Chevron has poisoned the Amazon with 18 billion gallons of toxic waste...

((Sharing important information sent to me from a petition site. I would like to pass on that information, I will provided an alternative link))

Over three decades of oil drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into pristine rainforest.

The company owes people living in the Amazon $9.5 billion -- but has repeatedly refused to pay up, using its immense wealth and corporate influence to wriggle out of all responsibility. Now, we finally have a chance to make Chevron face justice.

Indigenous and farmer communities are taking their fight to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a body that can legally prosecute individuals and corporations for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Texaco (now owned by Chevron) deliberately spilled billions of gallons of toxic waste into Ecuador's pristine rainforest. Tens of thousands of people have suffered the consequences. The lawsuit filed with the ICC alleges that through systemic harm inflicted over decades, Chevron’s actions have effectively wiped out two ethnic groups completely.

This is corporate power at its worst. The company thinks it can get away scot-free, because the area is remote and the community cannot afford to match Chevron's army of ruthless corporate lawyers. It's repeatedly refused to pay huge damages demanded by Ecuador's courts, even removing all its assets from the country to avoid payment.

Ecuador and the 80 Amazon-dwelling communities directly affected have been trying to bring Chevron to justice for years. But John Watson, the company's CEO, has promised them a “lifetime of litigation” saying he would fight the case “until hell freezes over and then fight it out on the ice. This is pure bullying -- by one of the world's richest corporations -- of people who have lost everything.

The toxic oil waste the company knowingly dumped in the Lago Agrio region between 1964 and 1992 has devastated thousands of lives. But Chevron thinks it's above the law. It thinks it can get away with killing people, poisoning the rainforest, and ignoring court rulings -- but these are crimes against humanity.

While the case is before the ICC, Chevron's bosses are under massive pressure to comply and pay Ecuadorians once and for all. Now is the time to speak up.

Indigenous Communities Take Chevron to Global Court for 'Crimes Against Humanity'

Chevron CEO John Watson and other high-level officers of the company are being taken to global court over their role in violating international humanitarian law by obstructing a court-mandated clean-up of toxic contamination in the Amazon, putting thousands of lives at risk.

Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the affected communities, in 2011, won a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for deliberately discharging billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest, the Lago Agrio region in northeastern Ecuador, between 1964 and 1992, decimating indigenous groups and contributing to the disappearance of two ethnic groups. It also created an ongoing environmental and public health crisis, including high cancer rates and reported birth defects among residents.

The ICC complaint states:
“The health conditions imposed on the indigenous and farmer communities that live in the Oriente constitute a serious and sustained attack on the population that has lived there peacefully for centuries. The damages, which have been documented and confirmed in countless inspections conducted for the Ecuadorian case, brought various consequences, including water contamination, ground contamination, cancer, forced displacement, extermination of two ethnic groups, and many other disastrous conditions that are described in the annexes to this communication"

Chevron has refused to pay the court judgment, despite the fact that it has been affirmed unanimously by two appellate courts in Ecuador after two decades of arduous litigation. They took the step of removing most of its assets from Ecuador in an apparent effort to avoid paying. Even though the company had promised to abide by the court decision as a condition of the case being moved out of U.S. federal court to the South American nation. (Most likely in hopes that it would save them from having to pay out more money & to actually pay out that money) Last year, Ecuador's National Court of Justice upheld the verdict but cut the initial mandated payment from $18 billion to $9.5 billion. >_<

Chevron under Watson's personal direction launched multiple collateral attacks against the judgment and the lawyers who represented the affected communities, according to the complaint. Watson and other high-level Chevron executives have promised the affected communities a "lifetime of litigation" and said they would fight the case "until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice. "Watson also discussed his personal involvement in the strategy in various earnings calls with investor analysts and in a sworn deposition, according to the complaint.

For those who would like to see the document of the complaint sent to court, I believe this is it. ((I apologize if it is not, I don't know much about legal documents like this and how to tell if they are fake or not))
Ecuador VS Chevron

This happened 20 years ago?
if they haven`t paid up by now I don`t think they ever will.

a reply to: Tardacus

That is why we need to call them out on it & make the court system hold them accountable & make them pay.

It is time we stop letting corporations get away with crimes against humanity, they are not too big to jail, we've just been convinced they are. If Iceland can do it, so can North America.

By jailing four top officers of Iceland's failed Kaupthing Bank, the country showed the world the right way to deal with the people largely responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, said Charlie McGrath, founder of news website, Wide Awake News

Iceland’s jailed bankers ‘a model’ for dealing with ‘financial terrorists’

I know that's in regards to bankers but we can do the same to corporations.

a reply to: Tardacus

This happened 20 years ago?

The oily industrial complex leaves a mess everywhere it goes.

That its twenty years on now shows how permanent the 'residue' is.

The resource that keeps on giving…

And to think that there are many people out there (and many here on the forums) that truly believe (or are paid to try and convince others) that regulation on corporations and big business, as well as environmental watchgroups are a bad thing.

If it werent for groups regulating and monitoring companies in America, this entire country would be a polluted, toxic, wasteland in no time at all. Corporations and big business care about only ONE THING, and that is MONEY. Nothing else matters, and we all know this already. They MUST be regulated, no question about it.

It's only fair that some of these corporate high paid cover up creators spend some time in prison in order to have time to reflect upon the greedy and selfish behavior.

I don't get why people think keeping these corporate leaders out of jail some how helps them.

a reply to: DenyTreason

People don't get it. Their own greed blinds them.

Same thing happens in Nigeria, Western oil companies have pretty much decimated Nigeria's environment and they wonder why people are living in the jungle kidnapping oil workers and bombing oil pipelines lol.

a reply to: roadgravel

I agree they should be in jail. They need to learn a lesson and apparently that's what jail is for so toss them in there with gen pop.

a reply to: Dabrazzo

Sadly this type of thing happens all over. Big greedy corporations or big greedy wealthy people go to the smaller poor countries and take advantage of them. They rape their lands, probably some people literally were raped & they get away with it. If they have to pay money, it's not anywhere near the amount that should be paid out.

originally posted by: Dabrazzo
Same thing happens in Nigeria, Western oil companies have pretty much decimated Nigeria's environment and they wonder why people are living in the jungle kidnapping oil workers and bombing oil pipelines lol.

Very, very sad.

We can all see exactly what happens when corporations and big business run without regulations by observing their destructive operations in unregulated countries. Their destructive actions and behavor is far beyond belief.

Anyone who is for removing regulations from corporations and big business should move to one of those such unregulated areas and report back to us and how themselves and their families are making out. They wouldnt dare try it, which leads me to believe fully that those such folks benefit somehow or another from such disgraceful actions. And that is a very sad thing to value money that greatly to the point that you care nothing of the extreme suffering of others.

a reply to: DenyTreason

Yeah, these must be some great regulations you speak of, when they cant even enforce a punishment against a company for crimes against humanity. /sarcasm

But seriously, if this is an American company, why hasnt the United States dealt with them properly yet? Why havent they been forced to pay? If a UK based company did something like this the government would come down on them like a tonne of bricks.

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

The only reason the U.S would come down on Chevron is for getting caught in the first place. What Chevron has done is nothing new in U.S corporate history, it's a classical move.

Hold out on paying out as long as you can so most people "victims" are dead and you don't have to pay out as much money.