[NYTr] War Paint and Lawyers: Rainforest Indians versus Big Oil - 11/27 BBC

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Greg Palast - Nov 26, 2007
http://www.GregPalast.com

War Paint and Lawyers: Rainforest Indians versus Big Oil

Greg Palast investigates for BBC Newsnight

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 10:30pm GMT [5:30pm New York Time] - 

Chevron:  "Nobody has proved that crude causes cancer."

live on BBC2 TV or on the net at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm

BBC Television Newsnight has been able to get close-in film of a
new Cofan Indian ritual deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest.
Known as "The Filing of the Law Suit," natives of Ecuador's jungle,
decked in feathers and war paint and heavily armed with lawyers,
are filmed presenting a new complaint in their litigation seeking
$12 billion from Chevron Inc., the international oil goliath.

It would all be a poignant joke - except that the indigenous tribe
is suddenly the odds-on favorite to defeat the oil company known
for naming its largest tanker, "Condoleezza," after former Chevron
director, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

For Newsnight, reporter Greg Palast, steps (somewhat inelegantly)
into a dug-out log canoe to seek out the Cofan in their rainforest
village to investigate their allegations.  Palast discovers stinking
pits of old oil drilling residue leaking into drinking water - and
meets farmers whose limbs are covered in pustules.

The Cofan's leader, Emergildo Criollo, tells Palast that when Texaco
Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, it obtained
permission to drill by offering the Indians candy and cheese.  The
indigenous folk threw the funny-selling cheese into the jungle.

Criollo says his three-year son died from oil contamination after,
"He went swimming, then began vomiting blood."

Flying out of the rainforest, past the Andes volcanoes, Palast gets
the other side of the story in Ecuador's capitol, Quito.  "It's the
largest fraud in history!" asserts Chevron lawyer Jaime Varela
reacting to the Cofan law suits against his company.  Chevron-Texaco,
Varela insists, cleaned up all its contaminated oil pits when it
abandoned the country nearly 15 years ago - except those pits it
left in the hands of Ecuador's own state oil company.

What about the Indian kids dying of cancer?  Texaco lawyer Rodrigo
Perez asks, "And itbs the only case of cancer in the world?  How
many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States, in
Europe, in Quito?  If there is somebody with cancer there, [the
Cofan parents] must prove [the deaths were] caused by crude or by
petroleum industry. And, second, they have to prove that it is OUR
crude b which is absolutely impossible."  The Texaco man stated,
"Scientifically, nobody has proved that crude causes cancer."

Even if the Indians can prove their case and win billions to clean
up the jungle, collecting the cash is another matter.  Chevron has
removed all its assets from Ecuador.

But, this week, the political planet tilts toward the natives as
Alberto Acosta takes office as President of Ecuador's new Constitutional
Assembly.  Newsnight catches up with Acosta - who gives Chevron a
tongue-lashing.  "Chevron is responsible for environmental and
social destruction in the Amazon.  And thatbs why theybre on trial."

"He LOVES Chavez"

Little Ecuador does not seem like much of a match against big Chevron
- whose revenue exceeds the entire GDP of the Andean nation.
However, behind Little Ecuador is Huge Venezuela - and its
larger-than-life leader, Hugo Chavez.   "Acosta," complains one
local pundit to the BBC, "loves - LOVES - Chavez."

And apparently, the feeling is mutual.  That is, Chavez sees in
Ecuador's new government, which won election campaigning to the
tune of the Twisted Sister hit, We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore, a
new ally in his fight with George Bush over control of Latin hearts
and minds - and energy.

Chevron-Texaco's largest new oil reserves are in Venezuela; Venezuela
stands with Ecuador; and Ecuador now stands with its "affectados,"
the Indians and farmers claiming the poisons in their bodies trace
right back to the Texaco star.

Suddenly, the David-versus-Goliath story of Little Indians versus
Big Oil is becoming part of the larger conflict between Uncle Sam
and Uncle Hugo.  The outcome is now a cliff-hanger.  Indeed, Newsnight
has learned that this month, Chevron will face a new legal challenge
by Cofan attorneys before US securities regulators to investigate
whether the company has fully disclosed to shareholders the massive
potential legal liability from the equatorial Rumble in the Jungle.

Watch the story live on BBC2 or, in the US, after broadcast on the net
at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm 
or via a link from http://www.GregPalast.com  

WARNING:  The day's news events may require Newsnight to delay
broadcast to another evening.

And this weekend, catch Palast discussing the BBC Report with
environmental crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on RFK's Air America
Radio program, Ring of Fire.

And pick [up] a copy of "Ecuador:  Oiled and Despoiled," one of the
documentary shorts on Palast's DVD film collection, The Assassination
of Hugo Chavez, released this week.  Available only by making a
tax-deductible donation to The Palast Investigative Fund at
http://www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org

BBC Television Newsnight story filmed in Ecuador by Rick Rowley,
edited by Jacquie Shoohen in New York, produced in London by Meirion
Jones, written and reported from Ecuador by Greg Palast.