Chevron: Finding New Ways to Crush Opponents, Intimidate Filmmakers and Disempower Populations

[Judi Lynn]

Chevron: Finding New Ways to Crush Opponents, Intimidate Filmmakers and Disempower Populations

Joanne DoroshowExecutive Director, Center for Justice & Democracy
Posted: April 28, 2010 06:44 PM

I know I'm not the first one to draw comparisons between James Cameron's fictional Avatar, where a corporate-military entity uses force to obtain Pandora's valuable natural resource while devastating the indigenous population, and Joe Berlinger's award-winning documentary, Crude, where Texaco-Chevron actually does nearly the same thing in Ecuador's rainforest in order to extract oil. In Ecuador, the people are using the courts to try to force the company to account for the devastation it has caused. This is perhaps not possible on a moon like Pandora. Yet their struggles seem no easier than the Na'vi's.

Falling under the category "truth is stranger (and certainly more dangerous) than fiction," on Friday April 30, Crude's director, Joe Berlinger, will be in federal court in New York City fighting Chevron's attempt to force him to hand over to Chevron more than 600 hours of footage he did not use in the film. Berlinger obtained some of these outtakes confidentially or with the understanding that only with express permission would anyone see it. Chevron hopes it will find something to use against those who are suing it.

Joe Berlinger does superb work and it is painful to see him put through this kind of harassment. In addition to Crude, you may have seen his series Iconoclasts on the Sundance channel, or his excellent documentaries, like the 2004 film Metallica: Some Kind of Monster or Brother's Keeper. (On a personal note, Brother's Keeper was released in 1992, the same year as The Panama Deception, a documentary that I and three others produced. Brother's Keeper should have been nominated for an Academy Award that year. Like many great films, it wasn't. Our film was, and it won the Oscar. Brother's Keeper would have been our toughest competition, without doubt. Anyway ... )

Crude covered an incredibly important lawsuit. Originally brought against Chevron/Texaco (Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001) in the United States by about 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers, the case languished for nine year before being forced back to Ecuador. The victims are still seeking $27 billion to pay for both clean up and compensation for the sick and dying, who were made ill from severe pollution caused by nearly three decades of oil drilling. Chevron denies any wrongdoing.

When 60 Minutes covered the story last year, producers discovered that one of Chevron's tactics was to attack the attorney representing the victims and to call the clearly-legitimate case "frivolous." (This all seems very familiar to us.) 60 Minutes explained some of the legal shenanigans in which Chevron had already engaged:

In 1993, the Amazonians first filed suit in a U.S. federal court in New York. It was Steven Donziger's first big case. And it sat there for nine years while Texaco pressed this argument: that this legal matter belonged in Ecuador.

"Texaco wanted to be in Ecuador, you wanted to be in New York, and you lost," Pelley told Donziger. "You think Texaco expected you to go away?"

"I do," Donziger replied.

They didn't. And in 2003, on the first day of the trial in Lago Agrio, Chevron's lawyer, in his opening argument, said the Ecuadorian court didn't have jurisdiction to try the case.

"You wanted to go to Ecuador. Now you say you don't wanna be in Ecuador," Pelley told Chevron's Silvia Garrigo.

"Yeah. We didn't want to get sued, period," she replied.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-doroshow/chevron-finding-new-ways_b_556098.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. Gee - Look what Petroecuador did after Chevron LEFT the country

Petroecuador, the operator and sole owner of the oil fields for 15 years, never fulfilled its responsibility to remediate its share of the venture's production sites and, since Texpet's exit from Ecuador, has compiled an atrocious and well-documented record of environmental neglect and misconduct.

[Peace Patriot]

2. And this justifies Chevron-Texaco's vast toxic oil spills...how? nt

[FreakinDJ]

3. Helps to have your FACTs straight before you jump on the band wagon

Chevron wasn't even IN ECUADOR when the spills occured. Texaco was. But Texaco cleaned up the mess to the government's satisfaction

Between 1995 and 1998, Texaco completed a $40 million environmental remediation program reflective of Texaco's approximate 1/3 share of the oil-producing consortium with Petroecuador. In 1998, the Government of Ecuador declared and certified that the remediation met Ecuadorian and international standards and released Texaco from future obligations or liabilities.
http://www.texaco.com/sitelets/ecuador/en/remediation/Default.aspx

The GOVERNMENT Run Oil Company has been the 1 dumping all the toxic waste in the Rain Forest

The Chevron Corporation agreed yesterday to acquire Texaco Inc. for about $36 billion in stock, creating the world's fourth-largest oil concern. (Oct 16, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/16/business/chevron-agrees-to-buy-texaco-for-stock-valued-at-36-billion.html?pagewanted=1

The current dictator of Ecuador thinks an American Companies should pay. For what who knows.

I never did consider Huffington Post "News Worthy". This bogus editorial just kind of drove the point home - 1 more time

[Peace Patriot]

4. You are one naive puppy. nt

[glitch]

5. When Chevron-Texaco merged the new entity assumes all liabilities of the old.

Slates don't get wiped clean with mergers, no matter how much a corporation would love it.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for pointing it out. That simple truth seems to elude certain people. n/t