Ten years on, the largest environmental lawsuit filed in history, a $27 billion number brought by Ecuadoran peasants against U.S.-based oil giant Chevron, just got slipperier.
The lawsuit accuses Chevron of leaving behind an environmental disaster worse than the Exxon Valdez – 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic sludge in some 356 wells – in the northern Amazon.
This week, more dirt on Chevron. The allegation: that Chevron “stage-managed a bribery scheme,” caught on video and posted by the company on YouTube, to make it look like the Ecuadoran judge set to rule on the lawsuit is on the take.
There’s more. Turns out the “American businessman” who shot the video in question, using a tiny camera stashed in a pen, may have been in the employ of Chevron.
He’s also done some time in a federal pen.
At least, that’s what a private investigator hired by lawyers for the plaintiffs against Chevron concludes in his report.
The Amazon Defense Coalition, joined by a number of prominent U.S. publications, including the Los Angeles Times, has called on the U.S. Department of Justice and Ecuador’s Solicitor General to investigate.
Cloak and dagger stuff. But, sadly, not all that unusual in the resource extraction game.
Strange things have been known to happen when the financial interests of mega-multinationals come up against the land rights of indigenous populations in poor countries desperate for investment.
Good ole Canuck companies have themselves been mucking about in Ecuador since the 90s.
There’s little to stop them from making an ecological mess, despite policies here that are supposed to govern business and environmental practices abroad.
Exhibit A: Copper Mesa’s plans for an open-pit copper mine, the second largest untapped deposit in the world worth some $32 billion (U.S.), according to the company, in the cloud forest in the remote northwest of the country.
A suit was filed against the company by one of the villagers, Marcia Ramirez, this past March.
It alleges death threats and assaults, and a campaign of harassment and intimidation against villagers opposed to the mine by security forces hired by the mining company.
The Toronto Stock Exchange has also been named in the suit for listing the company and allowing shares to be traded on the exchange despite concerns raised by locals that “violence was likely to result and members of the community would seriously be harmed” if the listing was approved.
The prospectus filed by Copper Mesa when it applied for a listing on the TSX also mentions the long history of violence over exploration activities in the area.
Canadian investment policy abroad is supposedly based on creating prosperity, security and democratic development. Lofty goals. But all too often the Canadian government through its embassies abroad act more as promoters for big buck mining interests than social justice.
Human rights and economic justice? Check the bottom of the ledger. [rssbreak]
