(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The weary oil town of Lago Agrio in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon is the site of a historic lawsuit that could allow multinational corporations that exploit weaknesses in the legal systems of poor countries to escape lawsuits may be held responsible by the legal system of the company's home country .
On the bench is the world's second largest energy company; ChevronTexaco. The charge is said to have destroyed the rainforest and caused major health problems to the locals as a result of 20 years of oil pollution in Oriente, called the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The prosecutors are 88 named persons representing an estimated 30.000 Indians and small farmers. Since Texaco ended its oil adventure in Ecuador in 1992, they have worked with the support of local and international organizations to help the oil company clean up.
If rainforest residents win out, ChevronTexaco's old sins can cost them as much as $ XNUMX billion.
- Everything has been destroyed
What has been dubbed the "trial of the century" in the oil industry began in Lago Agrio on October 21.
The oil town is located 180 kilometers northeast of the capital Quito, a stretch that along the country road takes you over high mountain passes in the Andes and down steep mountainsides to the lowlands, which before the oil industry made its entrance in the late 1960s was covered by impassable rainforest.
When the Lago Agrio trial began, hundreds of Indians marched in war paint outside the courthouse.
- Everything has been destroyed. People have died. Everything has been lost, said Jose Aquilar, a local settler, when the start signal went, according to the news agency IPS.
"The case has the potential to establish a new responsibility for U.S. oil companies that believe they can operate overseas without adhering to responsible environmental practices," said Cristobal Bonifaz, the chief lawyer representing the Texaco victims.
The first two weeks of the trial agreed to the questioning of witnesses and the submission of documentation. These days, the judge in the case, Alberto Guerra Bastidas, is embarking on a tour of Oriente to check out the extent of the pollution himself.
Historical trial
The case against Texaco, which was merged with Chevron in 2002, was first brought forward by Bonifaz and co. in New York in 1993 on behalf of a few dozen Native American leaders and other Ecuadorian Amazon residents.
But the company denied that their business in Ecuador had anything in a US courtroom to do. Yes, for several years Texaco argued that they were neither legally responsible in the United States nor in Ecuador.
In May last year, however, it happened historically: A New York court ruled that ChevronTexaco must accept Ecuador's sentencing authority. And more importantly, US law will ensure that the company must comply with the judgment in Lago Agrio.
Thus, for the first time in history, an American oil company was forced by American law to stand trial in a Latin American country where the company no longer has any value.
The bucket of oil
The week before the trial began, human rights activist Bianca Jagger made a tour of Oriente to visit the Texaco victims and create the most about the trial.
"To fully understand the extent of the devastation caused by Texaco's oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon, you have to see it, touch it, smell it and walk in it like I did in San Carlos y Shushufindi, was one of Jagger's concussions after the tour," the Amazon Watch organization.
The sight in the jungle off Lago Agrio's dusty streets has beaten more than Stones vocalist Mick Jagger's former wife on the ground.
Previously inaccessible rainforest has been drilled through a patchwork of oil wells, gas flames, waste dams, oil pipelines and gravel roads – the latter sprayed with crude oil to prevent dusting.
The steam of oil is in many places as common as the smell of exotic plants and animals.
Straight out in nature
Accusations and figures The Texaco victims' lawyers have presented in recent weeks in Lago Agrio, according to experts, an environmental disaster greater than both the Exxon Valdez crash and the Chernobyl explosion.
Together with its partner, the state oil company Petroecuador, Texaco from 1971 to 1992 ensured that a total of 500 million barrels of waste water containing crude oil and toxic chemicals and heavy metals were discharged directly into open waste ponds, and drained further into streams and rivers – in instead of pumping it back into the ground, as is normal practice in the United States and elsewhere Texaco has business.
The water that was dumped day and night into the waste ponds – most often the size of a handball court – contained some of the most well-known carcinogenic chemicals; benzene, toluene, xylene and poluciclic aromatic hydrocarbon.
In total, Texaco left 350 such open waste ponds – many of them right next to the homes of rainforest residents – that have made people and animals sick, eventually leading to hundreds of deaths.
Extermination
The pollution has been particularly bad for the three indigenous groups in this part of the Ecuadorian Amazon – the Cofan, Secoya and Siona Indians – who are now on the verge of extinction.
When Texaco started its operations in the Oriente in 1971, for example, the Cofan Indians numbered 15.000 people. Today, they number fewer than 300 individuals, and are about to disappear as a separate people – as a result of cancer and other diseases related to the pollution of the water, according to the prosecutors.
In addition to the dumping of the toxic waste water, countless breaches of Texaco's oil pipelines, both the numerous that bind the oil wells together, and the main pipeline that runs from Oriente across the Andes to the Pacific Ocean, have contributed to pollution of the vulnerable rainforest environment.
Day and night, the company has also burned gas at the oil wells. And at times, Texaco has burned the crude oil and the toxic chemicals to get rid of the waste, a practice that has resulted in a phenomenon that rainforest residents call "black rain."
Five billion dollars
According to Texaco victims, the US oil company saved US $ XNUMX billion by releasing the toxic waste water straight into nature, rather than pumping it back to the oil reservoir in the soil.
According to the plaintiffs, it may cost Texaco correspondingly if they are found guilty and sentenced to clean up after them.
US marriage expert and counsel for plaintiffs, Dave Russell, recently told the Wall Street Journal that ChevronTexaco would expect the cleanup to cost them $ XNUMX billion and take as long as ten years.
The suspicion that Texaco used the primitive way to dispose of waste water based on financial interests was reinforced during the trial in Lago Agrio when Ecuador's Minister of Mines and Energy in the 1970s confirmed this to the judge, Alberto Guerra Bastidas.
Texaco denies wrong
Texaco has never denied that they used open ponds to deposit the waste water.
But the company's vice president and consul general in Latin America, Ricardo Reis Viega, denied in court that Texaco has done anything wrong.
First, the company defends itself that it was not prohibited in Ecuador at that time to use open waste ponds. In addition, Texaco argues that this method at that time was standard practice in clay-bottomed areas, such as the Amazon.
And last but not least: The company claims they have already done their duty and indicates that after a deal with the Ecuadorian authorities in 1998, they spent $ 40 million to clean up after 207 of the waste ponds.
covering
However, critics have constantly argued that the only thing Texaco did in 1998 was to cover the waste ponds with soil.
During the trial in Lago Agrio, extensive documentation was presented that revealed this. And the one who took Texaco to bed was none other than Petroecuador – the state oil company and partner of Texaco in the 1970s-80s.
In its study, Petroecuador found that the US oil company had done exactly what the critics had pointed out; they only had cover to the waste ponds without removing the oil spill and cleaning the areas of chemicals.
Thus, as was pointed out in court, many were led to believe that things had been cleaned up and that it was safe to drink water near the waste ponds, when in fact the oil and toxins continued to seep into streams, rivers and groundwater.
bribes
Despite the fact that the questioning of witnesses is over and that the judge is conducting investigations "at the scene", it is expected that it may take up to six months before a verdict in the case will be available.
The documentation that Texaco victims' attorneys have produced is enormous, and everything is to be reviewed by Judge Alberto Guerra Bastidas.
Which way the case will tip is so far impossible to say, according to observers in Lago Agrio. Texaco victims and international environmental activists are excited; Ecuadorian judges do not exactly have a spotless reputation in relation to corruption and bribery.
If Oriente's 30.000 inhabitants win, it could have dramatic consequences for multinational companies.
One thing is that tens of thousands of people in the rainforest downstream from Texaco's ecological battlefield in Ecuador – that is, over in the Peruvian part of the Amazon – have filed a lawsuit against Texaco. A loss for the oil company in Lago Agrio will pave the way for a victory for the Peruvians.
Another thing is that US multinational corporations can run the risk of getting US courts up for their actions anytime and anywhere in the world.
