Statement to the Nation of Ecuador Regarding a New Coalition to Defend Our National Sovereignty

Various social organizations and patriotic citizens have taken the initiative to form a coalition to support the thousands of Ecuadorians challenging Chevron. Our goal is to demand clarity in the case, to stand watch to ensure that the trial develops transparently and with respect for the judicial process, and that this fight is one fought by all Ecuadorians until Chevron is held responsible for cleaning, remediation and restoration, the fundamental wish of the 30,000 aggrieved plaintiffs.

In 1964, a U.S. Corporation, Texaco (now Chevron), entered into Ecuadorian territory to exploit the petroleum resources in what are now the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbios, which are presently populated by different indigenous nations and other citizens who live in harmony with the region’s natural resources.

Texaco operated for about three decades in the region without any consideration or respect for the environment, the local population, applicable environmental laws or the Ecuadorian government. The U.S. oil company dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic “produced water” in the area and left more than 600 waste pits abandoned. This contamination continues to damage the environment as it has neither been cleaned, remediated nor restored. For many experts, this represents the most serious environmental disaster in the world caused by oil exploitation.

As a consequence of this vast contamination, 30,000 Ecuadorians including five indigenous nations (Siona, Secoya, Waorani, Kichwa and Cofán) are living among these lethal toxins. Various studies link the contamination left by Texaco to grave health problems. For example, one study published in the scientific journal International Journal of Occupation and Environmental Health found rates of leukemia in children ages 0 – 4 to be three times higher in the contaminated region than in other parts of Ecuador. Another study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology cites rates of cancer 150% higher in the contaminated region than in the rest of the country. Aside from these studies there exist hundreds of heart wrenching testimonies about multiple illnesses suffered by the inhabitants of region in which Texaco operated.

For this reason and many others, these 30,000 Ecuadorians have waged a legal battle against Chevron/Texaco for more than a decade. That battle is currently unfolding in the Superior Court of Nueva Loja in the province of Sucumbíos, becoming the first legal case in which a foreign oil company has been brought to justice by humble Ecuadorians in a nation of the global South.

As the judicial process progresses and the clear weight of the evidence favors the plaintiffs, Chevron is turning to strategies to avoid an unfavorable sentence and responsibility for the remediation of the tremendous damage that they caused to the country. These strategies are summarized as follows:

1. Chevron is suing Petroecuador, in other words the State of Ecuador, in an international arbitration tribunal seeking a declaration that the amount of any damages awarded by the Court of Nueva Loja should be paid by the Ecuadorian government.
2. Chevron hopes that this case will never finish, that is to say, they are utilizing a series of pretexts within the case along with their influence and power to postpone and prolong the judicial process. This situation is unsustainable for the plaintiffs because, in the first place, they do not enjoy the vast economic resources that Chevron possesses and may use at a strategic moment to influence the decision that the Court should make autonomously; and second, if the cleaning and remediation of the affected region is further delayed, more people will become ill and die as has happened since the time in which Texaco began its operations in the “Oriente” region of Ecuador.
3. Leaders, lawyers and members of the team that support the plaintiff’s cause have been the objects of threats and harassment with the goal of intimidating those supporting the case into abandoning their fight.

In light of these realities, various social organizations and patriotic citizens have taken the initiative to form a coalition to support the thousands of Ecuadorians challenging this powerful corporation. Our goal is to demand clarity in the case, to stand watch to ensure that the trial develops transparently and with respect for the judicial process, and that this fight is one fought by all Ecuadorians until Chevron is held responsible for cleaning, remediation and restoration, the fundamental wish of the 30,000 aggrieved plaintiffs.

We now call on social organizations and the entire Ecuadorian community to join forces in this initiative and to make this fight a fight of the whole nation – a fight for dignity and national sovereignty, to ensure that crimes like these are not committed with impunity, and to ensure that as swiftly as possible the light of justice will shine forth.

• ASAMBLEA PERMANENTE DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ECUADOR, APDH (Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of Ecuador) (Alexis Ponce)
• ACCION ECOLOGICA (Esperanza Martínez)
• CENTRO DE DERECHOS ECONOMICOS Y SOCIALES, CDES (Center for Social and Economic Rights) (Juana Sotomayor)
• FUNDACION PACHAMAMA (Cristina Santacruz)
• PLATAFORMA INTERAMERICANA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS, DEMOCRACIA Y DESARROLLO, PIDHDD (Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development) (Fidel Narváez)
• FUNDACIÓN REGIONAL DE ASESORÍA EN DERECHOS HUMANOS, INREDH (Regional Foundation for Human Rights Counseling) (Luis Ángel Saavedra)
• ECUADOR DECIDE (Ecuador Decides) (Eduardo Delgado)
• FUNDACION CENTRO LIANAS (Bolívar Beltrán)
• GENERAL (R) RENE VARGAS PAZZOS
• PABLO SANTILLAN