Ecuadorian Activist Accuses Chevron of 'Harassment and Defamation'

[Bob]

Recall Chevron?

Big oil, a transnational, who goes to find oil and gas where ever it can be found.. (offshore, rain-forests, deserts)..

Well..


http://www.telesurtv.net/__export/1463685618178/sites/telesur/img/news/2016/05/19/santiago_escobar_crop1463683201414.jpg_1718483346.jpg

http://cc.amazingcounters.com/counter.php?i=3190880&c=9572953

A couple years ago, we pointed out the oil exploration/expansion happening in Ecuador..

But there is some history.. something that if Ecuador looses, quite possibly the energy giant Chevron could get the money they are being sued for.. out of the Ecuadorian budget, to add more insult to injury so to speak.


Santiago Escobar (above) began getting death threats after he revealed information against the oil giant. Now he says publications financed by Chevron are trying to smear him.

"From 1964-1990, Texaco (later bought by Chevron) ran drilling and pipeline operations in Ecuador's Amazon region. During that time, 16 billion gallons of waste had been dumped.

"In 2013, the Ecuadorean Supreme Court affirmed an earlier ruling that found Chevron responsible for environmental contamination in the Ecuadorean Amazon and set the compensation at US$9.5 billion.

"Since then, Chevron has said it would not pay and has set out on a deliberate campaign to delegitimize the ruling, and has also looked to sue the Ecuadorean government on the International level.

"Santiago Escobar, an Ecuadorean activist, became a key witness in the case, revealing information that he says proved the oil giant was involved in underhanded activities against the litigants.

"He received threats and subsequently left the country.

"Sitting down with teleSUR English (http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Ecuador-Activist-Accuses-Chevron-of-Harassment-and-Defamation-20160519-0026.html), Escobar accuses publications run by Chevron of "harassment and defamation" against him."

Santiago Escobar says in 2009 after receiving confidential information that Chevron was intending to attack the Ecuadorian government - "in order to de-legitimize the Judicial system and a supposed denial of justice. The plot included several dirty tricks such as the secret recording of the Judge in charge of the lawsuit in Ecuador by undercover agents of Chevron. I became indignant with all their dirty operations, and felt I had to make the evidence I had public."


Since President Rafael Correa took office, Chevron has been harassing and pressuring Correa’s administration to try and stop the lawsuit that 30,000 indigenous and peasants affected by Chevron’s pollution initiated 22 years ago.

The Ecuadorean government has made it clear that the Republic of Ecuador is not a party involved in that lawsuit and Correa’s administration respects due process.

As part of their intimidation, harassment and defamation campaign against the Ecuadorean people, Chevron has launched 3 lawsuits against Ecuador.

In the first round, Chevron lost the ruling, and refused to pay or clean up the pollution and damage - the amount that they owed was 9.8 billion (US) dollars.

To get out of this, the oil giant accused Ecuador of an "alleged procedural fraud" that would set violations of international law and the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). This arbitration has not yet been resolved and it is likely that the ruling will be some time later this year.

If the Republic of Ecuador loses this arbitration, Ecuadoreans will have to compensate Chevron for the same amount they owe the victims of the Ecuadorean Amazon disaster they created - US$9.5 billion dollars.


Chevron could even seize Ecuadorean assets abroad and implement an economic blockade against Ecuador. It is clear that this transnational seeks to achieve a soft coup against President Rafael Correa.

US$9.5 billion dollars.

This is equivalent to a third of the annual budget of Ecuador (US$29.84 billion), will severely affect Ecuador. This means the health system, education and infrastructure would be affected.

links:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Ecuador-Activist-Accuses-Chevron-of-Harassment-and-Defamation-20160519-0026.html

twitter link: - Santiago Escobar - @sinfronterasESC

Rainforest Coalition - "Human Rights violation by Chevron" - http://www.ran.org/chevrons-human-rights-hitmen-diego-borja

[Bob]

What did TEXACO do to the Amazon RainForest?

Well, you know, it's that 'thing' again making $$ at the expense of everything and everyone.. (corporate mentality, the corporate "entity" supposedly follows the guidance of it's board of directors, who should have responsibility, compassion and, a desire to better mankind.. (well not with oil companies it seems..) Corporate Responsibility is oxymoron it seems?

In 1964, Texaco (now Chevron), discovered oil in the remote northern region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, known as the "Oriente." The indigenous inhabitants of this pristine rainforest, including the Cofán, Siona, Secoya, Kichwa and Huaorani, lived traditional lifestyles largely untouched by modern civilization.

The forests and rivers provided the physical and cultural subsistence base for their daily survival. They had little idea what to expect or how to prepare when oil workers moved into their backyard and founded the town of Lago Agrio, named for Texaco's birthplace of Sour Lake, Texas.

The Ecuadorian government had similarly little idea what to expect; no one had ever successfully drilled for oil in the Amazon rainforest before.

The government entrusted Texaco, a well-known U.S. company with more than a half-century's worth of experience, with employing modern oil practices and technology in the country's emerging oil patch.

However, despite existing environmental laws, Texaco made deliberate, cost-cutting operational decisions that, for 28 years, resulted in an environmental catastrophe that experts have dubbed the "Rainforest Chernobyl."


In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Texaco carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some 1,000 open toxic waste pits. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that 30,000 people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing.

Texaco also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic and highly saline "formation waters," a byproduct of the drilling process, into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco's operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons of formation waters per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states like Louisiana, Texas, and California decades before the company began operations in Ecuador in 1967.

By handling its toxic waste in Ecuador in ways that were illegal in its home country, Texaco saved an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced.

Saving 3$ per barrel (42 US gallons of fluid).. And to create countless damages, to the environment, to the people who need safe water to drink, for crops, for fishing..

Disposable people? Corporate mentality?

"Texaco conducted a sham "clean-up" of less than 1% of the damage at its former sites beginning in 1995, in most cases merely covering open pits with dirt or burning off the crude by-products. In cahoots with several corrupt government officials, Texaco obtained a "release" from liability based on its fraudulent remediation efforts.

"However, this release does not apply to individuals, who remained free to pursue legal action against Texaco. And by 1993, legal efforts to hold Texaco accountable had already begun."

Buy a RELEASE for liability? hmmm..

By 2001 Chevron bought the Texaco interest (and the liability), and apparently Chevron felt it has the muscle, whereas Texaco did not to steam-roll over the Ecuadoreans and the Government.


In successive rulings in 2011 and 2012, after nearly two decades of litigation, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs won a landmark judgment against Chevron: $19 billion to clean up contamination in the Oriente and provide health care and potable water to area residents.

The case is unprecedented. It marks the first time indigenous people have won a judgment against a U.S. company in a foreign court for environmental crimes, and experts have called the damage the worst oil related contamination on the planet. The ruling against Chevron will have repercussions far beyond Ecuador.

The oil industry and communities around the world are watching and waiting on the outcome. When Chevron ultimately pays for a clean-up, it will put multinational corporations on notice that they can and will be held accountable for environmental and human rights abuses anywhere in the world. No longer do they have the green light to continue operating with business-as-usual impunity.

Chevron is in Nigeria too.. At least 50 years of continued oil spills by Royal Dutch Shell and spills by Chevron have cost the Nigerians billions in losses, in health issues, land issues, loss of farming.. The amount of oil is present in Lagos (Nigeria also) drinking water - quite far away from the prime "oil patch" there, Delta, Rivers, and Bayelsa States.. The people have habituated, but any newcomer to the area will recognize the smell and taste of crude.. It is distinctive.. And destructive to living organisms.

links:
http://chevrontoxico.com/about/rainforest-chernobyl/affected-communities-fight-for-justice
http://www.ran.org/chevrons-toxic-legacy-ecuador


Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which Chevron acquired in 2001) drilled for oil in a remote northern region of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest called the Oriente.

Using obsolete technology and substandard environmental controls, the company deliberately dumped 18.5 billion gallons of highly toxic waste sludge into the streams and rivers on which local people depend for drinking, bathing, and fishing.

The company dug over 900 open-air, unlined waste pits that continue to seep toxins into the ground to this day.

The sludge contained some of the most dangerous chemicals known to man — including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) — in lethal concentrations.

Rupturing oil pipelines and gas flaring was also a regular occurrence.

(Pipelines have a lifespan - based on the acidity of the oil their lifespan can be 5-10 years before they leak. Some pipelines were still in operation, non-repaired since their inception since the late 1960's.)