Chevron drilled for oil for almost 30 years in the Ecuadorian Amazon. They dumped over 68 billion liters (16 billion gallons) of toxic wastewater into the rainforest, and spilled 75 million liters (17 million gallons) of crude oil from leaks (“accidents”) in the trans-Ecuadorian pipeline. They also left toxic waste in hundreds of open pits, polluting rivers, lakes, jungles and pathways. There was a glimmer of justice for the many Ecuadorians who suffered cancers, miscarriages, birth defects, childhood leukemia and other ailments as a result of these practices, which are illegal in Ecuador and the US, but that seems to be on hold in our “justice” system.
Actually, it was Toxico, I mean Texaco, that committed these crimes. Texaco was the first oil company to drill in the Amazon rainforest - something that should never be done! - beginning in 1964. In 2001, Texaco “merged” with (was gobbled up by) Chevron, and this is the company that was the defendant in a series of landmark lawsuits.
Chevron is also responsible for cleaning up the mess, one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet. At the time, Texaco did all of this illegal dumping to save $3 a barrel of crude oil. Little has been cleaned up, and the oil wastes continue to poison the rainforest ecosystem and its inhabitants. An area 4400 sq. km. (1700 sq. mi.) of the Lago Agrio in NE Ecuador was subsequently dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl.” The discharges poisoned water for drinking, bathing and fishing. There was also soil contamination and deforestation, and social, cultural and economic upheaval. Also, at least 85% of the methane (“natural gas”) extracted was burned into the atmosphere. There have also been over 1400 oil spills in the area in the 21st century.
Some 30,000 indigenous residents and rural farmers, including five Amazon tribes, began a lawsuit against Texaco in 1993. Finally, between 2011 and 2013, Ecuadorian courts, including the Ecuador Supreme Court, found Chevron (worth $260b), now merged with Texaco, liable and ordered the corporation to pay $9.5 billion in compensation to the affected Lago Agrio residents. The Ecuadorians also filed a lawsuit in Canada seeking seizure of Chevron’s assets to pay for the vast task of cleanup and remediation of the rainforest, which was upheld in a Canadian appellate court.
However, a ruling deeming the $9.5b verdict as unenforceable was issued by a US court in 2014, and upheld by appeal in 2016. In 2018, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, Netherlands (influenced by the US Empire) ruled in favor of Chevron.
Chevron lied and said that Texaco spent $40m cleaning up the area in the 1990s, and that courts were bribed. Chevron sued New York human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who represented the Ecuadorians for 27 years, under a civil provision of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Chevron spent $2m to bring an Ecuadorian judge to NY, who attested that there was bribery in the judgment against Chevron, later admitting that this was false. Chevron even threatened judges in Ecuador.
NY Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a former tobacco company lawyer, blocked Donziger from obtaining a jury trial, and transferred the trial to a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, who has had several oil-and-gas clients, including...Chevron. Kaplan handpicked a judge, his personal friend Loretta Pester, I mean Preska, a member of the right wing Federalist society, among whose major donors is...Chevron. Prosecutor Rita Glavin has financial ties to...Chevron. You get the picture.
Donziger was ordered to turn over all client information, including his phone and computer, to the court. He considered this a breach of attorney-client privilege, and refused. So now the poor lawyer has been remanded to house arrest - for a misdemeanor! - with an abrasive ankle bracelet on him 24 hours a day for over 600 days (as of 3/30/21 - and still counting). He calls it the “black claw,” and cannot even go outside his upper west side Manhattan apartment where he lives with his wife and son. He won his appeal on Mar. 2, but hearings have failed to end his ankle torture.
Chevron has spent a whopping total of $2 billion on lawyers’ fees so far! And the trial of Donziger in New York (see below) has cost taxpayers $500,000 at this point. And Judge Kaplan has ordered him to pay millions of dollars in Chevron’s attorney fees. His law license was revoked, at least for now. They froze his bank accounts, took his passport…
68 Nobel laureates (up from 55), Amnesty International, Amazon Watch, the National Lawyers Guild, and numerous celebrities, environmentalists, and human rights activists have called for release of this corporate political prisoner.
Here is a petition you can sign calling for his immediate release. It is demanding that US Attorney General Merrick Garland review this highly irregular case. As eight Congress members so far are also calling for his plight to be investigated by the government, it would be worthwhile also to call or write your representative and senator.
From Steven D.’s Instagram page 4/30/21: “BREAKING: After terminating Zoom access to my trial, Judge Preska today refused to reserve seats for an international team of trial monitors that includes former ambassador Stephen Rapp.” This committee was formed to monitor due process violations in his upcoming Contempt of Court trial beginning this May 10 - which could potentially result in 6 months in prison for Steven. Shades of Julian Assange’s Judge Vanessa Berater, I mean Baraitser! If such a travesty of justice goes forward and rules against Donziger, analogous to the case of Assange, it could set a precedent for corporate prosecution of citizens as retaliation, chilling dissent and holding them accountable.
As trial begins on the morning of May 10, there will be a rally to support Steven Donziger at the Federal Courthouse in Manhattan, 500 Pearl St., NYC (between Chinatown and the Brooklyn Bridge).
970,000 hectares (2.7m acres) of rainforest have been destroyed; Texaco dumped toxic waste equal to 30x the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 30,000 metric tonnes (1.8 million gallons). This Kafkaesqe trial goes on...
Barry Barnett is a political and environmental writer and activist, health professional, and musician. He lives on the left coast of the US Empire. You can follow him on Twitter, the N CA Peace Press at pjcsoco.org-peacepress, and his website at Patreon.com/BarryBarnett, with 80+ articles, political satire and humor, political fantasy stories, and poetry, all free of charge to read. Feedback welcome at barrymuse123@gmail.com.