AMY GOODMAN: Women making a difference. Today, we’re joined by a fisherwoman, Diane Wilson, who has taken on the case of Bhopal as if it was her own. Eighteen years ago, on December 3rd, 1984, the toxic gas methyl isocyanate began leaking from a U.S.-owned pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal. Within hours, 4,000 people were dead. Ten [thousand] to 15,000 would eventually die from related diseases. Over 100,000 more were seriously injured. It’s considered the world’s worst industrial accident.

To date, no one from the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation has ever served time for the disaster. Eleven years ago, culpable homicide charges were brought against Union Carbide’s former CEO, Warren Anderson. He went to India. When he was arrested, he posted bail and then skipped bail, came back to this country. Momentum is growing to extradite Anderson, who could face up to 10 years in prison. In late August, a Bhopal court rejected a plea by federal police to reduce charges against Anderson.

Soon after, a member of Greenpeace tracked Anderson down at his luxury home on Main Street in Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York. Until that time, U.S. officials claimed they did not know where Anderson was. Over this past weekend, environmentalist Diane Wilson led a protest in front of Warren Anderson’s home. And on Friday, members of the Campaign for Justice in Bhopal staged a hunger strike outside the United Nations, where the Indian prime minister and U.S. president were meeting.

Diane Wilson now joins us in the studio.

Well, you’re on a fast. You went to Warren Anderson’s home after Greenpeace located him. Did you get to speak to him?

DIANE WILSON: I absolutely got to speak with him. I didn’t expect to speak with him, because he has been so elusive. But we were out there in front of his house, and a reporter from The Southampton Independent came by and wanted to interview us, so he had a tape recorder there. And just suddenly, out of the blue, he’d come out of his driveway, him and his wife, and he was very, very hostile. He said we didn’t know what we was talking about, that we haven’t done our homework. And then he went up to the reporter and grabbed — went after him kind of. And matter of fact, I thought there was going to be a scuffle of some kind, but he was going after his tape recorder. He was angry about the tape recorder. And apparently, the week before, The Southampton Independent had put on the front page a picture of Warren Anderson, “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” and it went into the Bhopal issue. And apparently, most people — and matter of fact, there were quite a few people that came by, and most people, they didn’t know who — they kept saying, “Warren who?” And I was like, “Warren Anderson, you know, the ex-CEO of Union Carbide.” And they had no idea he was living there. And I do know, but it was extremely hostile. It was totally unexpected, because —

AMY GOODMAN: You had an encounter with someone else there, as well.

DIANE WILSON: Oh, yeah. I was — like I said, he was real hostile. And I’ve been in front of union workers and, I mean, workers where you’re protesting their plant, and I don’t get this type of hostility. But I had a couple of times, I guess. Mr. Hewitt of — he’s the executive director of 60 Minutes.

AMY GOODMAN: Donald Hewitt.

DIANE WILSON: Donald Hewitt, he came by. And matter of fact, he drove by a couple times, and then he stopped and got out of his car, and he said we didn’t know nothing. He knew everything. He had went to Bhopal, did a story, and he said we were ideologically repulsive.

AMY GOODMAN: Huh.

DIANE WILSON: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Diane Wilson, why do you care about Bhopal and Union Carbide so much?

DIANE WILSON: Well, I guess because I’ve been a fisherman my whole life. I’ve been on the bay since I was 8 years old. I’m a fourth-generation fisherman. And all of these chemical plants, they dump into our bays. And we’ve had a Union Carbide plant right outside of Seadrift for over 50 years.

AMY GOODMAN: This is in Texas.

DIANE WILSON: This is in Texas, that’s right. And in 1991, Union Carbide blew up. Matter of fact, it injured — it killed one man, injured 32, even six citizens outside the plant, and threw shrapnel the size of cars all over the countryside. And it —

AMY GOODMAN: This is around the waters of San Antonio Bay?

DIANE WILSON: Yes, ma’am, it’s right around the waters of San Antonio Bay. And it put out over 900,000 pounds of toxics. And like I said, and they dump into our bays, and it’s just right next to our community. And so, that made news, and Union Carbide activists got a hold of me. And in 1992, I went to Bhopal, India, and testified at the People’s Tribunal there in Bhopal. And I met all the Bhopal activists. I met the women. I even went on a march of solidarity. There was probably 13 other countries who were there. I was the only one from America, though. And we even went to the Union Carbide wall and wrote slogans on the wall.

And I still remember when we were testifying in Bombay, but we were taking us all on a bus to Bombay, and this man started chasing us down the road. And he had a handkerchief, and he — he stuck it — and what was — what — what was — it was all these pictures of dead babies. And it was just — you know, I’ve got five kids, and it just — it just — it impacted me. I never forgot it. And so, anyway, you know, this had been 18 years of a struggle. And I understand struggle. And when the government of India tried to reduce the charges to negligence, I was just — I was outraged. And I heard about some people in India that were on a hunger strike, and I knew they were 18 days, and two of the women had fainted. So, I just — spontaneously, I called up and said, “I’ll do it.” And so I —

AMY GOODMAN: So you went on a hunger strike.

DIANE WILSON: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: In San Antonio.

DIANE WILSON: That’s right. I did it on San Antonio Bay. Matter of fact, I had a pickup truck, and I sat in front of that plant for 30 days, and I passed out flyers to the workers every morning. I was there every morning. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Union Carbide has now been taken over by Dow?

DIANE WILSON: That’s right, and it’s now a Dow plant, and Union Carbide is 100% their subsidiary. And I was there 30 days in solidarity with them. And those people in that plant got to know what Bhopal was all over again, because people kept saying, “It’s over with. It’s past. It’s over with.” But it’s like, there’s been no justice. And, you know, I even talked to the public relations with, you know — and it was like, you know, they even told me, like, lives in India isn’t the same as lives in America. And they would say that, you know, like, they don’t have any of this cleanup. The plant that had this huge pesticide, the contamination is still there. There has been no cleanup. You know, in America, you get contamination, you got a Superfund site, you clean up, even if you sell out. And, you know, I would bring that up to the PR, and they said, “Well, that’s American law. That don’t apply in India.” And so, it’s just double standard, you know. And so, after the demonstration, I know they — and over, it kind of launched a worldwide hunger strike. And probably over 10 countries got involved. Over a thousand people went on a hunger strike. And it’s had this momentum growing.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s hard to believe it’s almost 20 years.

DIANE WILSON: It is.

AMY GOODMAN: And I think very few people realize how many people died, the number 4,000 —

DIANE WILSON: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: — right after. I was talking to an industrial hygienist once who said that they do not use the word “accident” in cases where there’s a dangerous situation, and then somebody gets hurt, because they say because that could be avoided, it is not an accident.

DIANE WILSON: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: Although this is considered one of — it’s always talked about as a major industrial accident.

DIANE WILSON: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Right now you are in the midst of another fast. You started in front the United Nations.

DIANE WILSON: That’s right. That’s right. And the reason for the hunger strike, a hunger strike is to put pressure on the government to extradite Warren Anderson back to India, where he has been long — the trial has been long awaited by those Bhopal survivors. That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the U.S. government has denied knowing where Warren Anderson is?

DIANE WILSON: That’s right. They said they’ve got no idea where that man is. And so is Interpol. They’ve — and like I said, I talked to the fellow who went with Mirror, which is, I guess, a magazine, and they found him in two weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: And this was Greenpeace.

DIANE WILSON: They said it was pretty easy. That was Greenpeace. His name was Casey, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you get any kind of discussion going with Warren Anderson about what happened at Bhopal?

DIANE WILSON: Oh, absolutely no. It’s just everybody that was furious at me. They kept saying I didn’t know my facts and I didn’t know what I was talking about, and they would not even discuss it with me. They wouldn’t even ask me where I was from and what I was doing there. It was just — and matter of fact, one lady said she could just tell by looking at me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

AMY GOODMAN: So, your plans now? You’re involved in this hunger strike. Will you stay in New York, go back to Texas, go in front of the plant there?

DIANE WILSON: I believe there is some strategy afoot. We’ve been interconnecting with all the Bhopal activists, the ones in London and now the activists in United States. And I believe they’re having a strategy session in the United States very soon. And like I said, the pressure is on Dow and the U.S. government to extradite Warren Anderson. And I’m on a hunger strike until we get some movement there.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Diane Wilson. If people want to find out more about Bhopal, where can they go on the web?

DIANE WILSON: Go to Bhopal.net.

AMY GOODMAN: Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman and activist —

DIANE WILSON: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — focusing on Bhopal. And that does it for today’s program. If you want to order a video cassette copy or audio or CD, you can call 1-800-881-2359. That’s 1-800-881-2359. And I just came back from Seattle this past weekend, where there was a Reclaim the Media gathering. There were people there from Pirate Radio, from Pacifica Radio, from community access TV stations around the country, all taking on the major corporate media there in the form of the National Association of Broadcasters, and we’ll be bringing you some of the events in the coming days from the Reclaim the Media conference. A special shoutout to KBCS, that hosted the conference, from Bellevue, Washington, and also to SCAN, Seattle Community Access Network, public access TV. And if you want to get Democracy Now! on your public access cable station, you can go to our website and get more information at democracynow.org. You can email us at mail@democracynow.org. Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke. And we welcome Angie Karran. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer and music maestro, sitting in for Anthony “Reparations” Sloan. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening to another edition of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!