Ecuador to Perpetrate a Fraud on Chevron and the International Community

Ecuadorean indigenous groups have filed one of the largest environmental class action suits in history against an oil company to the tune of $16 billion and if successful could set a dangerous president.

Ripping off the facade and digging under the surface of what at first glance looks to be nothing more than deserved retribution by indigenous groups who've suffered at the hands of Evil Big Oil one begins to see more clearly the forces behind this fraud are non other than Ecuador own state run oil company Petroecuador, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, and the powers-that-be who are working feverishly to re-identify and usher in a new socialist South America.

You see, the fact is, Chevron, through its Texaco subsidiary (which Chevron aquired in 2001) , operated an oilfield joint venture with Petroecuador as a minority partner between 1964 and 1992.

From 2002 to 2007, Petroecuador was responsible for more than 1,000 oil spills, of which 168 took place last year alone. In fact, Petroecuador (through its oil and gas exploration and production subsidiary Petroproducción) accounted for 90 percent of all oil spills in Ecuador last year, according to official government data quoted by local newspaper El Universo. The remaining 10 percent were contaminated by six different private companies. In other words, Petroecuador is clearly a major and serial contaminator.

Another underreported fact is that "Chevron paid $40 million in remediation costs in 1995, Petroecuador has not used one dime to clean up its mess." And in In 1998 "the government of Ecuador declared that the remediation was completed according to the terms and parameters agreed upon and released Texaco from any future liability."

President Correa's complicitness is illustrated in the following two part investigative report by investigative Journalist Greg Palast for the BBC -- Yeah I know but it's informative and worth viewing in it's entirety...

Much more and video below the fold...

Ecuador- Rumble in the Jungle Part 1



Ecuador- Rumble in the Jungle Part 2



The Latin Business Chronicle reports:

INCOMPLETE AND WRONG INSPECTIONS

The lawsuit was originally filed in 1993 in the United States, but was thrown out here in 2002. Then the case was refiled in Ecuador, where the process has been marred by serious flaws. Richard Cabrera, the court-appointed expert, has shown a combination of incompetence and bias against the U.S. company. Cabrera conducted field work that ignored all scientifically accepted technical procedures for site assessment, while including members and supporters of the Frente de la Defensa de la Amazonia (FDA) in his field support team, Chevron points out. The FDA was formed to represent the group suing Chevron. Chevron has repeatedly asked the court to remove Cabrera, but to no avail.

While Cabrera had been specifically asked by the court to present his report after inspecting 122 sites, he did so after only inspecting 47. Even worse, Cabrera took samples from areas that are the sole responsibility of Petroecuador, areas which Petroecuador has publicly acknowledged its obligation to remediate, and from areas already remediated by Petroecuador, Chevron points out. He has also repeatedly asked the court to stop Petroecuador from conducting remediation of the areas of the former concession that Petroecuador has publicly recognized were under its responsibility and have gone unfulfilled since 1998, according to the U.S. oil company. (See Chevron: Biased and Improper Report).

Most of the "evidence" from the group suing Chevron has been analyzed by Havoc laboratory, which has refused all attempts (seven, in all, over more than two years) by an Ecuadorian court to inspect its facilities.

Finally, the court received unwarranted pressure from President Rafael Correa, who has publicly stated his support for the lawsuit. While that clearly violates the judicial independence of Ecuador, it should come as no surprise. After all, Correa is the brains behind the absurd proposal that the international community pay Ecuador $350 million per year to not explore oil in the Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini (ITT) field, which may have reserves of one billion barrels. (See Ecuador's Oil Paradox).

Fabian Losa one of Ecuador's top newscasters, according to the clip above, describes the people behind bring this suit as being like ""watermelons" Green on the outside and Red on the inside" translation -- using environmentalism to further a socialist agenda! With fiends like Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, It's no wonder the lawyers who brought the suit, Richard Cabrera, and President Correa are so confident.

On the political front here in the United States, it should come as no surprise that Sen. Obama has sided with socialists of south America as the CSM reported: "In February, Sens. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois and Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont sent a letter to US Trade Representative Rob Portman urging him to ignore an apparent campaign by Chevron to exclude Ecuador from trade negotiations until the Ecuadorean government shuts down the lawsuit. "While we are not prejudging the outcome of the case, we do believe the 30,000 indigenous residents of Ecuador deserve their day in court," the senators wrote."

In plain and simple terms this is a fraud that's being perpetrated on an American company and the international community, falsely, in the name of environmentalism by agents pushing a socialist agenda. It's just that simple... and it should be brought to light and exposed for what it is whenever and wherever possible!


Cross posted from The Minority Report