MEDIA ROOTS- For those unfamiliar with the Yes Men, they are a group of brilliant and bold activists that aim to draw public attention to corporate crimes and wrongdoings by impersonating corporate figures before the media. The Yes Men target corporations that have escaped accountability for their crimes committed in the pursuit of profit above all else.
One Yes Men’s most successful hoaxes involved Dow Chemical. An activist posing as a PR representative of Dow to claim responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy, live on BBC World Television. Dow was the Yes Men target as the purchaser of the Union Carbide Corporation, which was responsible for the gas leak in Bhopal that killed approximately 15,000 people in 1984. For this prank, the faux PR rep claimed full responsibility for the tragedy, issued an apology and promised to compensate the victims and clean up the site. (To learn more about this prank– video here– and the history of their organization watch their documentary Yes Men Save The World.)
Now, the Yes Men have done it again! This time the victim of their hoax is Chevron.
In the wee-hours of this morning, when Chevron could not be contacted for verification, the Yes Men fired off a press release announcing their new ad campaign. The press release was flawless, matching exactly the real Chevron website, only making a slight change to the actual URL.
The ad campaign, “We Agree” is described in the release as Chevron’s attempt to make a “clean break from the past by taking direct responsibility for our own actions” through candid ads that feature “real people on the receiving end of Chevron controversies in Ecuador, Nigeria, the U.S. Gulf Coast and elsewhere.”
The hoax campaign has three ads. The first says in large capital letters- “OIL COMPANIES SHOULD CLEAN UP THEIR MESSES,” with a red “WE AGREE” stamp below and the signatures of Rex Northen, Chevron’s Executive Director, and Desmond King, the company’s President. The accompanying photo is of an older Latin American man with a red bandana around his neck and a simple, hand-made structure in the background.
Another ad shows a man standing in a river of oil, surrounded by open barrels, with the words “OIL COMPANIES SHOULD FIX THE PROBLEMS THEY CREATE.” Each ad, like the first, holds the signatures of Northen and King over the red “WE AGREE” stamp.
The last ad has a young Latin American girl standing in front of an oil barrel. The claim this time is that “OIL COMPANIES SHOULD PUT SAFETY FIRST.”
The ads were meant to reference an on-going lawsuit in Ecuador where Chevron is accused of negligence that amounts to $27 billion in oil pollution clean-up costs. Chevron deems this a “meritless case” and, according to the Christian Science Monitor, took out quarter page newspaper ads with headlines such as, “the fraud of the century”.
Hardly.
The real “We Agree” ad campaign makes less controversial claims that are ambiguous to the critical mind familiar with Chevron. These include, “Oil Companies Should Put Their Profits To Good Use,” “Oil Companies Need To Get Real” and “Oil Companies Should Support the Communities They’re A Part of.”
Chevron issued a press release in response to the hoax. In a quote that is telling of the politics that allow multinationals to operate with impunity, Hewitt Pate, the General Council for Chevron, said, “Despite what some will say, we are not obliged to abide by decisions that Ecuadorian judges make or do not make. This is because we have binding agreements with the Ecuadorian Government exempting us from any liabilities whatsoever, granted in exchange for a $40 million cleanup of some wells by Texaco in the 1990s.”
The press release also had similar commentary from Rhonda Zygocki, Chevron’s VP of Policy, Government and Public Affairs, who said, “This hoax is part of an ongoing effort to blame Chevron for 16 billion gallons of crude oil spilled in the Amazon during drilling operations. This blame game continues despite Chevron’s long-standing agreement with the Ecuadorian government which very obviously puts the issue behind us.”
Perhaps the best thing about the Yes Men is how they force the corporations to respond to the accusations before them. The hoax first reveals to the public the unresolved human and environmental suffering caused by the guilty corporation. Unable to deny the spill of 16 billion gallons of crude oil (or the disaster at Bhopal), the corporate executives show the public how they really operate. As we see in the quotes above, there is no denial of what happened in Ecuador as a result of Chevron’s business. Instead, Zygocki and Pate are defending Chevron’s refusal to take accountability for the tragedy they caused, citing the (unfortunate) agreement made with the Ecuadorian government.
What the Chevron executives are saying is that the problem belongs to the innocent people of Ecuador because Chevron, although guilty, is not liable thanks to an agreement made with Ecuador’s government. Here we find the real lesson to be learned– This agreement that exempts Chevron from any wrongdoing is like so many others between giant multinational corporations (MNCs) and governments seeking economic gain. In business between countries and MNCs it is the country most willing to turn a blind eye that wins the business. And more often than one would ever hope, lawfulness and the rights of the country’s people are the first to be sacrificed.
I applaud this kind of activism because it draws people in through the humor of a hoax, while ultimately bringing us face to face with a reality that may otherwise go unacknowledged by those of us who are often unwilling to look at life’s harsher truths.
Written by Alicia for Media Roots
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