Dow's Dirty Tricks: Hired U.S. Firm to Spy on Bhopal Activists

Bangalore: In what seems to be a cruel irony and an egregious disregard for human life, it is revealed that Dow Chemical, which owns Union Carbide blamed behind the Bhopal gas tragedy, has been spying on activists who are fighting for justice for the victims of the greatest industrial tragedy ever. According to the latest release from the whistle-bowler website WikiLeaks, Dow has been using the services of U.S.-based ‘global intelligence’ firm Stratfor to track the online activities of Bhopal gas tragedy activists.

Stratfor has been monitoring and analyzing the internet presence of Bhopal activists and Yes Men, an association of 300 imposters who strive to impersonate big criminals and huge corporate houses, humiliate them in public for wrong-doing.

What is so ironical is that the multinational that refused all compensation claims, found enough money to hire a leading global agency to spy on the activists to weaken the decades-old campaign and to deny justice to the helpless victims.

WikiLeaks, in its shocking exposure, released more than 5 million confidential email transactions from the Texas-based intelligence company which include monitoring reports of NGO activity and media coverage sent to Dow and Union Carbide communications directors. Keeping a close vigil on the happenings in India, Stratfor analyzed everything related to the case being heard in the Indian courts from July 2004 to December 2011.