Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Management Hit Hard at Annual Meeting over Ecuador Liability

[Judi Lynn]

May 26, 2010 04:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Management Hit Hard at Annual Meeting over Ecuador Liability
$38 Billion In Shareholder Value Defies CEO Watson

Board Members Confronted by Angry Shareholders, Indigenous Leaders; Five People Arrested As Company Refuses Proxies

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting erupted in chaos today after CEO John Watson received a stern rebuke from shareholders for its Ecuador environmental disaster and a 71-year-old Ecuadorian woman said the company was responsible for an environmental atrocity in the rainforest that cost her two children and was devastating the lives of thousands of people.

Chevron’s management also seemed to panic during the meeting when they summoned the Houston police to arrest noted author and Chevron critic Antonia Juhasz when she confronted Watson over Chevron’s environmental record. Four other individuals – all well-known critics of the company – also were also arrested when they were refused entry despite having proxies from shareholders.

“Chevron’s Watson lost control of the meeting and it degenerated into chaos and ended abruptly,” said Maria Ramos, an organizer with the Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based group that has been campaigning against the company. “It was obvious that Watson has very thin skin when it comes to Chevron’s critics.”

In all, only seven of the 27 persons with proxies that were brought by the environmental groups were allowed to enter the meeting – possibly an “illegal act” that violates SEC regulations, said Ramos. Chevron selectively enforced various proxy rules to keep critics out of the meeting, Ramos said.

“Chevron was smarting for a confrontation today and then lost its head when it happened,” said Ramos.

More:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100526006868&newsLang=en

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4399359

[Judi Lynn]

1. Chevron Has 5 Activists Arrested and Bars Entry to Global Victims of Its Practices at Annual Shareho

Chevron Has 5 Activists Arrested and Bars Entry to Global Victims of Its Practices at Annual Shareholders’ Meeting

Chevron has had five protesters arrested at its annual shareholders meeting in Houston and refused to allow another two dozen people from Chevron-affected countries around the world, like Nigeria, Ecuador and Burma. Those denied entry held legal shareholder proxies. The True Cost of Chevron Network says it organized the protest to call attention to Chevron’s human rights and environmental record. We speak to Antonia Juhasz, director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, who spent the night in jail after her arrest; and Emem Okon, an activist from Nigeria and the founder and executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in the Niger Delta. {includes rush transcript}

Guests:

Antonia Juhasz, director of Global Exchange’s Chevron Program.

Emem Okon, Nigerian women’s rights advocate and environmentalist. She is the founder and executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in the Niger Delta.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Chevron. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, to the practices of another oil giant, the Chevron company. On Wednesday, Chevron had five protesters arrested in Houston at its annual shareholders’ meeting and refused to allow another two dozen people from Chevron-affected countries around the world, like Nigeria, Ecuador and Burma. Those denied entry held legal shareholder proxies.

The True Cost of Chevron Network says it organized the protest to call attention to the company’s human rights and environmental record. The five who were arrested are activists from groups like Amazon Watch and the Houston-based environmental group TEJAS. They were all released on Thursday.

AMY GOODMAN: Among those arrested was author Antonia Juhasz, director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange. She was detained after questioning Chevron’s CEO John Watson during an open comment period for proxy holders. Antonia Juhasz joins us from Houston, as does Emem Okon, an activist from Nigeria and the founder and executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in the Niger Delta.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Antonia, let’s begin with you. What happened? What did you ask Chevron’s President, CEO? And how did you end up in jail?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Chevron truly exposed its great fear at having the true cost of its operations being revealed to its shareholders and the media. It revealed its great fear at the communities who are actually impacted by Chevron being able to tell the truth about its operations. And I think most importantly, it revealed in Houston how it treats those who come to tell the truth about its operations, engage with the company, with a brutal response, a response that stifles the ability of free speech. And that was a very small taste of what’s experienced much more dramatically at Chevron’s hands all around the world.

I actually went in as a shareholder. I spoke during the shareholder response time. And as I was saying to the gathered shareholders that Chevron had denied—after showing a video of its impacts in communities during the shareholder meeting, it refused to then let those actual representatives from those communities, who had literally traveled from Burma, from Australia, from Alaska, from Nigeria, from Ecuador, all over the world, into the meeting. As I was saying, "These are the people who are here to tell you about your corporation and its operations," I was aggressively grabbed by the police, by private security. I was dragged very forcibly—I still have a handprint on my arm from the law enforcement—dragged, prone on my back, out the back, thrown by four police officers it took to get me, lift me into and move me into the van, and arrested. And I was charged with criminal trespass and disrupting a meeting, and I was incarcerated for twenty-four—a twenty-four-hour period.

And all that time, there were—the few representatives who have gotten—got in, from Angola and Kazakhstan and representing the Philippines, were—we took over the meeting and said essentially that Chevron is lying, it is afraid, it is afraid to expose the true cost of operations—of its operations. But I think most importantly, what we demonstrated was that Chevron is afraid of the organizing against it, that when the communities from the location where it operates not only tell the truth about what it does, but link and form a community and a network, that we send an enormous amount of fear and shock through this company, because, believe me, this has never happened in a Chevron meeting before. They have never felt the need to have such aggressive, physical, abusive tactics to arrest activists in the front from Richmond, California, from Houston, Texas, from around the world, and to drag me physically from inside the meeting.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Antonia, according to one report that I read, the company chairman had to actually adjourn the meeting at a certain point, because he wasn’t able to get control of it?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: This was new CEO John Watson’s very first meeting as the CEO of the company, and he absolutely lost control of the meeting. He chose to bring in an enormous, as I said, quantity of security that filled the meeting. And actually, it seemed like they were starting to outnumber the actual attendees. And he chose to have that very aggressive and physical response to me simply highlighting that people like Emem Okon from Nigeria and people from all over the world were being denied access. We then—the shareholders were actually trying to listen to me. We were also chanting. And at one point, the CEO, John Watson, simply threw up his hands and said, "You know, I don’t know what to do. I guess the meeting’s adjourned." And that was the end of the meeting, as we continued to voice our opposition and statements of Chevron’s lies and the true cost of its operations, and essentially broke up and ended the meeting in that way.

More:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/28/chevron_has_5_activists_arrested_and

[naaman fletcher]

2. "we were also chanting"

How is the guy supposed to run the meeting and allow people to speak when they were chanting? I'm totally against CVX but this is a good example of how activists subvert their own goals and wind up looking like fools. Any large shareholder concerned about this will be shown a video of them chanting and then never again believe a word that the activists say.