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Amazon Watch
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
2003-10-08 |
Contacts:
U.S./International Media:
Andy Morris – 212-561-7465, andy@amc-pr.com
In Ecuador:
Shannon Wright- 593 98 042-180, shannon@amazonwatch.org
Bay Area & Spanish-Language Media:
Leila Salazar – 310-420-7575, leila@amazonwatch.org
Environmental “Trial of
Century” Pits 50,000 Ecuadorian Rainforest People Against
ChevronTexaco…
Bianca Jagger To Visit Amazon Rainforest In Ecuador
Case of Rainforest Peoples Against ChevronTexaco To Begin Oct. 21
In Lago Agrio, Sucumbios
First Time U.S. Oil Company Forced To Face Judgment In Ecuador
Court
Jagger to Meet with Indigenous Leaders and Tour Communities
Ravaged by Illegal Dumping on Oct. 9th-10th
NEW YORK, NY and LAGO AGRIO, ECUADOR:
International human rights advocate Bianca Jagger will arrive in
Ecuador this week to begin a historic tour of the Amazon jungle
only two weeks before the start of a landmark trial in Lago Agrio
where rainforest peoples are seeking to force ChevronTexaco to
clean up the environmental contamination left behind from
Texaco’s drilling operations.
Jagger, who was born in Nicaragua and who has campaigned for human
rights for over two decades throughout the globe, will arrive in
Ecuador the evening of Oct. 8 for a five-day fact-finding mission.
She will tour the Amazon jungle and will meet with a handful of
key indigenous leaders, government officials, and foreign
diplomats. While Jagger has fought for human rights on several
continents, this will be her first trip to Ecuador.
“The purpose of my trip is to bring the attention of the world
to the plight of the indigenous populations of Ecuador. The eyes
of the international human rights community are observing how this
case will unfold,” said Jagger. “ChevronTexaco’s drilling
practices in Ecuador constitute a crime. No developed nation
should tolerate the discharge of highly toxic oil and oil
byproducts directly into the waterways and ecosystems of their
people. The Ecuadorian Courts must send a clear message that this
will not be tolerated in Ecuador – that ChevronTexaco will be
held accountable. We must put an end to the days where oil
companies could act with total impunity in developing nations.”
“The rule of the law should prevail – if an oil company causes
environmental pollution, that company must clean it up,” she
said. “And if an oil company fails to clean it up, the courts
should order that oil company to clean it up on behalf of the
victims. Ecuador is the first country in Latin America with the
historic opportunity to make an American oil company
accountable.”
Jagger’s visit to Ecuador has the support of the international
NGO community. They are committed to bringing the oil giant to
justice in order to force it to clean up the contamination it has
left behind after two decades of operations in the Ecuadorian
Amazon. Jagger, who has campaigned on behalf of indigenous people
throughout Latin America, has spoken on behalf of the Miskito
Indians in Nicaragua and the Yanomami and Guarani in Brazil. She
has campaigned for human rights from Central America to
Afghanistan, from Kosovo to Iraq. She has joined with tens of
thousands of rainforest peoples, countless nongovernmental
organizations, and citizens of ChevronTexaco’s home base (San
Ramon, CA) in the ultimate “David v. Goliath” battle.
“I have joined with the rainforest people and a wide network of
human rights organizations to find a constructive solution to the
problem,” Jagger added. “A comprehensive cleanup effort must
begin with the participation of local residents.”
The case is being billed as the oil industry’s “Trial of the
Century” given that the magnitude of the destruction represents
the worst ongoing ecological disaster in the Western Hemisphere
– with the amount of toxic waste dumped into the environment
three times that of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. An estimated
50,000 men, women, and children are affected, and one indigenous
group – the Cofan – reports that it is on the verge of
extinction because of the contamination of natural water sources.
The case, first filed in New York in 1993, has been delayed for
years because Texaco refused to accept the jurisdiction of the
American court. But in an astounding turnaround, the American
court last year ordered that ChevronTexaco accept jurisdiction in
Ecuador (the company for years had argued it was not subject to
jurisdiction either in the United States or in Ecuador) and be
forced to pay any judgment that an Ecuadorian court impose. The
case represents the first time in history that an American oil
company will be forced by a U.S. court to pay a judgment coming
out of a Latin American country where it no longer has assets,
according to Cristobal Bonifaz, the lead American lawyer on the
case.
In the lawsuit, the rainforest peoples charge ChevronTexaco with
systematically destroying their homeland through massive dumping
of highly toxic wastewater and crude oil over the two decades of
the company’s operations in Ecuador, which ended in 1991. The
case will be heard in a small courthouse in Lago Agrio, a remote
town in the heart of Ecuador’s oil operations.
Recent epidemiological studies, including one conducted under the
auspices of the prestigious London School of Tropical Medicine,
indicate skyrocketing rates of cancer and other health problems in
the area where Texaco drilled. The primary reason is that
residents have no source of drinking water other than the swamps
and rivers that were used by Texaco for the disposal of toxic
wastewater that is the byproduct of oil drilling. In the United
States and other countries in the world, this toxic wastewater is
reinjected deep into the ground where it cannot impact the
environment.
“This type of destruction is something you would never see in
the United States,” said Alberto Wray, the Ecuadorian lawyer on
the case. “Texaco reserved this type of dumping strictly for
remote and vulnerable people in Ecuador.”
The case also is being closely watched by lawyers, multinational
corporations and the international human rights community for
potential problems. The U.S. State Department has cited
Ecuador’s long history of judicial corruption, and its civil
justice system has never imposed a judgment of more than $1
million on an international oil company despite environmental
damage in this case estimated to exceed $1 billion. Just last
week, a key Texaco executive, Ricard Veiga, was in Ecuador meeting
with government officials and claiming a 1995 clean up of the
damage was adequate, an assertion that the plaintiffs dispute.
Jagger and the lawyers for the rainforest peoples also criticized
Veiga’s assertion that the case will damage prospects for
foreign investment in Ecuador. “To the contrary, the best way to
ensure healthy foreign investment in the Ecuadorian economy is
thru the independence and impartiality of its civil justice
system,” said Jagger.
“Texaco’s idea of foreign investment in Ecuador is dig oil out
of the ground and dump the toxic waste,” said Steven Donziger,
another of the lawyers. “If this case hurts prospects for that
type of foreign investment, that would be to the benefit of
Ecuador.”
Ms. Jagger’s Itinerary: (All times: local time in Ecuador)
Wednesday, October 8th
9:30 pm Arrive at airport in Quito. Photo op/brief remarks
Thursday, October 9th
9:00 am Press conference at CONAIE (Avenida de los Granados y 6 de
Diciembre)
10:30 am Depart for Coca
Afternoon: Visit sites in the Amazon
Friday, Oct. 10
Morning Returns from the Amazon
Afternoon: Quito Meetings
Saturday, Oct. 11
11:00 am Press conference in Quito at CONAIE (Avenida de los
Granados y 6 de Diciembre)
Sunday, Oct. 12
Depart Quito
Quito press conferences are open to all media.
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