Shades of Bhopal................ or............. Who also should be considered "terrorists"?
Subject: Shades of Bhopal................or.............Who also should be considered "terrorists"?
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 08:56:57 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
Thousands march in Toulouse to condemn blast
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12595/newsDate/1-Oct-2001/story.htm
TOULOUSE, France - More than 15,000 people demonstrated in the southern French city of Toulouse on the weekend to condemn a blast at a petrochemicals factory that killed 29 people and injured thousands.
The protesters marched to the site on the outskirts of Toulouse where the explosion ripped through the AZF unit of oil giant TotalFinaElf, flattening parts of the city.
Led by ecological organisations and by the "Never Again" group, formed in the aftermath of the September 21 blast, the demonstrators waved banners reading "Industrials=Assassins. Put your factories in your gardens".
"People still don't know why this factory really exploded. All they know is they escaped the worst. Worse still, they get the feeling they are not being told everything," said Stella Bisseuil, one of the lawyers for the "Never Again" group.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth has for years condemned the presence near residential areas of a chemical industrial area which includes AZF and an explosives factory.
The blast was initially put down to an accident, but officials have become more circumspect on the cause.
The city's chief prosecutor announced on Friday he would launch a manslaughter probe on the basis that criminal negligence could have been behind the explosion that destroyed some 10,000 homes.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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