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REPORTS: ECUADOR |
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Wednesday 19
November
2003
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Texaco pollution case begins
Members of Amazonian indigenous
groups present the "bill" to Texaco por
pollution in Ecuador Amazon Watch
Barbara J. Fraser
After 10 years in US courts, plaintiffs
face a long legal battle at home.
The tiny courtroom in Lago Agrio, a
jungle town in northeastern Ecuador, was
packed on Oct. 21 for the start of a
landmark trial against US oil giant
ChevronTexaco for pollution caused by
its operations more than a decade ago
(LP, Jan. 18, 2003). But while many of
the 70-plus plaintiffs in the case are
members of the Secoya, Siona, Cofán and
Huaorani peoples, there were only a few
indigenous people in the crowd of
lawyers, journalists, environmentalists
and spectators.
After nearly a decade of legal wrangling
in US courts, the case returned to
Ecuador, to the courtroom where Judge
Alberto Guerra presided, flanked by a
huge painting of Lady Justice in native
garb against a backdrop of rivers, hills
and forests, a toucan perched over her
scales and a puma at her feet.
In the street outside, barred from the
courthouse by a row of riot police,
several hundred people — some in
feathers, face paint and traditional
garb — chanted slogans against Texaco
and listened to the court proceedings
over a loudspeaker. Not all were
convinced that justice would be done.
"It’s been 10 years and we’ve never been
able to talk face to face with the
company," said Elias Piaguaje, a Secoya
leader who is one of the plaintiffs.
"Look what’s happened today — they’re
all inside, and we’re out here in the
street shouting. To me, it’s an insult."
Between 1971 and 1992, a consortium
involving Texaco and state-owned
PetroEcuador pumped 1.5 billion barrels
of oil from the area. The plaintiffs
argue that the company improperly
disposed of 18.5 billion gallons of
wastewater, contaminating soil and the
streams and rivers on which at least
500,000 people — including some 30,000
members of indigenous communities —
depend for drinking water and
irrigation.
For most of the day, the company’s
lawyers argued that the case should be
thrown out because ChevronTexaco was not
responsible for the actions of its
former subsidiaries and because it had
already invested US$40 million in
cleanup operations that were approved by
the Ecuadoran government.
The company also challenged the
retroactive application of a 1999
hydrocarbons law that holds companies to
stricter cleanup standards, but the
plaintiffs’ lawyer, Alberto Wray,
disagreed.
"We’re talking about damages that are
still occurring, because the toxic
substances are still present and are
still causing contamination," he said.
As for the cleanup efforts, lawyer
Steven Donziger, who represented the
plaintiffs in the US court case and is
serving as an adviser in the Ecuador
case, likened it to "applying makeup."
He estimated that the cost of repairing
the damage from the more than 600 waste
pits would exceed US$1 billion. Other
experts have estimated that the cost
could be five or six times that amount.
"The cleanup that was done was a
disaster, because they only covered up
(the waste). Now the damage is even
greater, because it’s filtering into the
water sources. It may be less visible,
but it’s more intense and more serious,"
said the Rev. José Miguel Goldáraz, a
Spanish Capuchin priest who has worked
in the area for 30 years.
Although the suit seeks cleanup and does
not mention a specific dollar amount,
money is one of the points of
contention. While Ricardo Veiga,
ChevronTexaco’s vice president for
products in Latin America, pointed out
that the company had provided US$5
million for community development
projects in some of the affected zones,
some local residents saw those payments
as hush money. After receiving the
funds, several local governments and
indigenous organizations withdrew from
the lawsuit.
"The fact that Texaco has given money to
local governments does not affect the
plaintiffs’ right to live in an
environment free of contamination," Wray
said.
Goldáraz was more blunt, saying, "Oil
has corrupted (local) leaders."
During the demonstrations outside the
courthouse, people living near the waste
pits told of family members falling ill
or dying. Goldáraz said that a study
carried out by the Capuchin mission
found high rates of cancer and stomach
and skin problems.
The judge, who has lived in Lago Agrio
for six years, seemed sympathetic to the
plaintiffs’ complaints.
"I know the situation," he said. "There
is pollution. Sometimes even I" — he
left he sentence hanging, but scratched
at the skin of his neck — "because of
the water."
At the end of the initial hearing,
Guerra gave both parties six working
days to present documents and witnesses.
He and court investigators will then
sift through the documents and inspect
the affected area.
"I know that the parties are going to
request the inspection of about 100
wells," he said, adding that he expected
to issue a ruling within four to six
months.
"This is a historic case because it is
going to set a precedent not only in the
legal sense, but also in the human
sense," he said. "To me, nature is like
a pregnant woman. No one can put toxic
substances and pollutants into the womb
of a pregnant woman. We have the
responsibility to care for her."
Whatever Guerra’s verdict, an appeal is
likely. The case could eventually reach
the Supreme Court. If the plaintiffs
lose, Donziger said, they could return
to US courts.
While Guerra said he did not expect the
Texaco case to end up on his desk, he
added that he believed the US Second
Circuit Court of Appeals made the right
decision in ruling that it should be
tried first in Ecuador. The US court
ruled that the Ecuadoran court’s
decision would be binding on the company
in the United States (LP, June 18,
2001).
Foreign petroleum companies have left
their mark on Ecuador, down to the name
of the town where the Texaco case is
being heard. The official name of the
capital of the department of Sucumbíos,
which was carved out of the jungle when
the oil boom began, is Nueva Loja.
Texaco employees began calling it Lago
Agrio after Sour Lake, Texas, the site
of the company’s first gusher. The name
stuck.
Nor is Texaco the only company currently
in the spotlight. In September, an
assembly of Shuar people in the Pastaza
region, to the south, repeated its
prohibition against petroleum operations
by US-owned Burlington Resources. The
decision came after President Lucio
Gutiérrez announced that the area would
be opened up for exploration later this
year. For the past six years, the Shuar
have waged a successful battle to keep
oil companies out of their territory
(LP, Jan. 17, 2000).
Meanwhile, not far from Lago Agrio, the
Kichwa people in the community of
Sarayacu have been trying to stop oil
prospecting on their lands. On Oct. 16,
lawyers presented the case before the
Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights. Government officials have
threatened to send in the military to
enable the Argentine Compañía General de
Combustibles (CGC) to go ahead with
seismic testing (LP, March 26, 2003).
For the indigenous people of Sucumbíos,
the issue goes beyond cleaning up toxic
waste. Although their territories are
legally recognized, the government
reserves the right to grant concessions
for subsoil resources like oil, gas and
minerals (LP, April 22, 2002). According
to Piaguaje, the communities see none of
the wealth that those resources
represent.
"It was the government that negotiated
with the company, so the government
should pay us and give us the wells that
are producing," he said. "The underlying
problem is one of ancestral indigenous
philosophy against national and foreign
laws. The real problem is social
cultural and philosophical – it’s a
matter of world view. All I want is to
be able to sit down and discuss
conditions on equal terms."
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