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Right now the American Petroleum Institute is waging a legal battle in Washington to block key sections of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act– passed by Congress and signed by President Obama– that requires oil companies to divulge what they pay governments.

Some of the same companies supporting the suit, like Chevron, are also say they support the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, which is meeting in Sydney this week to promote more disclosure of oil, gas, and mineral resource revenues.

Chevron’s page on the EITI web site says “Chevron believes that the disclosure of revenues received by governments and payments made by extractive industries to governments could lead to improved governance in resource-rich countries. The transparent and accurate accounting of these funds contributes to stable, long-term investment climates, economic growth and the well-being of communities… Our commitment to promoting revenue transparency in (sic) reflected in our participation in the multistakeholder Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Chevron, which continues to support the efforts of the Oslo-based EITI Secretariat, was elected to serve as a full member of the EITI board in 2009.”

OK so we are asking: Does Chevron support resource revenue transparency or not, and if so why has the company not publicly disavowed its support of the API law suit?

Right now we are calling on Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell to drop their support of the API suit. You can help: Check out our new video, share it through your social networks, and take the action to call on Big Oil companies to be honest, support resource revenue transparency, and drop the law suit in Washington.

Gas flare at an oil rig in north east Ecuador. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America

The case of Aguinda vs. Texaco in Ecuador is back in the news:  The plaintiffs won an appeal and now have the right to seize the assets of Chevron-Texaco anywhere in the world. It’s another stunning legal victory for the farmers and indigenous people of Ecuador’s Oriente who have been fighting this case in the courts in the US and Ecuador since 1993. However the defendant, the second-largest US oil company, is expected to appeal to a higher court in Ecuador.

Oxfam has been supporting the efforts of the plaintiffs in Ecuador off and on since 1991.

My colleague Chris Jochnick, the director of Oxfam America’s private sector engagement program, calls the case unprecedented, both in terms of the size of the award and the amount of litigation that has gone into it.  He also sees the most recent ruling as very significant: “While Chevron will continue to appeal the decision, for the first time the plaintiffs have what they need to go anywhere in the world where Chevron has assets to seek enforcement.  That puts a lot of pressure on Chevron to settle.”

It seems like an appropriate time to check back in on this story, one I have been following for more than 10 years. For a detailed history of the Chevron-Texaco saga, and the most recent legal action taken directly against the US-based lawyer who has been working on the case since the beginning, see the New Yorker article out this week by Patrick Radden Keefe. The story closes with comments from Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the indigenous Secoya people, who I met when I visited the affected area in 2004.

Lest anyone think Chevron is giving up, consider this excerpt from the New Yorker story:  “In 2008, a Chevron lobbyist in Washington told Newsweek, ‘We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this.’  One Chevron spokesman has said, ‘We’re going to fight this until Hell freezes over—and then we’ll fight it out on the ice.’”

The Amazon Defense Front's Attorney Pablo Fajardo says the case against Chevron is about the basic human right to live in a healthy environment. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America.

Some big news out of Ecuador this week: A judge in Nueva Loja (also known as Lago Agrio, or “bitter lake”) issued a guilty verdict against Chevron and is fining the company $8.6 billion for polluting this fragile northeastern region of the country for more than 20 years. Media reports say this is the biggest judgment ever against any company for an environmental case.
Those of us following the case are glad to see that justice can be achieved by the people of the Amazon against one of the most powerful companies in the world – but it’s also clear from the history of this case that Chevron will do whatever it takes to avoid paying a single penny to the people who have suffered for decades. The struggle is not over.
Oxfam helped our partner Amazon Defense Front (FDA) organize the legal case against Texaco (later acquired by Chevron, along with the responsibility for the environmental disaster) back in 1994. There were 100 communities representing about 30,000 people, roughly 30 percent of them indigenous communities, united in an unusual “Assembly of Delegates” designed to ensure the legal case and its strategy is aligned with the priorities for the communities.
When the case was thrown out of the courts in the US, the Assembly decided to keep pursuing the case in the courts in Ecuador. The people have remained remarkably unified for many years. The delegates did not want to settle the case out of court, they wanted a judgment.
In 2004 I visited the area affected by this oil pollution, including a place called San Carlos, where a 1999 study by the University of London reported people there are as several times more likely to get certain unusual types of cancer. Here and in many other areas there were ponds full of oil waste and toxic water polluting rivers and wells. Nearly everyone I spoke with was ill or knew someone who was suffering. It seemed horrible and hopeless, but the people were committed to getting justice.
One man told me he supported the case against the oil company and knew the FDA would win. “You can’t block out the sun with just one finger,” he said. “There’s just too much evidence.”
Not a single individual involved in the case told me that they personally wanted money. They all said they wanted help to provide a healthy water supply, and get clinics and hospitals to help sick people. Even now, the FDA is saying it will appeal the judgment because the fine is insufficient. It is setting up a fund to ensure the money will be managed in a transparent manner and will be used to clean up the environment and address the staggering public health issues.  No matter what happens with this case, their struggle is far from over.

Oil waste pit near the community of Shushufindi, Ecuador. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America.

Pablo Fajardo, the FDA’s lead attorney on this case and winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, once told me that the case was really about justice, and basic rights: “Those of us who live here have a great opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the country that we are men and women with rights equal to those of others.”

Humberto Piaguaje, leader of the Secoya people in Ecuador. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America

I sat down on the couch last night and turned on 60 Minutes to find a story on the court case against Chevron brought by the Amazon Defense Front and 30,000 people from Ecuador’s northeast Amazon region. This case has been dragging through the courts—first here in the US and then in Ecuador—for over 10 years. When I was in that area of Ecuador in 2004, I interviewed many of those affected by pollution that Texaco (now owned by Chevron) generated while drilling in the rainforest from 1964 to 1990. I had two particularly poignant conversations—one with local indigenous Secoya leader Humberto Piaguaje and another with attorney Pablo Fajardo of the Amazon Defense Front.

Over the years there has been more oil spilled in this part of Ecuador than was spilled in Alaska by the Exxon Valdez. You can still see the ponds full of oil and toxic waste water next to the sources for drinking water in places like San Carlos. Visiting here is like a glimpse into someone else’s nightmare. Everyone I spoke with was fighting cancer or mourning a dead relative. One man said one of his daughters was born with deformed legs and can hardly walk. “The doctor in Quito said it was half due to pollution, half lack of calcium,” he told me. “We brought together 20 kids one time, all with the same problem.”

So I was happy to see this story on 60 Minutes. Since it is a struggle between one of the biggest corporations in the world and some very poor people, many of them indigenous people, it is easy to communicate the injustice, and the drama. I have always thought it should be exposed to a wider audience, like the one 60 Minutes can command.

But where were the farmers, the indigenous people? 60 Minutes focused on US attorney Steven Donziger, who has been working on the case all along, and is really good on camera. They did make a point of visiting a Secoya community, but only paraphrased Humberto Piaguaje, and hardly showed his face for a moment. They did not interview anyone from the Amazon Defense Front, whose members won the prestigious international Goldman Environmental Prize last year.

My colleague here at Oxfam Chris Jochnick agrees that CBS missed an opportunity. He traveled with Steven Donziger to Ecuador in 1993 to work on the original lawsuit. He spent eight years there supporting Amazon communities at the human rights organization Center for Economic and Social Rights. “This lawsuit is so much more than what’s happening in the courts; it has helped sparked a whole movement driven by Amazon communities, linked to NGOs, academics, politicians and northern investors,” Jochnick says. “The use of ‘rights’ and laws to mobilize and connect people is in some ways a much more interesting and important story, and that piece was completely neglected.”

Why do we always seem to take a story about something important overseas and twist it around to make it a story about someone from the US? (This is not a criticism of Donziger, who has done a lot to help keep this case going.) With the right approach a story can be told through someone from another country, and I think smart people have the capacity to understand and care about important stories that don’t involve someone from the US. CBS and others should give it a try.

People are fighting for their rights all over the world and achieving great things. Why aren’t we telling these stories?