Donziger: Facing Prison for Fighting Chevron [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Rights Attorney Pays Price for Defending Indigenous in Ecuador Poisoned by Oil
by Greg Palast
August 6, 2021

Look at his face. Emergildo Criollo, Chief of the Cofan people of the Amazon in Ecuador. Determined, dignified, in war paint, bare-chested.




It was back in 2007, when I found him in his thatched stilt home in the rainforest. Criollo told me his 3-year-old son had jumped into a swimming hole, covered with an enticing shine. The shine was oil sludge, illegally dumped. His son came up vomiting blood, then dropped dead in the Chief’s arms.

I followed him to the courthouse in the dusty roustabout town of Lago Agrio (Bitter Lake) where, with a sheaf of papers, Criollo sought justice for his son.

Behind Criollo, the court clerks, in their white shirts and ties, were giggling and grinning at each other, nodding toward this “indio” painted up and half naked, thinking he can file a suit against a giant. A giant named Chevron.

In 2011, they stopped laughing. That’s when an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay Criollo and other indigenous co-plaintiffs $9.5 billion. The courts found that Chevron’s Texaco operation had illegally dumped 16 billion gallons of deadly oil waste.

What the gigglers didn’t know is that the Chief had a secret weapon: Steven Donziger, a US attorney, classmate of Barack Obama at Harvard law, who gave up everything — literally everything — to take on Criollo’s case.

It’s been a decade, and Chevron still hasn’t paid a dime. But Donziger has paid big time: For the last two years, he’s been under house arrest, longer than any American in history never convicted of a crime.

But weeks ago, he was convicted of contempt by a judge who denied him a jury. (The Constitution? Faggedaboudit.) And on October 1, this contemptible judge will sentence Donziger, and could put him behind bars.

Who was the prosecutor? Not the US government, but Chevron’s law firm. The first-ever criminal prosecution by a US corporation.

More:
https://www.gregpalast.com/facing-prison-for-fighting-chevron/