On November 29, 2004, an email comes in to DowEthics.com, our fake Dow Chemical website. (See also the long and twisting story of how that website came to be, and how it came to be often mistaken for the real thing. Hint: it was Dow’s fault!)

The email, from a staffer at BBC World Television, is asking Dow Chemical whether a company representative could come in to discuss Dow’s position on the 1984 Bhopal tragedy—on Dec. 3, the catastrophe’s 20th anniversary, and just 6 days from then.

We can hardly believe our eyes. If it’s real, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to say, in front of 350 million people (the viewership of BBC World, according to our email invitation)… well, something. And that something, if we decide well, could change the lives of thousands of survivors of the 1984 tragedy, and maybe millions of others. But if it’s fake….

We’re pretty sure it’s fake, actually. We decide it’s a police trap, an irresistible honeypot that will get us into a place where the police can easily nab us (as if they couldn’t just find us at home). There’s no evidence for this theory, but it’s easier to believe it than to believe the actual truth: that we’re headed into a golden opportunity to do something so valuable, so useful, that if we flub it, we’ve really flubbed huge and will probably regret it intensely for years.

Knowing underneath our useful paranoia that it actually is most likely real, we act accordingly. We write back and let the BBC know—to their immense surprise—that Dow would be absolutely delighted to appear. We let them know that the BBC’s “usual spokesperson” will be in Paris on Dec. 3, so could we do it there? Andy is already living in Paris, for one thing. For another, we figure there will be a lot less scrutiny of the “Dow representative” at a subsidiary office in France than at the big central HQ in London. It’s settled: Mr. Jude (patron saint of the impossible) Finisterra (earth’s end) will represent Dow on Dec. 3, in less than one week.

TRANSCRIPT:

Journalist BBC World: Well, joining us live from Paris now, Jude Finisterra, he’s a spokesman for Dow Chemicals which took over Union Carbide. Good morning to you. Um, a day of commemoration in Bophal. Do you now accept responsibility for what happened?

Andy Bichlbaum: Steve, yes. Today is a great day for all of us at Dow and I think for millions of people around the world as well. It’s 20 years since the disaster and today, I’m very, very happy to announce that for the first time, Dow is accepting full responsibility for the Bophal catastrophe. We have a twelve-billion-dollar plan to finally at long last fully compensate the victims including the 120 000 who may need medical care for their entire lives and to fully and swiftly remediate the Bophal plant site. Now when we acquired Union Carbide three years ago, we knew what we were getting and it’s worth 12 billion dollars. 12 billion dollars we have resolved to liquidate Union Carbide, this nightmare for the world, and this headache for Dow and use the 12 billion dollars to provide more than $500 per victim which is all that they’ve seen, a maximum of just about $500 per victim. It is not plenty good for an Indian, as one of our spokespersons unfortunately said a couple of years ago. In fact, it pays for one year of medical care. We will adequately compensate the victims. Furthermore, we will perform a full and complete remediation of the Bophal site which as you mentioned has not been cleaned up when Union Carbide abandoned the site twenty years ago, or sixteen years ago, they left tons of toxic waste which continues, —the site continues to be used as a playground by children, uh, water continues to be, drunk from the groundwater underneath. It’s a mess, Steve.

BBC World: It’s a mess certainly, uh, Jude, that’s good news that you have finally accepted responsibility, uh, some people would say “too late, it’s three years, almost four years on”. How soon is your money going to make a difference to the people in Bophal?

A.B.: Well, as soon as we can get it to them, Steve. We’ve begun the process of liquidating Union Carbide, um, this is as you mentioned late but it’s the only thing we can do. When we acquired Union Carbide, we did settle their liabilities in the United States immediately and we are now, three years later, prepared to do the same in India. We should have done it three years ago, we are doing it now, um, I would say that it’s better late than never and I would also like to say that this is no small matter, Steve, this is the first time in history that a publicly owned company of anything near the size of Dow has performed an action which is significantly against its bottom lines simply because it’s the right thing to do and our shareholders may take a bit of a hit, Steve, but I think that if they are anything like me, the will be ecstatic to be part of such a historic occasion of doing right by those that we’ve wronged.

BBC World: And does this mean you will also cooperate in any future legal actions in India or the USA?

A.B.: Absolutely, Steve, one of our, uh, non-financial commitments is to press the United States government to finally extradite Warren Anderson who fled India after being arrested in 1984. He posted $2,000 bail on multiple homicide charges and fled India promptly. We are going to press the United States government to extradite Mr. Anderson who’s living in Long Island to India to finally face the charges and I believe, they may be lenient. We’re also going to engage in unprecedented transparency, we’re going to release finally the full composition of the chemicals and the studies that were performed by Union Carbide shortly after the catastrophe. This information has never been released, Steve, and it’s time for it to be released in case any of that information can be of use to medical professionals and finally, we’re going to perform we’re going to fund research, any interested researcher can contact Dow’s ethic and compliance office, we are going to fund with no strings attached research into the safety of any Dow product whose safety,… many competent scientists have raised significant doubts about many Dow products and we do not want to be a company that sells products that may have long-term negative effects on the world. This is a momentous occasion and our new CEO, Andrew Liveris, who’s been our CEO for just a month, less than a month, has decided to take Dow in this unprecedented direction.

BBC World: Jude, we will leave it there. Thank you for joining us. Just to reiterate what Jude Finisterra, the spokesman for Dow Chemicals, has just said: he says Dow Chemicals now fully accept responsibility for the events in Bophal 20 years ago and they will cooperate in future legal action.

BBC America: An industrial accident is being remembered in India. This morning at 9:00 GMT and 10:00 GMT, BBC World ran an interview with someone purporting to be from the Dow Chemical company about Bophal. This interview was inaccurate and part of a deception. The person interviewed didn’t represent the company. We want to make clear that the information he gave was entirely inaccurate. We apologize to Dow and to anyone who watched the interview who may have been misled by it.

Andy Bichlbaum (the Yes Men)