CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Diane Wilson: I’m Not Going to Jail Until Warren Andersen Is Extradited to India
19
Corporate Crime Reporter 40(1), October 10, 2005
Diane Wilson is facing four months of jail in Texas.
But she now says that she’s not going to jail until Warren Andersen, the
former CEO of Union Carbide, is extradited to face manslaughter charges in Bhopal,
India.
“I’m going to go on the lam,” Wilson told Corporate Crime
Reporter today. “I realize I have to go to jail. I’m quite
willing to do that. But Warren Andersen – who jumped bail 13 years ago
– needs to go to jail too. I’m going to stay out to expose the inequality
– corporate executives don’t go to jail for high crimes and little
citizens go to jail for misdemeanors.”
In August 2002, Wilson scaled a Dow Chemical facility in Seadrift, Texas and
unfurled a banner that read – “Dow Responsible for Bhopal.”
When she came down, she was arrested and charged with criminal trespass.
In January 2003, Wilson was convicted of that charge and sentenced to four months
in prison and fined $2,000.
An appellate court affirmed her conviction earlier this month.
She is out on a $1,500 bond.
Andersen was CEO of Union Carbide on December 3, 1984 when a deadly gas leak
from Union Carbide’s pesticide factory in Bhopal, India poisoned at least
500,000 people.
More than 8,000 people died within three days and over 20,000 people have died
to date as a result of their exposure.
Andersen was charged with manslaughter by prosecutors in Bhopal.
He reportedly lives in Bridgehampton, New York.
Midland, Michigan-based Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)
in February 2001.
Union Carbide also still faces outstanding manslaughter charges in Bhopal.
Both Andersen and Union Carbide refuse to appear before the courts in Bhopal
to face the charges.
Wilson is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the Bioneers Conference on October
14, 2005 in San Rafael, California.
Wilson lives in Seadrift, Texas.
She said she has no immediate plans to return home.
She is currently on a nationwide tour promoting her book – An Unreasonable
Woman: The True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift,
Texas (Chelsea Green, 2005). (For a complete transcript of an interview
we conducted with Wilson earlier this year, see 19 Corporate Crime Reporter
29(1) pages 8 to 16, July 18, 2005, print edition only).
Shannon Salyer, the assistant district attorney in Calhoun County, Texas would
not comment on the case.
Salyer said that Dan Heard, the district attorney, won’t be back in the
office until the end of the week.
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