Author�s note: After reading Les Blough�s recent article on the attitude of Exxon-Mobil to the new royalty conditions imposed by the Chavez government in Venezuela, I thought it timely to bring to the attention of Axis of Logic readers the ecological disaster caused in Ecuador by Texaco, and the battles that lie ahead as the oil transnationals close in once again on the indigenous peoples of Amazonia, the tropical rain forest. Carlos Herrera � Bolivarian Activist

Ecuador although not universally regarded as an oil exporter, is highly dependent on its approximately 534,000 barrels per day production to keep its economy afloat, particularly after accepting a US$205 million loan from the IMF in 2003. The environmental disaster in indigenous lands in the tropical rain forest is worse than the spill of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound in Alaska.  Now new reserves have been located in Amazonia, also in historical indigenous lands. There is a battle yet to come in Ecuador by the indigenous peoples to protect their ancestral homelands against the current neoliberal government of Lucio Gutierrez, the IMF and the oil transnationals.

Texaco's Legacy: Toxic Waste in the Rainforest

Texaco, now ChevronTexaco, began its search for oil in the pristine tropical rainforest in 1964. In 1967, Texaco made the first discovery of commercial quantities of oil in the Oriente, or northern Ecuadorian Amazon. At this time, the company operated a 5 million acre concession, which it held jointly with Gulf Oil Company. It was not until 1969 that the Ecuadorian government reclaimed 2/3 of the Texaco/Gulf concession to boost production royalties, tax the foreign companies, and demand that the companies invest in infrastructure.

In 1972, drilling operations began. In 1974, Petroecuador's predecessor company, CEPE, acquired a 25% share of the Texaco/Gulf concession. In 1977, CEPE bought Gulf's remaining interests and became the majority financial partner (62.5%). Texaco remained in the consortium and continued to serve as its operator. The company designed, built, and managed all of the consortium's exploration, extraction, and transportation facilities.

In 1989, Texaco transferred operational responsibilities for the Trans-Ecuadorian pipeline (but not the wells, waste sites or stations) to Petroamazonas, a subsidiary of Petroecuador. It was not until 1990 that Petroamazonas assumed responsibilities for the exploration and extraction activities. Texaco remained in the management of those facilities until its production contract expired in 1992.

Between 1972 and 1992, Texaco extracted more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon. In order to save millions of dollars -- an estimated $3 per barrel --Texaco simply dumped the toxic wastes from its operations into the pristine rivers, forest streams and wetlands, ignoring industry standards. The result is one of the most infamous environmental and social disasters in the Amazon.

2.4 million acres of rainforest lost

As a result of the company's operations, nearly 2.5 million acres of rainforest were lost; oil spills equivalent to two Exxon Valdez disasters have contaminated the land and water; and the company dumped 20 billion gallons of highly toxic wastewater into the waterways. Texaco also left behind more than 600 open waste pits contaminated with heavy metals and some of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to man, including: Benzene, Toluene, Arsenic, Lead, Mercury and Cadmium. As a result of the company's operations, 5 indigenous nationalities (Cofan, Huaorani, Siona, Secoya and Quichua) and campesinos (peasant farmers) are suffering an exploding health crisis.

The direct fallout for the people

Numerous studies have documented the impacts of Texaco's toxic waste on the people's health. In 1991, the book "Amazon Crude", written by Judith Kimerling, exposed the extent of oil contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon. For the first time, clear evidence was presented to the media, the government, and the oil companies that supported the claims of the communities. In 1994, scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health found that drinking, bathing and fishing water samples contained levels of PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) up to 1,000 times greater than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safety guidelines. In 2000, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, along with Ecuadorian health authorities found eight different types of cancer in the community of San Carlos, a community surrounded by former Texaco wells: bile duct, stomach, larynx, liver, melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma, and cervical. Recently, a study published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health found that 91 children have been diagnosed with cancer, particularly leukemia, where Texaco (now ChevronTexaco) dumped millions of gallons of toxic waste in the South American country from 1972 to 1992.

Limited payments and responsibility

In 1995, Texaco paid $40 million as compensation for ecological damage to the Ecuadorian government. TEXPET, the Texaco and Petroecuador consortium, completed a limited cleanup of less than 1/3 (207 of the 627, according to an Oct 2003 Petroecuador study) of the unlined waste pits through an agreement with the Ecuadorian government in 1999. It is important to note that the "clean up" was very poorly done. Waste pits were so badly managed that they continue to contaminate the soil and local water sources. In addition, Texaco did not clean up the streams, rivers, and/or wetlands. Texaco, now ChevronTexaco, claims that it met its legal obligations and no longer is responsible for social and ecological damage in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The legal position

According to Steven Donziger (contact him at: sdonziger@yahoo.com), one of the members of the legal team representing the affected peoples stated: 

"Legally, the common law used in Ecuador (and the USA) holds the offending party 100% accountable for any damage caused by negligence or intentional crimes, regardless of whether another company later inherits the technology and continues to use it AND even if the company was a minority partner."

The primary crime that Texaco committed was to not install re-injection technology. Texaco is 100% responsible because it -- not its partners in the consortium -- was the SOLE operator of the consortium and made all operating decisions, including the fateful decision to not re-inject. This is a basic legal principle. If Texaco feels another party is partly or wholly responsible, it is THEIR obligation to then sue that party after a judgment against them to recuperate whatever percentage of the total damages they feel that party owes. That does not change the fact that Texaco is still 100% responsible for all damages to the victims and must alone pay the entire judgment to the victims. This is a $6 billion case against ChevronTexaco.

New untapped reserves now threaten the rainforest and the indigenous people again!

While this case in response to indigenous and human rights against Texaco is being dragged through the courts, there is another battle looming in Ecuador as huge untapped reserves of oil and gas have been discovered - much of it, though, lies beneath remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. Now the indigenous people of the region are starting to organise themselves politically in a bid to keep the oilmen out of their ancestral homes. With the country sitting on huge potential new reserves, there is enormous pressure to expand production.  But after the Texaco environmental disaster, the historical inhabitants of Amazonia are taking a long, hard look.  They've learned something about serving the interests of the oil transnationals and their own interest in protecting their health and their environment - one of the last untouched reserves of biodiversity on the planet.

In 1999 the Ecuadorean government of Jamil Mahuad sold exploration rights in two areas, known as Blocks 23 and 24 (see map), which are at the heart of Indian reserves - without consulting the tribes involved. However, six years later and exploration has yet to get under way. There are three indigenous peoples living within these Blocks: the Achuar, Shuar and Quichua peoples. Each has set up political organisations to help keep the oilmen out of their territories.

The Achuar tribe of about 5,000 people living in one of the remotest areas of the rainforest, near the border with Peru. Their stance is that the indigenous territories are ancestral lands and that they have an inalienable right to them as their ancestors lived there thousands of years before the arrival of the conquistadores.

The Achuar have legal title to the land but under Ecuador's constitution the state has sole right to anything beneath the soil - in other words all mineral rights. The Pachamama Alliance (www.pachamama.org), which works with indigenous Amazonian groups on issues such as land rights and sustainable development believes the country is under enormous international pressure to maximise oil production. The main external pressure comes from Ecuador's foreign debt and has no chance of paying it off. The county and the government are under tremendous pressure from the International Monetary Fund to continue to expand the oil frontier into the Amazon region. Oil sales account for about a quarter of GDP, the oil revenues go towards paying for both state sector salaries and a significant amount of the national debt.

However, new exploitation in Ecuador's oil sector appears to have been paralysed by the Texaco trial and the indigenous opposition. It goes without saying that the global corporate empire is waiting for some sort of resolution to this conflict so as to be able to re-enter Amazonia.  They will no doubt attempt to do so with with promises that "there will be no environmental damage". One can be certain that the sort of ecological disaster that has already happened in Ecuador would not be allowed to occur in, say, Alaska, which also has untapped reserves of oil and gas, as this is part of the homeland USA.

Militarisation of the Conflict

Now there are fears that the conflict could become militarised and there have been clashes with the army in Quichua territory, while in a separate incident, a group of oil exploration workers were kidnaped and held for several days by the Achuar.

Testing teams may be sent in under military escort but the indigenous groups say they will challenge this through legal channels, and have already taken their case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations. However, if that fails, the groups say they are prepared to fight to protect their land.

The use of the military, probably some of whom were trained at Fort Benning at the S.O.A (School of the Americas, or to be more accurate, School of Assassins), is still part of the typical solution used by the dominant multilateral organization under US control and being pushed by the global corporate empire � in this case backed by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and even the Interamerican Development Bank.

In my last article on Ecuador published February 25 in Axis of Logic, I point to the fact that a Bolivarian government could be established in Ecuador which would help stem the unbridled exploitation of oil and gas in Amazonia, and by extension protect the human and civil rights of the indigenous peoples living in Ecuador. It is incredible to think that the wholesale destruction of what is left of man�s patrimony on the planet in Amazonia could be raped - to ensure that SUV drivers can cruise down the freeway in an expression of the US definition of "liberty" or part of the "American Dream". This is the world "upside down" in the words of the great Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano.

If you want to participate by putting pressure on ChevronTexaco regarding this ecological case, exploration, corporate greed or any other matter, phone the CEO, David O'Reilly at 925-842-3232.

It is not only your right to participate and protest, but also your humanistic duty to defend the rights of the excluded from the claws of international capital and exploitation. Let�s make their lives hell and our presence felt. Exact a cost. This sort of ecological Armageddon for the sake of the ChevronTexaco share price on the NYSE cannot be permitted under any circumstances.

Sources & some text:

www.bbc.co.uk

www.amazonwatch.org (many more details here)

More information from: cleanup@chevrontoxico.com

A Few Recent Articles by Carlos Herrera

Americas
The "Threat" of a Bolivarian Government in Ecuador

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Plan Colombia -­ beach head of the USA Empire in South America

Media Critiques
Malicious communications and internet terrorism ... the same crime in the UK?

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Carlos Herrera: Military trains students to use rifles; study guerilla tactics in the case of an external threat to Venezuelan national sovereignty

World
Let us hope and pray that US corporate greed does not trigger a bloodbath