Yes Men Strike Dow

The world’s most prolific culture-jammers have struck again. This time the victim is Dow Chemical, the American chemical giant whose Bhopal, India plant spewed poison gas into the neighboring slum, killing more than 3,500 and injuring thousands more. A Yes Man “identity adjuster” posing as a Dow spokesman told the BBC that the company was taking full responsibility for the disaster. Read GNN’s review of the Yes Men’s new movie here.

The BBC, Britain’s public service broadcaster, acknowledged Friday that it had been tricked into broadcasting an interview with a man pretending to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical, who claimed that the company had taken the blame for the disaster in Bhopal, India, in 1984.

The hoax, contradicting Dow Chemical’s rejection of any responsibility, came on the 20th anniversary of the catastrophe, when waves of lethal gas escaped from a chemical plant in Bhopal, in central India, killing more than 3,500 people and injuring thousands more. At the time, the plant was owned by the Union Carbide Corporation, which was taken over by Dow Chemical Company three years ago. Survivors have long complained that they have received inadequate compensation.

The interview with the fake spokesman was broadcast less than a year after an official inquiry criticized the BBC for inaccurate reporting and “defective” editorial supervision in asserting that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his aides had exaggerated the case for war in Iraq. Two of the broadcaster’s top managers quit as a result of that inquiry.

The BBC is also midway through a government review of its operations, carried out once every 10 years in preparation for the renewal of the…

Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq...