Amazonians win landmark Chevron ruling

adamfoxie* is a couple of days late with this story, but I just caught it, it's an important one:

By Joseph Mayton 

Big oil company Chevron has been defeated. Ecuadorians’ 18-year battle against the multinational oil giant culminated on Monday in a landmark ruling that awards the thousands of civilians who fought for their rights $8 billion in damages. The Ecuador ruling has many celebrating what could have turned into another lost battle for the rights of local citizens in the face of injustices done by the hands of oil companies across the globe

The case is historic; not only because of the dollar amount but also it is the first time Indigenous peoples from the rainforest have sued an American oil company in the country where the crime was committed and won. The incredible 18-year fight against Chevron had sparked an outpouring of activists to the cause, including Sting and a successful documentary “Crude” was made that highlighted the destruction to the environment and human life Chevron had on the country.

This case could also set a precedent for corporate accountability, transforming the way oil companies operate around the globe.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, said on Tuesday that the court decision by a local judge that ordered U.S. oil giant Chevron to pay damages for pollution in the country’s Amazon was “important” for the country.

“It was the most important judgment in the history of the country,” he told reporters.

“The case really sends a message that companies operating in the undeveloped world cannot rely on a compliant government or lax environmental rules as a way of permanently insulating themselves from liability,” said Robert Percival, a law professor and director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, in comments published by Alternet.org.

But Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil company, has vowed to fight the ruling. The oil giant has repeatedly refused to pay for a clean up even if ordered to by the court.

A Chevron executive was quoted in local press as saying the company would not pay the fine until “hell freezes over.” But it is hard to dismiss the evidence on the ground for the destruction wreaked at its hands.

Children have been born with tumors soon after Chevron closed up shop in Ecuardor. Women began dying of cancer. Terrible oil-related diseases began ravaging the region. Texaco abandoned their oil fields in the early 90s, claiming to have remediated the damage. A lawsuit against the company was filed in 1993 on behalf of more than 30,000 indigenous and campesino people, whose lives had been torn apart by poisoned water, toxic soil, contaminated game, and hopelessness.

Granted Chevron was not the company doing the destroying, however, it was Texaco – which Chevron purchased in 2001 and took over the lawsuit. Either way, the human toll and the court ruling goes a long way toward the vindication many in Ecuador believe was a long way coming.

“These people have fought tooth and nail for their rights, for their chance to get health care and rebuild their communities,” said human rights lawyer Eduardo Solis from Uruguay, who has long been assisting the battle whenever he has spare time. He told Bikya Masr via email that the “battle is still going to rage on, but it is time for the US government to take action and show the world that court rulings will be upheld or there will be consequences. The people in Ecuador need it.”

BM