by David Chaproniere

Created on: July 23, 2010   Last Updated: July 25, 2010

America’s response to the BP oil spill should be undertaken with great care – not because BP is free from guilt, but rather because so much finger pointing will naturally lead commentators to look more closely at the oil and other disasters US companies have caused.

Let’s face it: the only reason BP is getting so much stick is because America is big enough to throw its weight around, and a currently unpopular President Obama has had to shout loud to save face and sound tough.

But I do not hear him shouting so loudly about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India, which occurred in 1984 and killed over 2,200 people, and has since killed many more. Some Indian government estimates put the total death toll so far at around 15,000-20,000.

The gas cloud is thought to have contained a number of chemicals in addition to the main chemical leaked, methyl isocyanate. Other chemicals are thought to have included hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The long-term effects of the leaking of these chemicals are still being felt.

The plant in Bhopal was owned by the Union Carbide India Limited, which was a subsidiary of US company Union Carbide Corp. (which is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical).

So why refer to a gas leak that happened over a quarter of a century ago? Because the continuing legal action taken against those responsible was being reported on the UK’s news channels at the same time President Obama was sniping at BP. Moreover, it was reported that then chairman and CEO of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, has escaped extradition and lives a rather luxurious life in Florida as Bhopal victims continue to suffer or die. Which rather puts America’s calling for the head of BP chief executive Tony Hayward in context.

Look elsewhere on the globe, and the BP oil spill is of little consequence compared to those that often occur in Nigeria. According to a report in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper, the Niger delta supplies 40% of the United States’ crude oil imports, and is “the world capital of oil pollution”.

Of course, none of this takes away from the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe happening in the Gulf of Mexico. But it does seem that, as it happened on America’s doorstep, and as the US is, effectively, the only remaining world superpower, the US does have the clout to make those people responsible jump, while quietly ignoring what goes on other countries’ doorsteps (and while happily accepting, in the case of Nigeria, a sizable supply of crude oil in the process). Apparently, the lives and livelihoods of those living on the US coast of the Gulf of Mexico far more favourably outweigh those who live around the Niger delta and Bhopal, where life, it seems, is cheap.

America's demand for oil is perhaps, as much responsible for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as it is BP's responsibility. And it is for this reason, as well as America's less-than-perfect involvement - directly or indirectly - in gas plant leakages and oil spills abroad, that the US needs to tread more carefully when similar disasters involving foreign companies happen in its own jurisdiction.

Perhaps the next time America vents its spleen, it should remember an old adage: he who shouts the loudest often has the most to hide.

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