Lawyers Chase Chevron for Petroecuador’s Spills
In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the paper railed against a group of men who are being honored by CNN and many of the politically-correct left. I admire them for digging behind the story about Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza, who are not the heroes that some make them out to be. The paper is never afraid to take a stand against the lefty, popular view and look a little deeper.
The setting here is the Ecuador jungle, where a long legal battle is being fought between these men, who represent the Amazon Defense Front, against Chevron oil, for despoiling the Amazon hinterland. Sounds like a slam dunk, huh? Bad American oil company. Good native Amazonians.
In the ’60s, Texaco (later merged with Chevron) became a minority partner with Petroecuador, the state-run oil company, until the early ’90s when the company was nationalized and Chevron forced to leave. At that time an independent group said they had to pay $13 million for clean up, and the oil company ended up spending $40 million. After this, Ecuador’s government “absolved, liberated and forever freed the company from any claim or litigation.”
Petroecuador admits that it has been responsible for 1000 or more oil spills in the Amazon itself since then. Yet Cristobal Bonifaz filed a new lawsuit in the US, where not only was it tossed out of courts, he was fined $45,000 for his “legal chicanery.” Wonder why he is not suing Petroecuador, since they took over the oil business and have admitted to most of the spills?
Despite the above, which to most people would be the end of the line, Bonifaz is now pushing to sue Chevron in Ecuador, including asking for $8.3 billion for ‘unjust enrichment’ even though the biggest beneficiary of the oil profits is Petroecuador. And he’s adding another claim, blaming Texaco for introducing alcohol to the region. Absurd, yet the group is lauded and get ‘hero awards’ from CNN.
Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, a big US-hating Hugo Chavez ally has his own reasons for trying to cash in on a big Chevron payday. Oil pollution indeed, is a terrible thing, but at some point, the paper reasons, you gotta point the finger at the real guilty party, which is Petroecuador, not Chevron any more.
October 23, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Dear Max: Just came across this posting. It’s too bad that you yourself didn’t dig a little deeper into this case. I encourage you to travel to the region and you’ll see for yourself the contamination that Texaco (now Chevron) left, how it is different from Petroecuador’s share of the responsibility, and how the local people have been impacted. To say that what happened here is only Petroecuador’s fault, is to accept Chevron’s PR spin hook like and sinker. There are thousands of people in Ecuador’s Amazon that I’m sure would love to share their stories of how the company operated here in the 1970s and 1980s, how the company’s “clean-up” was nothing more than bull dozers pushing dirt over waste pits, and how the while Petroecuador is no friend to the environment, when the case was filed in 1993 (months after Petroecuador took over Texaco operations) the area was already a disaster zone. One of the beauties of traveling is being opened by the world, by what you see and the people you meet. First hand experiences that get you past the headlines. On this case, its important to read past an editorial in the WSJ, written after several meetings with the company and with no input or request for comment from local affected people. Petroecuador shares some of the responsibility, but it doesn’t liberate Chevron from its role and doing what’s right–carrying out a true clean, provide clean drinking water, and provide some funds for health care. If you get a chance, come on down. Seeing is believing. Thanks.