ENVIRONMENT: Toxic Claims in Retreating Carrier’s Wake

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI , Feb 16 2006 (IPS) - By recalling the condemned toxic waste-laden carrier “Clemenceau” from its final burial voyage to India, French President Jacques Chirac has acknowledged the weight of public opinion both at home and abroad on the issue of permitting the export of hazardous wastes from the industrially developed Northern countries to the South.

Such exports are banned by the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. But the French government insisted until Wednesday that the 27,000-tonne former aircraft carrier is an exception to the convention and could be ‘safely’ dismantled at the Alang ship-breaking yard in Gujarat, on India’s west coast – which has earned notoriety for its horrifying working conditions and patently unsafe practices.

”Chirac’s decision is a massive, handsome victory for the environmental movement and for the votaries of global justice,” says Madhumita Dutta of the voluntary Corporate Accountability Desk in Delhi, one of many environmental groups which campaigns against the dumping of discarded ships in India. ”We feel vindicated in our long struggle to prevent the North’s poisonous wastes from being dumped on the South’s poor and underprivileged citizens.”

Chirac’s decision follows a ruling by a French high judicial authority, the council of state, which ordered suspended the towing of the ‘Clemenceau’ to India and asked a trial court in France to reconsider its judgment allowing the ship to proceed to India. It also precedes Chirac’s visit to India beginning next Monday.

The ‘Clemenceau’ has been at the centre of a huge controversy. The decommissioned aircraft-carrier contains a huge quantity of asbestos, estimated at between 45 and 1,000 tonnes, besides other toxic substances, including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury.

The French government recently sold the ship to a private company, ‘SDIC’, insisting that the vessel’s dumping is permissible under the Basel Convention because it is “war material.” Environmentalists in both France and India argued that such exceptions are impermissible under international law.

The ‘Clemenceau’ case ”is a spectacular instance of monumental hypocrisy on the part of the French government,” argues Ravi Agarwal of Toxic Links, a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation. “France has banned asbestos domestically. It recently won a case in the World Trade Organisation against asbestos exports from Canada. But it has had no compunctions in claiming that it could legitimately export tonnes of asbestos to India.”

No less hypocritical has been the Indian government, which pays lip-service to the Basel Convention, but wants toxic wastes from the industrialised countries to be dumped in Alang, the world’s largest, and most infamous, ship-breaking yard.

Last Monday, India’s Supreme Court refused to halt the entry of the ‘Clemenceau’ into Indian waters, and ordered that a committee of former Indian armed forces officials be constituted to evaluate the amount of asbestos still remaining on board the condemned ship.

The Supreme Court also ordered a gagging of public comment on the merits of the ‘Clemenceau’ case, expressing a ”pro or against or a middle line” opinion on the ground that that would constitute contempt of court.

This ruling attracted adverse media comment. ‘The Hindu’ newspaper said: ”The Supreme Court’s order runs counter to the tendency of courts the world over to allow greater latitude for the discussion of matters of wide public interest and concernà In the ‘Clemenceau’ affair, the debates extend far beyond the merely legal. Issues of health and safety of workers, good business ethics, political morality, and international relations have transformed the episode into a matter of widespread public concernà”

”To consider a discussion of such issues contempt of court because of the pending litigation and to resort to prior restraint on any publication would do incalculable harm to the democratic fabric,” added the newspaper.

France’s decision to recall the ship seems calculated to avoid further embarrassment on an issue which has set the European Union against Paris. The EU recently announced that it was investigating the ‘Clemenceau’ case and considering instituting legal proceedings against France.

A recent survey showed that 68 percent of the French public are opposed to the dismantling of the toxic ship in India. And an independent opinion poll in India, commissioned by Greenpeace-India, says 70 percent of Indians oppose the dumping of the aircraft-carrier.

”This was a clear case of France violating the Basel Convention,” says Vinuta Gopal, Greenpeace-India’s toxic campaigner. ”It holds an object lesson for the toxic waste exporting and importing lobbies both North and South. The French government, under the pressure of public opinion, has appealed for greater ‘decontamination facilities’ to be built in France. This is a triumph for the causes of rule of law and environmental justice.”

The ‘Clemenceau’, which left the French port of Toulon on December 31, will now be towed back to France around the Cape of Good Hope.

The ‘Clemenceau’ case was a litmus test for India. Had it been allowed to enter Indian waters and be dismantled, that would have set a major precedent for other Northern decommissioned warships too. More than 1,000 such warships, 400 of them from the United States, are waiting to be broken up.

Although the ‘Clemenceau’ was an open-and-shut case from the standpoint of international law and the Indian Supreme Court’s rulings, the Indian government balked.

Astonishingly, the French ambassador to India admitted that the ship carries a large amount of asbestos, but disingenuously offered to take the asbestos back to France.

”This offer was appalling,” says Agarwal. ”The real hazard lies in pulling out the asbestos in India, which would expose workers to terrible risks of cancer and incurable lung diseases. It makes no sense to offer to repatriate the toxic stuff after people have already been harmed in India.”

The ‘Clemenceau’ case exposes serious flaws in the Indian regulatory system on toxic wastes. India has become a dumping ground for a whole range of hazardous substances imported from the West. But it has failed to develop any mechanisms for preventing dumping.

Environmentalists hope that the recall of the ship will encourage the government to institute effective checks and balances to prevent the poisoning of the public and occupational workers. One source of hope lies in the broad civil society mobilisation against waste dumping, including major Indian trade unions, anti-toxic trade campaigners and the growing Green movement.

The ‘Clemenceau’ was decommissioned nine years ago. In 2001, the French government tried to sink it as an artificial reef in the Mediterranean, but failed. France also tried sending the ship to Greece, Turkey and Spain.