president.


A few persons have questioned making demands on the US President and not on the Indian rulers and officials. This letter is an initiative of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) and its close allies. For 26 years, this victim organisation has been confronting the Central and MP Government, medical and scientific establishments and the concerned ministries on streets and courts, in Delhi and Bhopal. This letter is not a 'one off' affair - the victims have also engaged the US establishments on previous occassions - the US and Indian establishments are both complicit in the denial of justice and compensation. With the looming Nuclear Civil Liability Bill trying to legalise the unjust Bhopal approach to perhaps even bigger disasters, the Indian government will certainly have to be resisted, but global forces pushing such an approach, mainly located in the US, will also have to confronted. The US President's position vis.a. vis BP is contrary to both the Bhopal gas and the Nuclear Bill approaches, and the international community as well as all of us in this country, we think, should highlight this contradictory and duality of approaches, with the view that Bhopal is not repeated, and Bhopal victims rights are recognized nationally and internationally.

As part of the ongoing resistance to the national government's approach to compensation, after dharnas, long marches, petitions to the PM, CM and others, rejection by the Relief Commissioner and the High Court to reopen the compensation issue, the victims have finally been able to have their legal petition admitted by the Supreme Court. This is a ray of hope for reopening many issues with the national government, US entities, and on the legal front. The petition admitted in the SC is attached so that many of you who have expressed the desire to see action nationally may organize support for it - in ways that you feel expresses your viewpoints best. BGPMUS is not funded by institutions or foundations - either from this country or abroad. If you think that your support and solidarity could come in the form of donations in fighting this present case in the Supreme Court, please let us know at this email id and we shall inform you of the details for doing so.

Many endorsements came from list serves we are not members of - please do circulate this mail to the lists you wrote to earlier. On behalf of the gas victims, we thank you all.

We understand and even share the cynicism/pessimism of some about the national ruling class and what to expect from it, but the gas victms don't have the security and luxury to live with such cynicism and pessimism. As their will to resist for over a quarter century has shown, hope is their sole motivator, however irrational it may seem from outside.



In peace and solidarity,