Appeals Court to Decide if Oil Giant Will Face Charges in U.S. for Massive Environmental Pollution

[Judi Lynn]

Indigenous Achuar From the Peruvian Amazon Face Off Against Occidental Petroleum Over Destruction of Pristine Rainforest, as Reported by Amazon Watch

Appeals Court to Decide if Oil Giant Will Face Charges in U.S. for Massive Environmental Pollution in Amazon

LOS ANGELES, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- A key hearing was held this morning in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the landmark environmental and public health case brought by indigenous Peruvian Achuar and the U.S. NGO Amazon Watch against Los Angeles-based oil giant Occidental Petroleum (OXY). The appeals court's decision will likely determine whether OXY will have to defend its 30 year-old legacy of massive pollution in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon inside a Los Angeles courtroom, just miles from its world headquarters, or whether the case will move to Peru.

Whatever the outcome of this hearing today, "The plaintiffs are fully prepared to litigate this case, here in the U.S., or in Peru, and OXY will be held liable for their decades of toxic contamination and for causing the Achuar people so much harm and suffering," said Lily la Torre, Peruvian indigenous rights lawyer and the Achuar's legal advisor.

The case concerns OXY's environmental practices in the Corrientes River Basin in northern Peru. During its operations, which began in the early 1970s, OXY discharged billions of barrels of untreated wastewater into local streams, caused numerous spills and abandoned many un-remediated toxic waste sites in Achuar territory, leading to an epidemic of lead and cadmium poisoning and other ill effects on the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous people.

The Achuar case, Maynas Carijano v. Occidental Petroleum, No. CV-07-5068, was filed in May 2007. In April of 2008, Judge Philip Gutierrez of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that the case is more appropriately heard in Peru under the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens. The plaintiffs and their counsel, including EarthRights International, the Venice firm Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman LLP and San Francisco lawyer Natalie Bridgeman, argued the appeal of the District Court's decision today in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision is likely to be issued in late 2010 or 2011.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/indigenous-achuar-from-the-peruvian-amazon-face-off-against-occidental-petroleum-over-destruction-of-pristine-rainforest-as-reported-by-amazon-watch-86258857.html

Any anti-indigenous comment on this thread is entirely unwelcome.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Yup, one of our RW DU posters said an Indian's word can't be trusted because he is an "Indian,"

in regard to a similar case in Ecuador against Chevron-Texaco. The racist comment was made by "protocol rv" and can be found here...

Comment 36
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x30994

-----------------------------

A typical purpose of racism--treating people of another race as your inferior and even as subhuman, worthy only to be your slave--is to defend the rights of the rich. This motive has almost always been at work in white racism against the brown and the black. The racism was fomented in order to steal their lands or to live off their slave labor. Protocol rv is a Chevron-Texaco apologist, and that attitude--that, because an "Indian" presented the charges against Chevron-Texaco, the charges should be questioned--was no doubt the racist attitude that caused the horrible pollution in Ecuador in the first place, caused Texaco to do a lousy, cosmetic cleanup, and caused the corporate shuffle by which Chevron bought out Texaco and is trying to shed its liabilities and get away scot free from the worst oil disaster in history, bar none. (--a spill the size of Rhode Island that dwarfs the Exxon-Valdez and has been commonly referred to as "the rainforest Chernobyl"). What does it matter if 30,000 "Indians" are poisoned, their fisheries decimated, their water undrinkable with pollution streams that reach all the way to Peru? They are not powerful. They are not rich. They are brown. They eke out a subsistence living in the rainforest. They don't count. This was no doubt Texaco's attitude and the attitude of the rightwing government that let Texaco get away with it. And it is no doubt Chevron-Texaco's attitude today. Chevron-Texaco reportedly hired 12 P.R. firms to discredit the testimony of "the Indians" and their experts.

In Ecuador, the Indigenous tribes who filed suit, and have hung in there for more than a decade, through the ups and downs of their liability suit, have a friendly government--the very popular leftist government of Rafael Correa--which wants this horror cleaned up and the health problems that it has caused (high incidence of cancer, spontaneous abortions and other grave health problems) paid for. Correa has said that he sides with the Indigenous. (And, of course, Chevron has tried to use that against him--as if he didn't have a right to an opinion.)

In Peru, the Indigenous have a horrible rightwing government--Alan Garcia's--which has a 25% approval rating, and which open fired from a helicopter gunship on Indigenous people who were trying to prevent the rape of another part of the Amazon forest. He is extremely corrupt and a U.S. puppet. It should further be noted that one of the corporate interests that the U.S. is defending in Colombia--with $7 BILLION of our tax dollars and the U.S. military, which is now occupying Colombia--is Occidental Petroleum. So, if the trial is remanded to Peru, by the 9th Circuit here, it can be more easily influenced--with bribes, threats, political deals and other corrupt practices. In fact, that is what happened in Ecuador in the first round of that suit.

This isn't to say that politics can't influence the courts here, God knows. And since we now have a Corporate Ruler Supreme Court--which might influence the 9th Circuit--and no anti-corporate, pro-people advocates in our political establishment (the result of privatized, 'TRADE SECRET' voting systems in the U.S., in my opinion), and since the U.S. government is virtually a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, it is by no means certain that the Indigenous will get a fair hearing in the U.S. Perhaps what will happen will parallel the Ecuador case, that is, that the 9th Circuit will send it to Peru, which will be welcomed by Occidental Petroleum, but the by the time the case is heard there, Garcia will be out and a new day will have dawned, with the election of a leftist government and the hope that the Indigenous can win such a case--that it won't be won by skulduggery.

I fervently hope that, some day, Latin America will have its own "common market" and an integrated legal system, by which matters like this can be taken to an objective forum when the government is too corrupt to handle the matter fairly.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Here's an article covering the fact Chevron hired TWELVE firms to slime the indigenous Ecuadorians.

Chevron hires twelve public relations firms to discredit indigenous Indians in Ecuador

Source: Natural News

Chevron hires twelve public relations firms to discredit indigenous Indians in Ecuador
Saturday, February 06, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) In response to an environmental lawsuit filed against the oil giant, Chevron has fortified its defenses with at least twelve different public relations firms whose purpose is to debunk the claims made against the company by indigenous people living in the Amazon forests of Ecuador. According to them, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon between 1964 and 1990, causing damages assessed at more than $27 billion.

The company is being criticized by people and organizations from across the social and political spectrum for its unethical behavior in regards to the case. Originally filed in U.S. federal district court back in 1993, the lawsuit was eventually moved to courts in Ecuador at Chevron's behest. Having initially lauded Ecuador's legal system in an effort to have the case moved there, Chevron later changed its mind and began attacking the system when that system found the company liable for damages.

Shareholders are also upset with Chevron for its gross mismanagement of the case in which it has sidestepped the rule of law and employed guerilla-style tactics in a last ditch effort to fend off an unfavorable ruling. Part of this includes hiring Hill & Knowlton, the same firm that represented the tobacco industry during its indictment over tobacco causing cancer, to perform the same task concerning toxic oil contaminants.

Evidence presented at Chevron's trial included over 50,000 chemical samples taken by the company itself which proved that all of its former oil drilling sites are contaminated with toxic byproducts that cause cancer. Many of these wells have contaminated rivers, streams, and other water sources which natives use for drinking water. Despite all the undeniable evidence, Chevron is working hard to cover up the facts and dismiss its responsibility in the matter.

More: http://www.naturalnews.com/028108_Chevron_Ecuador.html

~~~~~
This would lead anyone to realize, in case it hasn't occurred to him/her already, that these guys are really, REALLY scared they won't be able to bribe enough people and they'll lose this goddamned case!

(I've never seen anything as nasty, underhanded, cheap, and stupid as that post you mentioned. People like that show us they literally have nothing to say anyone could ever respect.)