Chevron Racism Toward Ecuador Highlighted by BP Case
Chevron Racism Toward Ecuador Highlighted by BP Case
Friday, 12 September 2014, 11:33 am
Article: The Chevron Pit
A legal decision handed down last week by U.S. federal Judge Carl Barbier found that BP's "gross negligence" caused the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
The decision increased the company's liability to roughly $50 billion. For our purposes, Judge Barbier's decision – which sets an important benchmark for corporate accountability – has a deeper meaning.
Judge Barbier's finding underscores the obvious racism behind Chevron CEO John Watson's claim that the company's $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador represents some sort of gouging by that country's courts. While BP pays for its spill, Chevron has managed to obtain effective impunity for decades of contamination resulting in disease and death in the rainforest of Ecuador.
Chevron has steadfastly refused to pay any part of the judgment whatsoever. The company chooses instead to spend countless millions on law firms to carry out its threat of a "lifetime of litigation" for the villagers.
It gets worse. BP's liability for the less impactful Gulf spill in the U.S. is now five times higher (and still growing) than Chevron's in Ecuador. Yet Chevron's contamination in Ecuador is more widespread, has lasted far longer, was deliberate, has severely impacted indigenous groups, and is afflicting the world's most delicate ecosystem. Further, responsibility was adjudicated after an eight-year trial.
More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1409/S00091/chevron-racism-toward-ecuador-highlighted-by-bp-case.htm
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Everyone is far more focussed on "teh Evul BP" who - in one single event and without any help
from any US companies in the preceding century or since - killed off EVERYTHING in the ENTIRE
Gulf of Mexico but who have got off Scot-free.
> It gets worse. BP's liability for the less impactful Gulf spill in the U.S. is now five times higher
> (and still growing) than Chevron's in Ecuador. Yet Chevron's contamination in Ecuador is more
> widespread, has lasted far longer, was deliberate, has severely impacted indigenous groups,
> and is afflicting the world's most delicate ecosystem.
Apparently that is all negated by the fact that it impacted a bunch of Americans.
> Chevron has steadfastly refused to pay any part of the judgment whatsoever.
> The company chooses instead to spend countless millions on law firms to carry out its
> threat of a "lifetime of litigation" for the villagers.
Ah, but law firms are "job creators", Chevron are "All-American Good Guys", BP are "evil agents
of Imperial Britain" and Ecuador is some foreign land filled with unimportant people who happen
to be interfering with the ability to MAKE A PROFIT GODDAMMIT!!!
