Chevron Offers Evidence of Bribery Scheme in Ecuador Lawsuit

[Bacchus39]

Source: NY Times

Chevron Offers Evidence of Bribery Scheme in Ecuador Lawsuit

CARACAS, Venezuela — The oil giant Chevron said Monday that it had obtained video recordings of meetings in Ecuador this year that appear to reveal a bribery scheme connected to a $27 billion lawsuit the company faces over environmental damage at oil fields it operated in remote areas of the Amazon forest in Ecuador.

Times Topics: Ecuador | Chevron CorporationThe videos, together with audio recordings obtained by businessmen using watches and pens implanted with bugging devices, appear to implicate Ecuadoran officials and political operatives, including possibly Juan Núñez, the judge overseeing the lawsuit, and Pierina Correa, the sister of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa.

The recordings indicate that an Ecuadoran political operative was working to obtain $3 million in bribes related to environmental cleanup contracts to be awarded in the event of a ruling against Chevron.

It was not clear from the recordings and transcripts provided by Chevron, however, whether any bribes discussed in the recordings were actually paid or whether Judge Núñez was even aware of plans to try to bribe him. The tapes also did not demonstrate whether the president’s sister was aware of the scheme or had participated in it.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/americas/01ecuador.html?_r=1&hp

[KansDem]

1. Businessmen acting as covert intelligence agents during a sting operation?

I'd be very wary of this.

The recordings, which Chevron placed on its Web site, are the latest twist in a 16-year legal battle over oil contamination of jungle areas in northern Ecuador. Mr. Correa, a left-wing economist who rose from obscurity to become Ecuador’s strongest president in recent memory, has repeatedly sided with the plaintiffs in the case, prompting a fierce lobbying effort by Chevron in Washington to strip Ecuador of American trade preferences.

That effort failed in June when the Obama administration, seizing a chance to improve ties with Mr. Correa, allowed the preferences to continue. But the release of the recordings will focus more scrutiny on Mr. Correa, who has come under pressure over his clashes with the media and accusations of corruption involving another family member, his brother Fabricio Correa, a prominent businessman.

Alexis Mera, a legal adviser to the president, dismissed the recordings as “approaching the level of defamatory libel.” He said Chevron was benefiting from the crime of intercepting conversations without authorization, reflecting “a terrible legal strategy.”

Just pay the fine, Chevron...

[bemildred]

2. Chevron is going to regret this. nt

[Mudoria]

3. Wouldn't be that surprising really..

I'm sure quite a few of the government officials and relatives have fattened their coffers the last few years.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans-in-exile" strikes again?

They're still laughing at BoRev.net about Colombia's "miracle laptopS" which "prove" that Rafael Correa is a "terrorist."

This sounds much the same. Psyops in the service of monster oil companies.

I'm reminded also of that absurd CIA "suitcase full of money" caper out of Miami, with an operative named "Guido"--trying to sully Hugo Chavez and Cristina Fernandez (president of Argentina).

Do these people never learn new tricks?

Watches and pens with "bugging devices." Come on.

It would be funny if hundreds of indigenous were not dying of Chevron-Texaco's oil pollution (which was so bad--many times worse than the Exxon-Valdez spill--that it has been called "the Rainforest Chernoybal").

One lawyer--a poor indigenous from the polluted community--who studied law in night school--stood up to these fuckwads and their batteries of luxury-class attorneys and "fixers"--and won this case against Chevron.

Now they're trying to get out of it with this bullshit. It's so typical.

It's interesting that the psyops/disinformation campaign against Rafael Correa has hit the big time here. It's been spewing its toxic waste on Correa for some time now in Latin America (mostly out of the Colombian government--that 'reliable source') , while the president who controls the bigger oil reserves, Hugo Chavez, got "the treatment" here first (on-going, lo, these last 5-6 years). Now the other flank of the Pentagon's war plan is being put in place. Venezuela's main oil reserves are located in its northern provinces, on the Caribbean, adjacent to Colombia, where the US military is putting in seven new US military bases, to supplement the $6 BILLION in US taxpayer dollars they funnel to the Colombian military, and also, last summer, they reconstituted the US 4th Fleet (mothballed since WW II) in the Caribbean. With the rightwing coup in Honduras securing the US military base at Soto Cano, they have Venezuela's main oil reserves surrounded.

Ecuador's main oil reserves are located in its northern region, adjacent to Colombia to the south. Last year, the US/Colombia crossed this border to drop ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" to blow away 25 sleeping people in a temporary FARC guerilla camp just inside Ecuador's border, and raided over the border to shoot anybody who survived. (It was this violation of international law from which the "miracle laptopS" were allegedly produced.)

So, now they have to work up some lies and corruption on Correa, and create another phantom bogeyman--getting all these pieces of Oil War II put together and functioning smoothly. First the lies. Then the war.

Be warned. This is not just about Chevron-Texaco's liability. They will probably never pay out the judgment against them anyway. This is about toppling Ecuador's democracy, destroying its excellent young president and regaining global corporate predator control of the oil in northern Ecuador. They will probably do it with a civil war strategy--the fascist politicians in northern Ecuador declaring their "independence" and requesting US/Colombia military support if Ecuador fights back. Then, having toppled one important Venezuelan ally, they'll do the same thing to Venezuela. Fascists in both regions openly talk of secession. (John McCain's US taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute" has been funneling millions of dollars to rightwing operatives like these all over Latin America--including $43 million to the Honduran coupsters alone.)

Secession was the war strategy that the Bushwhacks tried out in Bolivia last September. They funded/organized white separatist rioters and murderers who were trying to secede in Bolivia's gas/oil rich provinces. Evo Morales threw the US ambassador out of the country for it. And Brazil, Argentina and Chile led the UNASUR effort to back up Morales and restore peace to Bolivia. This may have been only a test-run of the secessionist strategy and of responses in South America.

If the war plan (which I believe was designed by Rumsfeld) succeeds in Ecuador and Venezuela, Exxon Mobil, Chevron & brethren (and the Pentagon) will then control the northern "hump" of South America, in a wide swath from Ecuador to the Caribbean, and all its vast supply of oil.

Do these people ever learn new tricks? No, they don't.

[peacetalksforall]

5. We know what the Southern Command means - Southern WH OIL Command.

WH as in Western Hemisphere.

What has Sec. Clinton said against Chavez and Morales lately? What has she said in favor of Zelaya lately?