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The new math: environmentalists = terrorists
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ENVIRONMENT BRIEFS
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Stinking waters highlight Caspian Sea’s woes
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ChevronTexaco sued for environmental
destruction by Ecuador’s indigenous

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, May 8 (IPS)— Attorneys representing some 30,000 Ecuadorian Indians have filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against ChevronTexaco Corporation in Ecuador’s Oriente region in a case that could greatly boost the power of local courts in developing countries to hear complaints involving multi-national corporations.

The case, which was filed in the oil town of Lago Agrio, charges that ChevronTexaco systematically destroyed the environment and homeland of a number of rainforest peoples through massive dumping of billions of gallons of highly toxic wastewater and crude oil from 1971 to 1992.

In addition, the company left behind nearly 350 open waste pits—some just a few feet from the homes of residents—that sickened and killed hundreds of people and animals over the past three decades, claims the lawsuit.

The case, which has bounced around US courts in the past decade, is being filed under a new Ecuadorian law that requires mining companies doing business in the country to pay for the costs of cleaning up pollution caused by their operations.

California-based ChevronTexaco has insisted that it fulfilled all of its obligations under Ecuadorian law by paying $40 million for a clean up that ended in 1998.

“We have not seen the complaint, so we cannot comment on it specifically,” said Chris Gidez, a company spokesperson. “However, we believe that the statements and allegations made by the plaintiffs’ attorneys are baseless, outrageous, and irresponsible. Since bringing their initial legal action a decade ago, the plaintiffs have not presented any credible and independently substantiated scientific evidence to support their claims.”

What makes the case potentially so important is a decision last August by a US federal appeals court that the case should be brought in Ecuador, and that any final ruling and financial penalty imposed against ChevronTexaco by the courts there would be enforceable by US courts. If plaintiffs were unable to effectively pursue the case in Ecuador, then US courts could proceed, added the decision.

The unprecedented ruling appeared designed to ensure that plaintiffs would get their full day in court. Multinational corporations frequently prefer to have cases of this kind settled in developing countries where judicial systems are often weak, susceptible to lengthy procedural delays, and riddled with corruption.

In cases where a judgment is eventually rendered against the multinationals, they claim they did not receive due process and refuse to pay, counting on their economic weight in the country where they have been sued to ensure that the government does not move to enforce the decision.

But with the US courts retaining jurisdiction, companies could find their leverage substantially reduced.

“This case has the potential to establish a new accountability for US oil companies that think they can operate abroad without adhering to responsible environmental practices,” said Cristobal Bonifaz, the lead attorney for some 88 named plaintiffs.

“On the face of it, this is a ‘David versus Goliath’ battle. However, the United States court has leveled the playing field by ruling that a small court in a remote town of Ecuador has the same power over a 99-billion-dollar multinational corporation as a federal court in Manhattan,” he added. “This alone is a breakthrough.”

The case is being filed at a time when US-based energy and mining companies operating in Latin America are coming under growing attacks for the environmental and social damage their operations have caused. Projects, such as the Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP) in Ecuador, and the proposed Camisea gas project in neighboring Peru have been so controversial that underwriters have had difficulty raising the funds needed to complete them.

In addition, Latin American courts are increasingly permitting “class actions” by workers against multinational companies for environmental and health damages.

In January, a Nicaraguan court ordered Shell Oil, Dole Food, and Dow Chemical to pay nearly $500 million to 450 workers exposed to a pesticide that rendered them impotent. So far, the companies have refused to pay.

In the opinion of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, ChevronTexaco’s performance in the Ecuadorian Amazon region was particularly egregious. Over 20 years, the firm dumped almost 500 million barrels of wastewater containing crude oil and cancer-causing heavy metals, in addition to the open pits it left behind.

“We believe that what ChevronTexaco did in the Ecuador rainforest was not only negligent, but might rise to the level of reckless behavior,” said Joseph Kohn, another of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “The company claims it was fine because it did not violate any of Ecuador’s laws at the time, but, at the time, Ecuador had no environmental laws governing oil extraction because it had no oil industry.”

The actual complaint alleges that the company engaged in “negligent, reckless, deliberate, and outrageous acts” in the Ecuadorian Amazon by refusing to adhere to accepted standards of the oil industry to clean up toxic waste from drilling.

The waste pits now blanket much of the northern Amazon region, and their contents have leeched into groundwater and rivers that residents rely on for drinking water and bathing.

One study of a small community by the London School of Epidemiology found that cancer rates were many times higher than historical norms.

According to the attorneys, the toll has been fearsome, with three indigenous tribes—the Cofan, Secoya, and Siona—especially hard hit. Many members have contracted cancer and died, and most of the rivers are so polluted that many people have left their ancestral lands.

The Cofan, who numbered 15,000 in 1971 when Chevron first began operations on their land, have seen their population in the area fall to less than 300.

For its part, ChevronTexaco stresses that its subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company (TexPet) was a minority partner in a consortium led by PetroEcuador, the state oil company, that its clean-up was certified by the government, and that PetroEcuador continues to use the same practices in the region since TexPet ceased its operations there.

The new math: environmentalists = terrorists

By Karen Charman

Exploiting the current political climate against terrorism, the ultra-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has teamed up with the US Sportsmen’s Alliance, a pro-hunting group, to create a model “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act.” The legislation is part of an intense backlash against increasingly effective and vocal citizen campaigns aimed at halting — and holding corporations accountable for — environmental, animal-rights, and public health abuses.

Forging this kind of marriage to produce anti-progressive legislation is old hat to ALEC, now in its thirtieth year of policy bending. With an annual budget of nearly $6 million, ALEC’s funders read like a Who’s Who of the right, and include organizations like the National Rifle Association, Family Research Council, and Heritage Foundation. It counts conservative activists and politicians such as Jesse Helms, Jack Kemp, and Henry Hyde among its alumni. Enron, Phillip Morris (now Altria), and several oil companies rank among ALEC’s corporate sponsors. And to bring the loop full-circle, ALEC boasts 2,400 state lawmakers representing all 50 states among its current members.

In light of this, it’s hardly shocking that ALEC is no friend to green groups. According to a 2002 report by Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council, corporations and trade associations “funnel cash through ALEC to curry favor with state lawmakers through junkets and other largesse in the hopes of enacting special interest legislation — all the while keeping safely outside the public eye.”

The strategy obviously works. ALEC spokesperson David Wargin estimates that out of about 1,000 ALEC model bills introduced in the last legislative session, 200 were enacted.

The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act may be next. Intended for states, it criminalizes virtually all forms of environmental or animal-rights advocacy. Versions of the proposed law were introduced in Texas in February and in New York in March. New York Assembly member Richard Smith (D-Blasdell), who introduced that state’s bill, says four or five other states have also expressed interest.

The Texas bill defines an “animal rights or terrorist organization” as “two or more persons organized for the purpose of supporting any politically motivated activity intended to obstruct or deter any person from participating in an activity involving animals or... natural resources.” The bill adds that, “‘Political motivation’ means an intent to influence a government entity or the public to take a specific political action.” Language in the New York bill is similarly broad.

Michael Ratner, a human rights lawyer and vice-president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, has never seen such draconian legislation in the US.

“This is unique. Even under the definition of domestic terrorism in the Patriot Act, you have to at least do something that arguably threatens people’s lives,” he says. “The definitional sections of this legislation are so broad that they sweep within them basically every environmental and animal-rights organization in the country.”

Sandy Liddy Bourne, director of the ALEC task force that came up with the model bill, insists the legislation is narrowly targeted at environmental and animal-rights extremists who blow up buildings or destroy research facilities.

“We’re certainly not attempting to interfere with anybody’s civil rights to protest or express their opinion on environmental or animal-rights issues,” she says. However, “There are legitimate business operations across our country that are being targeted by environmental extremists and it’s time to bring this kind of activity to a halt.”

Ratner points out that there are laws against trespassing, vandalism, destruction of property, disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace. The only reason for this legislation, he says, is to eliminate all forms of dissent, including the time-honored democratic traditions of nonviolent, peaceful protest and civil disobedience.

Civil rights advocates who thought the Patriot Act was bad should turn their attention to this legislation. Because if ALEC is successful, millions of people might just lose the only tool they have left: the right to loud and public dissent.

Source: TomPaine.com

Stinking waters highlight Caspian Sea’s woes

By Ramin Mostaghim

Bandar Anzali, Iran, May 12 (IPS)— Holidaymakers from Iran and countries around the Caspian Sea—including Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan — usually flock to Bandar Anzali, a port city west of the Caspian Sea with less than 100,000 people, in early May to see its Russian and German architectural ruins. They might as well have come to see — and smell — the stinking waters in the area.

The pollution comes from the fact that the Caspian Sea and its shores, a five-hour drive from the Iranian capital of Tehran — as well as the lagoon and rivers leading to it — receive all the water and other waste from sewage and drainage ditches in the area.

Yet the early days of May are supposed to be the best time for vacationers. On the Iranian side of the sea, the shores are being swamped by holiday apartment complexes, villas, or mansions bought by the upper middle class, mostly from Tehran.

“The jerry builders pay least attention to the destinations of the sewage systems. From land-mongers’ point of view, as long as the compounds of the buildings seem clean and the well-off inhabitants are satisfied, there is nothing to worry about,” says Ahmad Amiri, a 37-year-old geography teacher.

But Abbass Akbari, a jerry builder, counters: “It is not my business to think about the destinations of the drainage ditches of my apartment buildings located on the shore overlooking the sea and Alborz mountainous forests.”

Asked who should look after sewage disposal, he says: “The municipality and the authorities.”

Yet residents are aware of the deteriorating environment around them. Almost in chorus, young boys in the alleys behind the Shanbeh Bazaar, the Saturday fair market to the west of which the river flows on the way to the Caspian Sea, say they cannot swim in the water.

“Our fathers remember when they used to bathe and swim,” says Qobad, busy smoking hashish. Almost angrily, he adds: “Do not you see the thick layer of garbage and oil on the water?”

In truth, the city looks well-run at first glance, but a walk down its streets leads to the discovery of the hidden filth.

Thanks to the early spring rain in the north of Iran, the Karaj and Manjil rivers carrying the sewage of the towns on their banks are increasing the area covered by Anzali lagoon, where brown algae is spreading and hurting fisherfolks’ livelihood, and causing the Caspian Sea to withdraw.

“Fortunately, in the past two years the sea’s advance has stopped,” says Asgar Aslani, a boatman. Still, hectares of rice fields are now inundated. The predominant vegetation instead are bulrushes, sedge, and sweet flag and brown algae, which covers large sections of the lagoon.

Aslani recalls: “More than ten years ago, brown algae suddenly became rampant and led to the suffocation of the fish in the lagoon, because the algae devours the oxygen in the water.”

Locals have different theories for the spread of the brown algae. But “whatever the origin of the brown algae is, I do not care. What my family and I care about is the drastic drop of our fish catch in the lagoon,” a frustrated fishermen almost shouts while spreading his net in the lagoon.

The local fishery organization lists 60 fish species in the Iranian waters off the Caspian Sea, of which four are key to the native people’s cuisine.

All fish in the Caspian Sea spawn in estuaries, rivers ending in the sea, or swim up the river currents. River pollution has a disastrous effect on their population and has prompted communities to go into different ways of harvesting fish, including by fish farming that has grown in popularity since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

“The growth of fish farming is directly proportional with increasing pollution of the rivers, construction of dams across important rivers leading to the sea, and irrational removal of sand and gravel from the riverbeds [for construction purposes],” says Hussain Hydari, a fisheries expert who owns a small fish farm.

“As far as Iranian city dwellers and north-bound holidaymakers are concerned, they can buy their delicacies such as white bream fish in the fish market. They and the authorities do not give a damn about the pollution of the rivers and damage to the environment,” adds Majid Sharifi, an Australian-educated professor of ecology in Razi University in Kermanshah, western Iran.

“Environmental issues in Iran are regarded as a luxury and environmentalists are not very vocal. If you write in newspapers that pollutants in rivers have damaged food chains and dragonflies are nearly extinct in the northern rivers, nobody cares,” Sharifi says.

All these factors also act against the survival of sturgeon, whose unfertilized eggs or caviar is prized by gastronomists and well-to-do people all over the world. A kilogram of caviar costs 2,500 US dollars in Paris, France compared to the black market price of caviar of 240 dollars per kilogram in Bandar Anzali.

Out of 27 species of sturgeon fish, only five can be found in the Iranian waters off the Caspian Sea, says Hassan Akhonzadeh, an Indian-educated fisheries manager.

The government created an International Sturgeon Research Institute in 1994 to try to restore sturgeon stocks and increased guard patrols. But one bootlegger who smuggles caviar—apart from vodka and whisky—says their “rapport” with sea guards ensures the continuation of their trade.

The sturgeon—as well as the smuggling trade—is also threatened by the disruption of the food chain given by the flourishing of an exotic jellyfish that feeds on the kilka fish that is the sturgeon’s main food.

How to address the environmental woes in the Caspian Sea and the rivers leading to it are a matter of negotiation among the five littoral countries. For now, Iran’s government has banned oil vessels from shuttling between Turkmen ports and Bandar Anzali.

“But a city with more than 30 percent unemployment cannot survive without poaching and bootlegging,” says Kambiz Tovassoli, a young bootlegger in a teahouse adjacent to Bandar Anzali harbor.

As for the environmental problems in his midst, he explains: “It is not my business. I should earn my living. It is a must for me.”