LONDON (AP) — A top manager at U.S.-based Dow Chemical Co. says he isn’t surprised that his company’s involvement in the London Olympics has raised controversy, given long-standing protests over its links to the Bhopal gas disaster.
George Hamilton, vice president of Dow’s Olympic operations, told The Associated Press that like all big Olympic sponsors, Dow knew that taking part in the high-visibility event would make it a target for protests.
But Hamilton says he did not anticipate that some British politicians would try to stop Dow from making an innovative curtain encircling Olympic Stadium.
Dow bought Union Carbide 16 years after the 1984 accident in the central India city of Bhopal that killed an estimated 15,000 people and injured half a million. Dow maintains it was not responsible for the catastrophe.
