Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant

[ensho]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110223/ts_alt_afp/ecuadorcourtcompanyenvironmentchevronusnative


She has no legal training, and doesn't speak the Spanish that dominates government in Quito but indigenous villager Maria Aguinda helped bring a landmark judgment against US oil giant Chevron for polluting the rain forest she calls home.

The diminutive grandmother whose modest home sits near marshes clogged for decades in sticky oil has been at the heart of the David-and-Goliath case, and spoke out after Chevron was slapped last week with a $9.5-billion fine, among the heaviest ever handed down for environmental damage.

"Before I die they have to pay me for the dead animals, and for what they did to the river, and the water and the earth," the 61-year-old Aguinda told AFP at her home in Rumipamba, a town in remote Orellana province where pollution caused by 30 years of oil drilling and petroleum accidents had become a sad fact of life.

Texaco operated in the area between 1964 and 1990, and was bought in 2001 by Chevron, which inherited Texaco's legal nightmare.

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Aguinda said she believes her husband and two of his 10 children died from effects of the pollution, which rights group Amazon Watch says has affected an area the size of the US state of Rhode Island.

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wonderful - more power to Maria

[niyad]

1. k and r--thank you for reminding us of this brave woman

[JustAnotherGen]

2. With all of the crap

Going on in the U.S. and abroad - it's nice to see one of the 'little guys' get a taste of justice. Thanks greatly for posting this - I would have completely missed this story had you not.:-)