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Edited on Mon Aug-15-11 12:58 PM by Peace Patriot
when it looked like they were going to lose in the U.S. court, on the promise to the U.S. judge that they would obey any judgement against them by the Ecuador courts. Clearly, they had their collective corporate fingers crossed behind their collective corporate back, when they made that promise, and were no doubt also thinking that they could bribe and bully their way to a favorable judgement in Ecuador, given the extremely corrupt rightwing political establishment running Ecuador at that time, and the highly unstable conditions they had created.
Lo and behold, leftist reform governments began sweeping elections in South America, with corrupt rightwing establishments tossed out everywhere--first in Venezuela (with successful resistance to the U.S.-supported rightwing coup in '02), then Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and in Ecuador with the election of the handsome young leftist reformer Rafael Correa in 2006. Correa's name means "belt" and during campaign stops he would take off his belt and snap it in the air to demonstrate what he was going to do the corrupt bastards running Ecuador, a country rich in oil (member of OPEC) and other resources yet with one of the poorest populations in Latin America. It is those corrupt bastards who had permitted Chevron-Texaco to despoil a swath of the Ecuadoran rainforest the size of Rhode Island with toxic oil sludge--destroying fisheries, wild life and fresh water sources all the way to Peru, and harming human health in the Indigenous tribes that lived there.
Yet another irony: Chevron-Texaco "is seeking to prove that Ecuador's entire judicial system is broken." What they really mean is that they can't break it. Their bribery and bullying doesn't work any more. The reform movement in Ecuador and throughout the continent strengthened the spines of Ecuador's judges, so that they were able to render a just verdict against one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
There are so many ironies in this case! Chevron-Texaco, having moved the venue of the case to Ecuador, and having lost in Ecuador, then came back to the U.S. and filed this frivolous and harassing lawsuit against the law firm that finally won the case for the Indigenous tribes.
It was initially brought by one, self-taught, very poor Indigenous lawyer, against batteries of the highest paid lawyers in the world. He didn't even have a fax machine! He and his brothers and sisters had personally taken oil showers and drunk oily water as this oil disaster had unfolded. He kept the suit alive for many years. Environmental groups and Donziger's firm came to their rescue when Indigenous resources had run out. So this is a case of pure justice like no other. There was virtually no hope of victory for the Indigenous when it began. It was filed for justice's sake. It is the sort of case that destroys the lives of the activists who bring it--exhausts them, uses up their meager resources, causes them to neglect their own lives and livelihoods, wears them down in every way and often subjects them to internal and external pressures that most of us could not bear, with little or no hope that justice will be done, but with abiding faith that an injustice like this-- the blighted environment, the impacts on poor people--at the least demands the light of day, even if there no hope of redress.
There was no hope of redress when this suit was filed. Then things changed for the better. And Chevron-Texaco, in typical corporate fashion, has turned this truth on its head. They couldn't break Ecuador's justice system, so they claim that it is broken!
The highest paid lawyers in the world. Batteries of them. Also the highest paid P.R. firms in the world, not to mention well paid "dirty tricks" operatives. (They literally lured the first Ecuadoran judge into making a semi-compromising statement, in private, got it on tape and forced him to recuse himself. He had made some rulings against them. They wanted him out. They paid a "dirty tricks" operative to do it. But they couldn't get at the judge who finally ruled on the case.)
So now, Chevron-Texaco tries again, in one of the few justice systems in the Americas that they still have the advantage in, after a decade of Bushwhack appointments and degradation: our own. Supreme Court bought and paid for. System used literally to install a far rightwing, warmongering, thieving junta in the White House. And the Democrats also players in the corporate game, for instance with appointment of Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General, who was Chiquita International's private lawyer when victims of Chiquita's death squads in Colombia brought suit in the U.S. Holder got them off with a handslap (from the Bush Junta). Now he's running the U.S. justice system.
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S.L.A.P.P. suits - corporate weapon for silencing critics
I don't know anything about New York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, except this: In my opinion, he should never have allowed this Chevron-Texaco lawsuit against the Indigenous and their attorneys to proceed. This is a classic S.L.A.P.P. suit ("strategic lawsuit against public participation"). This is a legal weapon that corporations use to punish, harass and frighten environmental activists and other critics. A member of the public or a group draws attention to corporate environmental pollution or other damage--whether in a mere letter to the editor, or by filing a public interest lawsuit--then they get S.L.A.P.P.-ed with a personal lawsuit that is not viable on the merits but is intended to frighten and exhaust the victims.
California has a special law to prevent such legal harassment, by which the victims can get a S.L.A.P.P. suit dismissed quickly, before it does its intended damage (exhausting the victims' resources; dampening free speech with fear). I don't know if New York has an anti-S.L.A.P.P. law, but if they don't, then judges need to be even more vigilant about this kind of corporate power to frighten and silence its critics and victims.
Chevron-Texaco's motion to remove Donziger and Keker from their S.L.A.P.P. suit is a clear indication that this suit has no merits and has been filed merely to harass, exhaust and frighten its victims. In other words, they know that good attorneys will take their case apart. They have no case. Whatever Kaplan's history as a judge--and, as I said, I know nothing about him--his integrity is on the line, with this motion to remove the Indigenous group's best attorneys. Perhaps his initial decision, to allow a harassing lawsuit, was a mistake or poor judgement. THIS decision will indicate whether THAT decision was merely a mistake/poor judgement, or something worse: Kaplan, due to direct or indirect corruption, favoring Chevron-Texaco in non-sensical motion merely intended to harass again, on top of the harassing lawsuit. But whether he allows this motion or not, he is allowing a S.L.A.P.P. suit to proceed.
There is a further aspect to this S.L.A.P.P. suit that goes beyond the individual and group Indigenous victims, and that is the utter arrogance of a U.S. court presuming to judge and gainsay Ecuador's justice system, and permitting a S.L.A.P.P. suit in essence against a whole country. This lawsuit should have been dismissed at its earliest stage, as attempted harassment and intimidation against Ecuador's Indigenous victims and as an attempt by a private transglobal corporation to harass and intimidate Ecuador's democratic, reformist government. Chevron-Texaco's game is essentially a far rightwing/corporate political/P.R. game. They are guilty of judge shopping, court shopping and country shopping! Judge Kaplan should never have allowed a U.S. court to be used this way.
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(minor edits)
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