On its website, the oil giant Chevron promises to help indigenous peoples where it drills for oil or has drilled. Chevron says it is “committed to interacting with indigenous communities in a way that respects their history, culture and customs.”
In 2018, Chevron will have a chance – if it wants – to keep its indigenous website promise by cleaning up toxic contamination resulting from oil exploration that has ruined the lives of indigenous peoples in Ecuador’s rainforest. But will.....
Chevron’s new CEO and Board Chair Michael Wirth, who takes over his position in February, embrace the need to save lives and rebuild lost communities?
Under previous leaders, Chevron has not helped indigenous groups in Ecuador’s rainforest, who have lost family and friends and suffered from the massive oil contamination by Texaco, beginning in the 1970s. Despite the loss of life, the illnesses and extensive damage to soil and water, Chevron purchased Texaco anyway in 2000, buying all of its legal troubles in Ecuador which began in 1993.
This indigenous woman passed away from exposure to oil contamination. Beside her is her granddaughter.
Chevron’s Board of Directors and its top officials could decide during this coming year to join not only indigenous peoples and their leaders but also other Ecuadorian residents, environmentalists and local government officials who have been working to clean up the toxic contamination that Texaco left behind when it exited Ecuador in 1992.
In courts of law in the United States, Canada and Ecuador, Chevron has argued against paying a $9.5 billion Ecuadorian court ruling against the company for a cleanup, while the Ecuadorian indigenous groups have fought to receive the $9.5 billion damage award, which would correct more damage with a smaller monetary award than the BP legal payment for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
BP, a British oil company, paid U.S. governments and American victims, about $62 billion for a short-term accident of lesser impact than Texaco’s intentional contamination of Ecuador’s rainforest that lasted from early 1970 to 1990 to ensure greater profits for Texaco, whose money eventually found its way to Chevron.
A pit where Texaco stored toxic crude after drilling decades ago. The crude seeps into streams & soil today.
Even though Chevron describes the Ecuadorian courts as “corrupt” and “fraudulent,” those courts never demanded the same amount of money from Chevron that U.S. courts and U.S. governments demanded from BP for contamination not nearly as deadly or injurious as Texaco’s in Ecuador. Tens of thousands of indigenous have died or have become ill as a result of exposure to the contamination and the resulting cancer and other diseases.
The indigenous groups, also accused of being corrupt and fraudulent, have not asked for more money. They are asking for the money that their lower, appellate and supreme courts have ruled legitimate. The indigenous are following the rules of their country, the place where both Texaco and Chevron wanted the trial to be conducted, and both oil companies accepted Ecuador’s jurisdiction.
Today Ecuadorian indigenous people need Chevron to accept the rulings from three levels of courts in Ecuador and stop accusing them of fraud.
Since the beginning of the litigation – first filed in 1993, a year after Texaco left Ecuador -- everyone involved in this case has accused each other of fraud. For the sake of the indigenous people and the environmental credibility of the oil giant, it’s time to stop and do the right thing.
Chevron’s new CEO and Chair, Michael Wirth, hopefully will work with indigenous groups in all countries where the oil giant does or has done business. The 24-year-old litigation over Texaco’s pollution in Ecuador has moved to Canada, where the Ecuadorians are trying to obtain their $9.5 billion judgment. Canadian indigenous groups have partnered with the Ecuadorians to help them convince their courts to require Chevron to do what it says it does online – respect indigenous rights.
A court, though, is perplexing. This lawsuit has found its way into several dozen court systems across the United States, in the United Kingdom, Ecuador and Canada. It will likely take several more years to wind its way through the Canadian court system. Trusting any court is tough.
A prominent conservative federal judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently resigned after facing allegations of sexual harassment from 15 former women clerks, some of whom the judge asked to watch porn with him and one to strip naked while exercising. The judge, Alex Kozinski, was appointed in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan.
A New York federal judge insulted innocent Ecuadorian indigenous people while they sat in his court during a U.S. trial about them and their lawyers, essentially accusing the Ecuadorians of not actually existing. The judge, Lewis Kaplan, was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton.
Another oil pit that continues to contaminate soil and streams that Ecuadorians use today.
Kaplan said that the entire Ecuador lawsuit – which included an eight-year trial in Ecuador that produced 220,000 pages of evidence against Chevron – was only a "game" brought about by the "imagination of American lawyers" trying to solve the "balance of payments" problem of the United States.
So far, the U.S. has done nothing to help Ecuador’s indigenous. Will Canada? In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country’s legacy of colonialism and its impact on First Nations Canadians has been one of “humiliation, neglect and abuse,” and he intends to improve the legacy for Canadians’ indigenous.
Time will tell how supportive Canada’s courts will be on the Ecuadorians’ request for justice. Finding justice, though, has become much harder in a courtroom, especially for poor people.
Major oil companies, such as Chevron, operate around the world under different legal structures and often vary their actions in poor developing nations compared to richer countries.
Chevron could resist recommendations from its lawyers to sue “until hell freezes over” and instead start implementing its public claims on its website. Settling the company’s legal fight in Ecuador would be a good first step, not just in Ecuador but across the globe.