London:
Despite growing voices against Dow Chemical's association with the 2012 London Olympics, the mega sporting event's organiser, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), has said that the multinational will continue to remain a sponsor. The LOCOG is responsible for preparing and staging the 2012 Games.
The announcement was made by Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the LOCOG. It comes a day after a commissioner of an ethics watchdog for the event, Meredith Alexander, resigned over Dow Chemical's links to the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster.
Reacting to Meredith Alexander's resignation, Mr Deighton said today, "It is absolutely her right to resign. She is one of 12 members of that sustainability commission who signed off on the way we approached awarding the wrap to Dow. I think that it is great that we have got this independent function to oversee so all this is washed through transparently. I think that is fine but we are moving on."
Yesterday, Meredith Alexander said she was stepping down from her unpaid position on the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 (CSL), which monitors sustainability at the Olympics and Paralympics. "I don't want to be party to a defence of Dow Chemicals, the company responsible for one of the worst corporate human rights violations in my generation," she said.
After Meredith Alexander quit her post, more politicians in the UK have joined the protest. Opposition Labour Party's Shadow Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell also joined the chorus against Dow and called for a review of Dow's sponsorship decision.
"I have called today for an audit of the steps taken that led the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 to recommend to the London Olympics organisers, the LOCOG, that Dow Chemicals' sponsorship of the wrap was consistent with the high sustainability aims that we set for 2012 (Games). We also need to understand what the role of other Commissioners was in the process which reached that conclusion.
"We need a solution not a row. Dow Chemicals need to understand the seriousness with which people take the continuing situation in Bhopal following the tragic disaster in 1984. I will do everything I can to make sure this issue does not overshadow the Games. There is still time for a solution to be found," Tessa Jowell said in a statement.
Meanwhile, speaking to NDTV, Barry Gardiner, another Labour MP who has been spearheading the anti-Dow protests, said "it is time for Indian politicians to take a stand on the issue."
"Investigations need to be made into the Dow tender. But pressure needs to come from India. This is not just a UK campaign, and quite frankly, I want to see Indian politicians now getting involved," he added.
Dow is a major sponsor of both the London Games and the International Olympic Committee, and has stepped in to fund a high-tech "wrap" around the stadium. The London Olympics organisers, LOCOG, said in December that Dow's name would not be on the wrap during the Games or on five 'test' panels either.
India is strongly opposed to the company's involvement with the Games. Dow is the parent company of Union Carbide, whose pesticide plant leaked gas into Bhopal in 1984, killing thousands of people in the world's worst industrial accident. The company has said all liabilities for the disaster were resolved after Union Carbide settled with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million to the victims. (With Inputs from AFP)