Ecuador Orders Chevron to Pay $19 Billion

An Ecuadorian court that has accused Chevron of environmental damage has set a Monday deadline for the US oil firm to pay about $US19 billion ($A18.25 billion) – one billion dollars more than an original order.

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The court attorney Juan Pablo Saenz said the plaintiffs could organise embargoes if Chevron does not comply with the order from a court in the northeastern Amazonian province of Sucumbios.

The complaint stems from years of unchecked pollution in the Amazon attributed to Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.

Chevron has called the judgment a “product of bribery, fraud”, saying it is “illegitimate” and not enforceable after plaintiffs filed lawsuits in Canada and Brazil to go after the company’s assets in third countries.

Plaintiffs say Chevron has virtually no assets in Ecuador that could be seized.

According to indigenous groups and local farmers, the US oil firm Texaco contaminated large areas of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle when it operated in the region from 1964 to 1990, a decade before being acquired by Chevron.

After years of litigation, an Ecuadorian court in February 2011 ordered the company to pay $US18 billion in damages, a ruling upheld by Ecuador’s Supreme Court in March.

Chevron, which has appealed the ruling, has accused the Ecuadorian judge who ruled on the case of fraud and breach of trust.

Damien Hooper: The Sanctioning of an Anti-Racist Olympic Rebel

Photo Illustration: Nina Westbury

Dave Zirin

At every event where the fist-raising, 1968 Olympic protester John Carlos speaks, he always remembers with respect the silver medalist on that platform, the great Australian sprinter Peter Norman. On that fateful day, Norman wore a patch in solidarity with Smith and Carlos, and he paid a terrible price upon returning home. Even though Norman was white, or maybe because Norman was white, he became a pariah for daring to stand up for human rights. As Carlos says, “Never forget that there was a time that Australia was as bad as South Africa in terms of its racial policies.” He’s right. At the time there were laws explicitly aimed to dehumanize the indigenous Australian—often referred to as the aboriginal—population.

Today, it’s still the third rail of Australian politics to claim pride and solidarity with the nation’s indigenous people. Damien Hooper is finding this out the hard way. Hooper is an Olympic boxer making major waves both in and out of the ring. The light heavyweight is now a threat to win gold after dispatching highly touted US boxer Marcus Browne. He’s also a threat to be sent home by the Australian Olympic Committee. Before fighting Browne, the 20-year-old’s ring attire included a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Aboriginal Flag. Hooper, who is of indigenous ancestry, knew that he was breaking the Olympics “no politics” rule, which states that you can represent only your country or approved corporate sponsors. (Worth noting that these corporate sponsors include politically neutral entities like Dow Chemical, British Petroleum and McDonalds.)

After the bout, Hooper had no regrets saying, “What do you reckon? I’m Aboriginal. I’m representing my culture, not only my country but all my people as well. That’s what I wanted to do and I’m happy I did it. I was just thinking about my family and that’s what really matters to me. Look what it just did—it just made my whole performance a lot better with that whole support behind me. I’m not saying that at all that I don’t care (about a possible sanction), I’m just saying that I’m very proud of what I did.”

The next day, the International Olympic Committee told the Australian Olympic Committee that they better deal with Hooper or face the consequences. Practice for the team was halted in a very public fashion and Hooper was called in to meet with Australian Olympic chief Nick Green. Green emerged from the meeting to inform the media that the boxer had “looked him in the eye” and was “extremely apologetic.…. He has learned a lesson and he will not do it again.”

But what lesson is being learned? What is being taught not only to Hooper but also to Australia? The Aboriginal Flag is recognized as an official Australian flag, but it’s not recognized by the International Olympic Committee. The IOC is doing nothing less than asserting its sovereignty over the Australian team, and this is drawing peals of protest at home.

A former world champion, the Australian/aboriginal boxer, Anthony Mundine told the Sydney Morning Herald that Hooper “did the right thing.”

“I take my hat off to him for that stance,” Mundine said, “It takes a person with big balls to make a big stance like that. I’ve got his back, all day every day, because he’s in the right.”

Phil Cleary, an Australian politician and activist said, ”Unlike the imperial flags draped around tearful young athletes, the indigenous flag has no history of occupation of foreign territories. Sadly, it’s the representation of stateless people, a people about whose history we dare not speak. Banning this flag is so pathetic it’s funny.”

The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples has also thrown their support behind Hooper “for being proud of who he is and where he came from.”

The Congress recalled that Australian 400-meter gold-medalist Cathy Freeman held both flags following her victory at the 2000 Games in Sydney. Jody Broun, co-chair of the Congress said, “I’m not aware of any formal action by any Olympic body when images of Cathy Freeman were beamed around the world after her 400 meter gold medal win. Those images gave an immeasurable boost to Aboriginal people and told the next generation it is possible for them to also be the best in the world.”

The degradation of Damien Hooper sends a very different message, one in line with what Peter Norman was forced to suffer in 1968. As Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself. But it does rhyme.”

Indigenous Peoples Demand Right to Existence

RHC

The indigenous peoples of Our America are demanding their right to existence, which still suffer from colonial policies that the so-called discovery of America 500 years ago introduced in the region.

About two thousand members of indigenous communities from around the world gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York, saying that the policies of extinction and domination that characterized the conquest and led to murder and enslavement of millions of native peoples still prevail today.

Discriminated against during these five centuries, native peoples are not recognized as having a history, identity, aspirations, specific objectives and the capacity of self-determination and self-government.

It is a fact that the indigenous inhabitants of our continent have been evicted from their lands and suffered daily violations of their cultural and spiritual expressions.

It is a reality that many Latin American countries still experience, despite the winds of change throughout the continent which have allowed several nations to restore to these peoples their rights as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia, which has the first-ever indigenous president of that country.

The arrival of Daniel Ortega to Nicaragua’s presidency in 2007 made the difference for native peoples in that Central American country, who have been helped with the literacy campaign. In their own languages, on their own lands and with respect for their ancestral cultures, members of these ethnic groups are finally learning how to read and write.

Last year, the U.N Special Rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, James Anaya, congratulated the Sandinista government for its actions to recognize and protect the rights of these peoples to their ancestral lands.

Prior to 1999, indigenous people in Venezuela did not exist from a legal perspective.  However, with the government of President Hugo Chavez, these communities experienced significant progress in social inclusion, according to the president of the National Assembly Commission for Indigenous Peoples, Jose Luis Gonzalez.

But there are still many countries in the region that do not respect the rights of indigenous peoples of Our America. This is the case of Chile, where the Mapuche population registered the highest rates of poverty, infant mortality, unemployment and illiteracy, while laws inherited from the military regime of Augusto Pinochet are used against them.

The attorney for the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, Ana Manuela, said that of 102 indigenous communities of her country, 35 out of them are at risk of physical and cultural extermination.

And in 2007, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted, which recognizes the compensation native peoples deserve as victims of conquest.  Despite this Declaration, full political and social rights are still a pending issue for the indigenous peoples of our continent.