If you see a World Trade Organization spokesman behaving
oddly--saying strange things about trade or wearing an inflatable
golden phallus--don't be confused. It's probably just Andy
Bichlbaum, the WTO impostor.
An American living in France, Bichlbaum, 35, belongs to the Yes
Men, an anti-globalization group devoted to "representing the WTO
more honestly than they represent themselves." Two years ago the
group took control of the Web address gatt.org, where it put up a home
page nearly identical to the WTO's. Because it is easily mistaken
for the real thing, the Yes Men receive a steady stream of e-mails
intended for the WTO--including speaking invitations. Bichlbaum is
only too happy to oblige.
Last summer, for instance, he was invited to speak at a textiles
conference in Tampere, Finland. Presenting himself as the WTO's Dr.
Hank Hardy Unruh, he praised slavery, decried Ghandi, and called the
American Civil War "the least profitable war" in U.S. history. Then
he stripped down to reveal a skin-tight body suit, pulled a ripcord,
and inflated a three-foot-long phallus. This was the "Employee
Visualization Appendage," he explained, a device to allow managers
to control workers through electronic impulses. Bichlbaum has also
"represented" the WTO at an international law conference in
Salzburg, Austria, and on CNBC Europe last summer, advocating
"justice vouchers" for "countries that commit heinous human rights
violations, but want to stop." He says he plans to strike again this
spring, "somewhere in Oceania."
Fed up, the WTO recently demanded the Yes Men remove "deceptive"
copyrighted materials from its Website. But when the WTO posted a
warning about the hoax on its home page, a tweaked version soon
appeared on gatt.org. "A fake WTO Website-- www.wto.org--has been created to
deceive Internet users," it read. "The only official WTO site is http://www.gatt.org/."