Expert asks Ecuador court to fine Chevron $27 billion - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Expert asks Ecuador court to fine Chevron $27 billion
Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:19pm EST

By Alonso Soto

QUITO (Reuters) - An environmental expert told a
court in Ecuador that oil company Chevron Corp should
pay $27 billion in compensation for environmental
damage in the country, the company said on Wednesday.

Chevron said in a statement that it rejected geologist
Richard Cabrera's revised damage estimate by saying his
work "contains fabricated and erroneous evidence." In
April, Cabrera recommended to the court that the U.S.
oil company should pay up to $16 billion in damages.

The lawsuit, which peasants and Indians in Ecuador
brought in the early 1990s, contends that Texaco,
which Chevron bought in 2001, polluted the jungle and
damaged their health by dumping 18 billion gallons
(68 billion liters) of contaminated water from 1972
to 1992.

Chevron questioned Cabrera's independence and
charges the plaintiffs of helping him produce his
damage assessment.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4AP97H20081126

[Peace Patriot]

1. A very important case. The spills have been called the 'Rainforest Chernobyl.' It is far worse

than the Exxon Valdez spill. Oil and toxic sludge have completely despoiled thousands of acres of rainforest, and have polluted many streams all the way to Peru. The indigenous tribes who live in this region must drink and bathe in the toxic water, and have suffered very high cancer rates. Their subsistence living--from fishing, for instance--has been destroyed. Chevron didn't clean it up, as they claim; they merely poured dirt over the hundreds of toxic pools.

Ecuador now has a leftist president, who has an 80% approval rating. He led the process of re-writing the Constitution, which was passed by the voters this year with nearly 70% of the national vote. One of its provisions grants Mother Nature (called Pachamama, in the indigenous language) independent legal status, and the right for her critters and ecosystems to exist and to function properly, apart from human needs or impacts. If the extremely poor people who brought this lawsuit--which has been the courts about ten years--had succumbed to the death threats that they suffered, or had been unable to pursue the lawsuit due to hardship, someone else--an individual or group, or the government--could have stepped in and sued on behalf of Pachamama. This Constitutional provision is an important legal point and a first in the world.

It is one reason why the Bushwhacks have poured such effort into demonizing President Rafael Correa. Among other things, they've called him a 'terrorist' for his efforts to negotiate with Colombia's FARC guerrillas for the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages. They also hate him because he is throwing the U.S. "war on drugs" base in Manta, Ecuador, out of his country. The Bushwhacks use the base to spy on South American countries, and this March used it to bomb and raid a FARC camp inside Ecuador's border, nearly starting a war between Ecuador and Colombia. Correa is allies with Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and many others. He is a U.S.-educated economist, and a friend of the poor and the indigenous.

The Bushwhacks also have a plot to foment fascist secessionst movements in the oil/gas-rich provinces of Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. The plot unfolded in Bolivia this September, with white separatists rioting, beating up indians, machine-gunning some 30 peasant farmers, sacking government and NGO buildings and blowing up a gas pipeline. Their object was to try to split off Bolivia's gas-rich eastern provinces into a fascist mini-state in control of Bolivia's chief resource. They were being funded and organized by the U.S. ambassador, and Morales threw him and the DEA ("war on drugs") out of Bolivia because of it. Morales received strong, unanimous backing from the other countries on the continent. Rafael Correa has said there is a similar plot in Ecuador and in Venezuela. These have not yet unfolded, although there is evidence that the plots exist. It's possible that the court ruling against Chevron-Texaco will trigger the plot in Ecuador. Obama--and several of his main appointees--have taken a typical proprietary attitude toward South America. Obama feels that South America "needs U.S. leadership." South America needs "U.S. leadership" about as much as it needs the "Rainforest Chernobyl." That is, not at all.