The spokesman announced that the company was starting a $12 billion fund “to finally at long last compensate the victims including the 120,000 who may need medical care”.
An hour later the story was considered so important that it was also leading bulletins on News 24, Radio 4 and many other BBC outlets. But as the interview was exposed to a wider audience and wiser heads within the corporation, alarm bells began ringing.
Dow had apparently reversed its official and firmly held position that Bhopal was “a tragic event” but one for which it bore “no responsibility”.
And there was something odd about the name of this new spokesman: Jude Finisterra — named after the patron saint of lost causes and a Mexican landmark that translates as “the end of the Earth”.
A genuine Dow spokesman said that its London representative despatched his first e-mail to the BBC demanding a retraction at 10am.
He added: “We had taken calls from seven different countries, including India, about the story. It took us 20 minutes to work out from which part of the BBC it was emanating and get in touch with them.” The company will consider its position over the weekend and could seek redress from the corporation.
A BBC spokesman said the interview with Mr Finisterra had been “part of an elaborate deception”. She added: “The person did not represent the (Dow) company and we want to make clear that the information he gave was entirely inaccurate.”
The corporation apologised to Dow and said that a report on how the item came to be broadcast would be prepared for Mark Byford, the Deputy Director-General.
The spokesman said: “We believe the hoax was perpetrated by The Yes Men, a very well-organised protest group who specialise in these kinds of stunts and activities. We feel it was a very tasteless and irresponsible thing to do.”
In Bhopal The Yes Men’s hoax was condemned by groups campaigning for the victims of the disaster, “This was a cruel, cruel hoax to play on the people of Bhopal on the 20th anniversary of this tragedy,” Rachna Dhingra, from the International Campaign for Justice, said.
“They have not lost hope; they have been through worse and are going to go through worse. This cannot shake their confidence.”
The hoaxers could not be contacted yesterday, but on their website they try to explain that their actions are a combination of protests and mischief-making.
They add: “We do what we do because we think it’s funny. We can laugh for hours about these things, we are really stupid that way.”
