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BBC apologises over Bhopal hoax
Media
Published: 04-Dec-2004
By: Alex Thomson
The BBC has been forced to apologise to Dow Chemicals for broadcasting a hoax interview with an anti-corporate protestor.
The man appeared on BBC World claiming to be a representative of the Dow chemical group, and said the company was giving the victims of the Bhopal disaster $12 billion in compensation.
The prank, which briefly knocked 3 per cent of Dow shares, comes 20 years to the day after the chemical leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, which killed 3,500 people.
In New Delhi protesters have been holding candlelit vigils for the 20th anniversary of the day when forty tons of lethal methyl isocyanate leaked from the Bhopal fertiliser works in central India.
Twenty years on from the world's worst industrial accident, half a million people are still affected..
But the day of protest has been surreal.
At 10.09 on Friday morning this suddenly flashed up the news wires:
Even bigger: one minute later, at 10.10, they'd put a price on it:
At 10.25 Reuters had quotes from a Dow company man, “Jude Finisterra” - offering apologies, billions for the victims, sackcloth and ashes. It was all here. Some BBC scoop.
Fair enough - the respected BBC World news channel thought they were onto something big because they'd been to a Dow chemicals web-site, bearing the slogans :
"Dow is responsible for the birth of the modern environmental movement."
"Dow. Living. Improved daily."
"Dowkarma - treating others as we would like to be treated."
You’ve guessed it : it was all a spoof.
Well, we can all be clever with hindsight, the BBC journalists were just acting in good faith - but they'd been had.
It's all the handiwork of these people.
Jude Finisterre turns out to be this man Andy Bichlbaum - he's the one on the left.
And he's part of The Yes Men - a bunch of lefty protesters.
We followed them during the US elections as they tried to unhinge the Bush Campaign.
And they don't much like big businesses like Dow either.
He chose the name Jude Finisterra - Jude the patron saint of lost causes, finisterra being the end of the world.
Frankly the Yes Men cannot quite believe their luck – oh, and the Dow share price took an immediate tumble of over three percent.
By 11.18 this morning the newswires were in corporate denial.
And all day the BBC have been facing up to an honest mistake.
In Delhi tonight protesters were bemused by the western prank.
But their fight for justice and to get the plant finally cleaned up, continues:
"For twenty years, we have been seeing them (The Dow Chemical Company) play games. They have been playing with the lives of the gas victims for 20 years. It is not very clear whether they are speaking the truth (about agreeing to pay compensation) or it is yet another of their ploys to deceive us. But we acompany to its knees. And we will continue our struggle. We are not going to keep quiet. We will continue to fight till we bring the Dow company to its knees.
Aruna Roy, Bhopal protestor
Twenty years to the day the Union Carbide plant stands brooding over Bhopal.
Today's unlikely corporate humiliation of a US chemical giant was all about reminding the world that Bhopal remains an unhealed sore.
THE YES MAN : INTERVIEW WITH ANDY BICHLBAUM AKA JUDE FINISTERRA
Jon Snow: Andy Bichlbaum - or should I call you Finisterra?
Andy Bichlbaum: Well, whichever you like. Finisterra is "the end of the earth", Jude Finisterra - St Jude, um...the patron saint of the impossible – take your pick. I think Jude Finisterra is more romantic.
What did you think, then, when somebody from the BBC called you up as a representative of the Dow chemical company?
It took us a little while to figure out what we wanted to do. Of course, a couple of years ago, we set up this website that they went to. The intention then was to explain very clearly with this website exactly why Dow is refusing to do anything about Bhopal –a refusal that strikes many ordinary people as completely absurd, given the amount of wealth that Dow has, the amount of resources that they could very easily devote to resolving this problem, and their complete inaction.
In a sense, you got that message onto the website, but you must have been slightly concerned, in fact, once it became a real news story.
Um... you mean two years ago, or...?
Right now...
Right now. Well ... when we received the invitation, it took us a little while to decide what to do, but we decided that essentially Dow has been promulgating a hoax, by which they've convinced people that they can't do anything about Bhopal, that they cannot accept responsibility, and we wanted to prove that that was not accurate and to show that they could in fact easily accept responsibility, and that there was something very concrete they could do about it. They could simply devote a relatively small amount of money to finally putting this behind them and more importantly, behind the world.
The trouble is, of course, that they argue that they did do that with the original settlement with the Indian government.
Yes, they've also said that $500 is "plenty good for an Indian" –I'm quoting PR head of Dow, Kathy Hunt – she said that two years ago. $500 is worth more in India than it is in, say, the UK, but it still only pays for a year of medical care. The 120,000 people that are estimated to need medical care because of the Bhopal catastrophe are going to need it their whole lives. They've already needed it for 20 years.
There is in the end, though, a very painful sting in today's tale, in that the torchlit protest which appeared in Bhopal today thought for a moment that they had an extraordinary and unexpected gift from Dow, and it all turned out to be untrue, and indeed, there were many people in tears tonight.
Well, as I understood it, there were people in tears of joy when they found out, and indeed, it's... it is very sad that this isn't the case, but you have to realise that this is Dow's doing. Dow could make the tears of joy that there were real, and could prolong them. It would be a very simple matter for Dow to do that.
But at the end of the day, it is, nevertheless, a pretty cruel trick to play on the people of Bhopal, even if you managed to hit a few spikes at Dow.
Well, we... we wanted to show that another world is possible and that Dow could do the right thing.
But did you think about the people of Bhopal when you decided to peddle this stunt?
Yes, we did, and the people of Bhopal have endured 20 years of waiting, which doesn't just include false hope. They have hoped for 20 years for something –presumably, they've hoped for 20 years. Many of them have died...
But that surely is the tragedy of today –you spring upon them the actual hoax –they actually suddenly believe they've got a payout from Dow and then an hour or two later, they find it's untrue.
Well, come on, let's get a bit of perspective. I mean, Dow has refused to take responsibility for what they've done for 120,000 people who will need a lifetime of care, for 20,000 people, by conservative estimate, who have died over the years... still, one person dies every day because of this, of course. Dow has refused to clean up the site. Let's put them in contrast. We may have given people two hours of false hope, Dow has given them 20 years of suffering.
Are you expecting the next knock at the door to be Dow's lawyer?
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