The Yes Men, The BBC and Bhopal

The Yes Men managed to kid the BBC on Friday into believing they were representatives of Dow Chemicals and announced, from a Paris studio, that the company would be ploughing $12 billion into cleaning up the toxic waste and compensating victims of the Bhopal disaster in India 20 years ago. The Yes Men fake

"spokesperson appears live on the BBC World Service in front of the Eiffel Tower. He is ecstatic to make the announcement: Dow will accept full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, and has a $12 billion dollar plan to compensate the victims and remediate the site. They will also push for the extradition to India of Warren Anderson, former Union Carbide CEO, who fled India following his arrest 20 years ago on multiple homicide charges.

When it's over, the studio technician is happy about what she has heard. "What a nice thing to announce," she says.

"I wouldn't work for Dow if I didn't believe in it," replies Andy matter-of-factly.

We expect the story to be retracted immediately, but Dow takes two hours to notice that alas and alack, it's done the right thing. The full interview therefore runs twice, and for two hours the story is the top item on news.google.com. After Dow notes emphatically that it is not in fact doing the right thing, the retraction remains the top Google story for the rest of the day.

Back at Andy's apartment, we help Dow express itself better by mailing out a more formal retraction: "Dow will NOT commit ANY funds to compensate and treat 120,000 Bhopal residents who require lifelong care.... Dow will NOT remediate (clean up) the Bhopal plant site.... Dow's sole and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow CANNOT do anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to by law." For a while, this—as reprinted in something called "Men's News Daily"—becomes the top story on news.google.com.

"Whatever be the circumstances under which the news was aired, we will get $12 billion from Dow sooner than later," one Bhopali activist is quoted as saying. But the "false hope" question does come up in some articles. Much as we try to convince ourselves it was worth it, we cannot get rid of the nagging doubt. Did we deeply upset many Bhopalis? If so, we want to apologize. We were trying to show that another world is possible....

Throughout the day, we are deluged with email, almost all of it positive. Later, the BBC calls again: they want us back at the studio. Yeah, right! No, really—they want us on for another show, to talk about what has happened. Against our better judgment we go—and arrive to find four smiling staffers. "Where are the cops?" Andy asks, and the staffers actually laugh.

Another interview on Channel 4, and the day is finally over. Now all we can do is wait to see how it all pans out. Will our fondest hopes be met—will Dow be forced to concede? Or will the people of Bhopal have to wait twenty more years?

Visit Bhopal.net and help them keep the pressure on Dow."

Clever but hopefully, as they note, they did not create any false hope.