US judge gets Ecuador off Chevron's back, protects the polluters from the victims

A gift to the people of Ecuador from the oil industry

Back in 1993, Texaco, the US oil company that was taken over by Chevron in 2001 was sued by the Ecuadorean government. Ecuador accused the oil company of using the country as a dumping ground for toxic waste polluting rivers and streams. The suit was filed in a federal court in New York. When Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, the lawsuit came with it.

Texaco's legal representatives were probably not convinced that an environment friendly US judge or jury might do the right thing and convinced the New York court to dismiss the case arguing that it would be more “appropriate” to try it in Ecuador. where the judiciary might be more, er,  "lobby worthy". After years of litigation and a change in regimes, the Ecuadorean courts found against Chevron and issued an $18.2 billion judgment against the company in favor of “30,000 Amazon Indians and peasant farmers”, Business Week reports in its July 18, issue.

Well Chevron didn’t like that result and has counterattacked, not in Ecuador but back in New York. The third largest US corporation in revenues has persuaded a New York federal judge to block the deal, preventing the plaintiffs from receiving any funds. Chevron is accusing the Ecuadorean government, justice system and its US attorneys of falsifying evidence, corruption, conspiracy, intimidating judges---you name it.

A right band of characters much resembling the applicants seeking employment for the Siege of Red Rock in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles have joined Chevron in its efforts to prove it has been wronged. Now it seems that the only honest justice can be found in the USA. Friends of the court briefs supporting Chevron have been filed by the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Round Table, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Foreign Trade Council. The Shell oil corporation, Dole Foods and Dow Chemical have also joined Chevron complaining that they have been hit by “mass injury suits abroad.”

The US corporations want to ensure that “foreign judgments are rendered in systems that provide due process and impartial tribunals…” , just like the US justice system. (Don’t laugh; it’s serious) So after an eight-year battle to get the suit moved to Ecuador and after Ecuador not producing the required result, lawsuits have been filed in the US and this time, the Ecuadorean government and legal system is on trial.

The US judge blocking the payment has been asked to step down as he has made numerous public statements condemning the Ecuadorian government, and its attorneys. Chevron has portrayed the US attorney representing the 30,000 Indians and peasant farmers as “greedy and dishonest” unlike the legal representatives of the US oil industry no doubt. And the judge, Lewis Kaplan publicly stated that, “The imagination of American lawyers is just without parallel in the world”, claiming that Steven Donziger, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs is “trying to become the Next Big Thing in fixing the balance of payments deficit. I got it from the beginning.” He has made no bones about his disdain for “American attorneys who travel abroad to represent foreign clients suing US companies.” Kaplan is a former corporate lawyer himself and has refused to step down adamant that his comments “do not reflect any bias” BW says.

“Kaplan's ruling, in theory, prevents the plaintiffs from enforcing the Lago Agrio (Ecuador) ruling anywhere outside Ecuador." Writes Lawrence Hurley at E&E publishing, adding that “ It's a vital point because Chevron has no assets in Ecuador, so the plaintiffs were expected to look to the United States and other countries where Chevron operates. The opinion states that Kaplan's ruling is binding on various parties involved with the plaintiffs, including Steven Donziger, the American lawyer who has led the fight against Chevron since 1993. Donziger, the plaintiffs and other lawyers are now barred from "any action or proceeding, outside the Republic of Ecuador, for recognition or enforcement of the judgment previously rendered,"

What is missing in most of these reports is the global politics. U.S imperialism is not being given a blank check in Latin America these days, a part of the world it considers it own back yard. Ecuador needs to be taught a lesson in bourgeois diplomacy and learn how to be a subservient client state like neighboring Colombia. After all, look at what Cuba’s refusal to become a US lapdog and playground for the US elite has cost that tiny little island.

Instead, Ecuador’s left of center regime led by Rafael Corea has ruffled many feathers in Washington and the Pentagon. In December 2008, two years after he took office, he announced that Ecuador’s national debt was “illegitimate “ because it was contracted by corrupt/despotic prior regimes. He then “pledged to fight creditors in international courts. To make matters worse, he joined the Chavez-backed Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) along with the likes of Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other countries. Corea also has strong support among the indigenous population and has taken the trouble to learn their languages.

He is far from being a hard liner though. A colleague describes Corea as a man who "Appreciates the market to a certain point, but he knows that the market left alone concentrates wealth. He is not going to do anything foolish... because he is a fairly open-minded person.” But that mild criticism alone is enough for US capitalism afraid as it is of any potential social movements. This is especially so at the present time as the US is bogged down in endless wars abroad that it cannot win and forced to wage domestic war on its own working class to pay for them and an economic crisis that that is increasing the potential for social explosions that won't be contained forever..

In his victory speech to the Ecuadorean people people, Corea stated:
“Socialism will continue. The Ecuadorian people voted for that. We are going to emphasize this fight for social justice, for regional justice. We are going to continue the fight to eliminate all forms of workplace exploitation within our socialist conviction: the supremacy of human work over capital. Nobody is in any doubt that our preferential option is for the poorest people – we are here because of them.”

He concluded his victory speech with the final words from the last letter Che Guevara wrote to Fidel Castro: “Hasta la victoria siempre.”

Such words are corruption enough for Chevron, Wal Mart, Dow Chemical and the forces of global capitalism now matter how “open minded” the speaker claims to be to market forces. It is not the individual speaking them but the masses hearing them, seeing their aspirations in them and acting on them if need be. And the image of Che Guevara is best kept to beret's, tee shirts and blouses as fashion statements.  He is revered throughout the world for his revolutionary heroism but especially in Latin America; agents of US imperialism we shouldn't forget were among the first at the scene of his death. They despise him.

The decision by the New York judge to block the Ecuadorian peasant farmers and their indigenous allies from a victory against a giant US energy company has nothing to do with justice in the interests of working people it. It is a political decision about economic freedom, Full Spectrum Dominance and the right's of capital to exploit humanity and the natural world to the fullest

“The supremacy of human work over capital, the fight for social justice and the end to workplace exploitation”. Is this man mad? It’s downright anti-American.