Canadian Supreme Court
Credit: www.thestar.com
Canada’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that Ecuadorian villagers and indigenous communities could sue Chevron Corporation in the Canadian province of Ontario over a decades-long contamination that environmentalists have dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl.”
The plaintiffs, who include about 30,000 villagers and indigenous people, decided to go after the energy giant’s assets in Canada, Brazil and Argentina after the company contested a ruling by Ecuador’s highest court to pay $9.5 billion to clean up the contamination site.
Communities in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador allege that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, dumped some 16 billion tons of oil and toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest as a cost-saving measure between 1964 and 1992, Telesur reported. That’s 80 times the amount of oil spilled in the 2010 British Petroleum Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the Latin American news website added.
Ecuadorian villagers and indigenous communities affected by the contamination allege that it has resulted in illness and death, Telesur reported in June, and that they are still suffering the consequences of Texaco’s actions.
I have trouble understanding the American courts decision to side with Chevron’s Texaco corporation with the overwhelming evidence in this case. I hope the poor indigenous people can win their case. Chevron/Texaco is deplorable for exploiting the people of the area which is prime rainforest territory. Shame on Chevron/Texaco and shame on the U.S. courts.
This is how our economic system works: Take over the resources of a promising area, exploit the resources and the people who own them for profit, then abandon the area and leave the environmental disaster and the people who live there to suffer the results of the depredation.