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It may sound like the plot of some hackneyed corporate espionage thriller, but it’s all too true: Having lost a massive environmental lawsuit in two different countries based on the merits of the case, Chevron is now resorting to a secret international arbitration panel made up of pro-corporate lawyers to evade responsibility for the environmental and human rights crisis the company created in Ecuador.

We’re not going to let Chevron get away with it, of course. We’re here in Washington, DC, where a panel of corporate lawyers will determine whether or not it has jurisdiction to decide if the lawsuit against Chevron violates trade agreements between the US and Ecuador. Given that each of these lawyers stands to make as much as $3 million in legal fees for their part in the arbitration process, you can guess which way they’re likely to rule.

Merriam-Webster defines a kangaroo court as “a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted.” That pretty neatly sums up the latest forum Chevron is seeking to use to deny justice to the Ecuadoreans suffering from its oil pollution.

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs, needless to say, are not party to these hearings. But that doesn’t mean they’re staying silent. And neither are we.

Umberto Piaguaje of the Secoya people and Guillermo Grefa of the Kichua people traveled here as representatives of the affected communities in Ecuador to speak out against the illegitimate arbitration process Chevron is pursuing. They’ve got a full agenda:

• This morning we held a press conference at Public Citizen’s offices. Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, Robert Collier of Amazon Watch, and Aaron Page, a US lawyer for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, joined Umberto and Guillermo to provide the larger context of corporate abuse of the international arbitration process. Here’s the video (which we streamed live this morning):

• We’re conducting a briefing on Capitol Hill this afternoon and a teach-in about “How Corporations Use International Arbitration to Threaten Water, Health, Human Rights and Democracy” at American University tonight (Horacio Grigera Naon, director of the Center On International Arbitration at AU, is being paid by Chevron to represent the company in the arbitration hearing). Details and RSVP about the teach-in are here. We’ll also be live streaming the teach-in here.

• We’ll be holding a protest tomorrow outside the building where the arbitration panel is meeting, then marching to the offices of King and Spalding, one of the law firms representing Chevron that specializes in international arbitration. (If you’re in the DC area and want to join us, you can find the details here).

Essentially, what Chevron is trying to do with these arbitration hearings is force the government of Ecuador to pay to clean up the company’s mess — in other words, Chevron is trying to force the taxpayers of Ecuador to clean up its mess. We’re talking about a company that made $240 billion in revenues last year trying to dump responsibility for its mess onto the Ecuadorean people, who make an average of $4,000 per year.

Seated, from left: Guillermo Grefa, Umberto Piaguaje, Lori Wallach, Robert Collier

As Lori Wallach put it: Given that the Ecuadorean plaintiffs are also taxpayers, it’s a little like condemning a man to death by firing squad, then sending his family a bill for the bullets.

Resorting to this arbitration process is a new low even for Chevron. The panel of three arbitrators — all private sector lawyers — meet in secret. The enormous amount of money they stand to earn in legal fees greatly incentivizes them to assert “jurisdiction” over any claim, regardless of how trivial or abusive. Members of the panel claim the outrageous power to override decisions of any public court system of any sovereign nation, while the arbitration rules prohibit third parties who are the most affected, such as the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, from being represented on the panel.

In other words, after being outsmarted by the Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ lawyers in both Ecuadorean and American courts, Chevron is now essentially looking to a private and secretive arbitration process where it doesn’t have to face the opposition. This arbitration panel is nothing more than a kangaroo court that violates any notion of due process and disregards the fundamental human rights of thousands of Ecuadoreans impacted by Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits.

How did we get here? Here’s a quick review of the case:

In February 2011 an Ecuadorean court found Chevron guilty of dumping some 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste in the Amazon and ordered the company to pay $18 billion to clean up its mess. In January 2012 an appeals court upheld the ruling. (Chevron is appealing to Ecuador’s Supreme Court.)

The lawsuit was originally filed in a US federal court in 1993, but Chevron had the case moved to Ecuador, promising to abide by the ruling that came out of Ecuador’s courts. In reality, moving the trial to Ecuador was just another step in Chevron’s abusive endless litigation strategy. Once it became clear that the company was going to lose the case — due to the fact that even its own documents contain overwhelming evidence that the company is guilty as charged — Chevron returned to the US federal court in NY where the case was originally filed, seeking an injunction against enforcement of the Ecuadorean verdict.

The company found a US federal judge willing to issue a “worldwide injunction” against enforcement of the Ecuador verdict, but that victory was short-lived, as the 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York threw it out altogether.

The way is now cleared for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs to attempt to enforce the judgment in countries where Chevron has assets. Hence Chevron’s desperate, last-ditch attempt to find a venue where due process and equal representation before the law have no place. The company is apparently willing to stoop to any low in order to evade justice in Ecuador.

Recent court documents reveal that Chevron has paid Borja $2.2 million for his work. You have to wonder: What exactly is Chevron paying Borja to do?

Ostensibly, that $2.2 million is for retainer fees, living expenses, income taxes and legal fees. But given that those same court documents also reveal that Borja was one of several Chevron workers employed to help hide contaminated soil samples taken from the company’s well sites in the Ecuadorean Amazon, there’s plenty of room to suspect the official explanation Chevron has offered for the large sums of cash it’s paying Borja does not tell the whole story.

After all, Borja was once caught on tape saying that he had threatened to testify against Chevron if the company didn’t compensate him for his botched attempt to bribe an Ecuadorean judge. That particular dirty trick earned Borja a spot on our list of Chevron’s Human Rights Hitmen — and an all-expenses-paid trip out of Ecuador, once the Ecuadorean government started looking into Borja-the-Chevron-contractor’s attempts to corrupt the Ecuadorean judiciary.

The Chevron Pit has the scoop on the hush money Chevron is paying Borja, plus this background for those who are new to the strange and sordid saga of Chevron’s dirty tricks guy:

In 2009 Borja, along with his mysterious partner Wayne Hansen, secretly videotaped a judge in a failed effort to derail the trial that charged Chevron with deliberately contaminating the rainforest and resulted in an $18 billion judgment against the company.

Chevron whisked Borja and his family out of Ecuador and into the U.S. after Borja turned over the tapes to Chevron. Later, though, Borja threatened to turn evidence against Chevron if he was not paid handsomely for them.

Since that revelation, the Borjas have been practically under house arrest in Houston, but the money ain’t shabby so maybe they don’t mind. See court documents here.

Chevron has picked up their rent, the car payments and the costs for a washer, dryer, and all their furniture. Both Borjas get retainer checks every month. The wife has a job with Chevron but nobody seems to know what she does exactly. Borja is unemployed.

Why is this a problem? Borja is likely to be a witness in pending litigation and hearings about the $18 billion judgment. Will Borja bite the hand that feeds him? We doubt it, and that’s exactly the Chevron plan.

We hope the news media won’t let Chevron get away with it. Hats are off to the reporters who have taken the time to peruse these documents.

See articles by Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News, Rebecca Beyer of the Daily Journal and Braden Reddall and Dan Levine of Reuters.

We’ve received thousands of submissions for new excuses Chevron can use, but we’re sure there are plenty more where those came from. So we compiled some of the most ridiculous things Chevron spokespeople have said over the years in this video, to give you a little inspiration. These are truly some of the stupidest moments in Chevron PR:

As you can see, Chevron’s PR hacks are struggling to come up with a valid excuse for why their company refuses to do the right thing in Ecuador. Go to www.ran.org/chevron-excuses now and suggest a new excuse they can use.

Of course, sending their PR zombies out to spout their ludicrous talking points is not the only response Chevron has come up with. Many more of Chevron’s shameless tactics are detailed here.

Chevron’s immediate response to the decision in Ecuador was to have its lawyers file a motion requesting a court order that would stop the plaintiffs from being able to pursue the company’s assets around the world (Chevron no longer has any assets in Ecuador). US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Chevron’s motion. It was the first time he’s ever made a ruling against Chevron.

This was just one of the abusive legal maneuvers Chevron has attempted, engineered by the company’s outside law firm, Gibson Dunn Crutcher, and the partner at the firm leading the Chevron case, Randy Mastro. Gibson Dunn specializes in cases like Chevron’s:

Gibson Dunn has long advertised itself as the “dream team” for clients in serious trouble. It boasts that lawyers like Mastro, Andrea Neumann, Scott Edelman, and William Thomson are capable of mounting “rescue” operations for corporations facing major liability for environmental and other abuses committed against vulnerable peoples like the indigenous and farmer communities of Ecuador’s Amazon. If the law is in the way of a client’s interests, GDC claims it will work to either change the law or maneuver around it. …

What few know is that Gibson Dunn basically uses carbon copy lawsuits alleging “fraud” against almost any entity that has the temerity to challenge its powerful clients.

To get Chevron out of its mess, Gibson has targeted Ecuadorian lawyer, Pablo Fajardo, who was profiled with great sensitivity in Vanity Fair. Fajardo brilliantly has outmaneuvered Chevron’s high-priced lawyers at almost every turn.

Chevron has a long history of going after anyone who dares side with the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and against Chevron. Another target of Chevron and Gibson Dunn’s vicious retributive legal tactics was Crude director Joe Berlinger. Chevron’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn subpoenaed the outtakes from that film, which is about the Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ struggle to bring Chevron to justice. The New York Times recently wrote a lengthy piece on the financial and emotional toll Chevron’s abusive legal tactics took on Berlinger.

Given its deep pockets, Chevron no doubt assumed it would have worn down the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and simply outlasted their ability to continue fighting for justice. But just in case that didn’t pan out, Chevron has pretty much tried every other dirty trick it could conceive of as well:

• There was the failed attempt to entrap the Ecuadorean judge presiding over the case into taking a bribe, for instance. Even though no bribe ever took place, Chevron still went public with the allegations and claimed that the judge had taken a bribe.
• Evidence recently surfaced confirming that Chevron used a secret lab to hide contaminated soil samples from the Ecuadorean courts. But the evidence of Chevron’s deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the Amazon rainforest was still so overwhelming that an Ecuadorean court ordered the company to pay $18 billion to clean it up, a judgment upheld by an appeals court on Jan 3, 2012.
• Chevron deployed at least a dozen lawyers in Ecuador’s capital of Quito this past weekend in a last-ditch effort to prevent the judgment from being taken to other countries where it could potentially be enforced and used to seize Chevron assets.
• In at least one other previous effort, Chevron offered $1 billion to Ecuador’s government in exchange for the case being killed off — an action that would clearly be illegal under Ecuadorean and international law, in addition to being a violation of the legal rights of the plaintiffs.

No attempt to evade its responsibility for cleaning up Ecuador has worked for Chevron. I’m sure the company would appreciate it if you could help suggest a new excuse or two to explain why it still refuses to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights crisis in Ecuador. Here’s a little inspiration:

There is no question of Chevron’s responsibility for dumping some 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorean Amazon. The only question, at this point, is: What ludicrous talking point Chevron will roll out this time to explain away its refusal to pay to clean up its mess?

So far, Chevron spokespeople have claimed everything from “Oil isn’t toxic” to “Just because we bought Texaco in 2001 doesn’t mean we have to clean up its mess” to “I have make-up on and there’s naturally occurring oil on my face, that doesn’t mean I’m going to get sick.” They have vowed to fight against paying to clean up Ecuador until hell freezes over, and then “fight it out on the ice.” They’ve breathlessly reported that a “good Samaritan” had exposed a bribe accepted by the Ecuadorean judge presiding over the case — even though they knew that good Samaritan was actually a Chevron contractor and there was never any bribe in the first place.

As you can see, Chevron is desperate and will say anything to evade taking responsibility for its toxic legacy in Ecuador. What’s also clear is that the company could use a little help in crafting its next PR offensive. Why don’t you help them by coming up with an absurd talking point or two?

Chevron has executed a brilliant legal and PR strategy for nearly two decades, but its house of cards is toppling. Evidence recently surfaced of the company’s secret labs used to hide dirty soil samples from Ecuadorean courts. Earlier this year, an appeals court in the U.S. threw out the injunction barring enforcement of the $18 billion judgement against the company. That same week, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks revealed that Chevron had been lobbying Ecuadorean officials to make the lawsuit go away, and just a couple weeks ago an attempt to buy its way out of liability for its pollution in the Amazon by funding Ecuador’s Yasuni-ITT Initiative blew up in the company’s face.

The real reason Chevron won’t take responsibility for its mess in Ecuador, of course, is unbridled greed and a complete disregard for human life. More than 1,400 Ecuadoreans have died from Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon, but it’s all about money for the Big Oil behemoth. It’s certainly not that the company can’t afford to pay.

Late last year, Chevron announced third quarter profits of $7.8 billion, bringing its haul in just the first three quarters of 2011 to $21.7 billion.

But wait, you might say. Putting all concerns about human rights and justice aside, isn’t there a purely economic argument to be made for Chevron not to pay? Isn’t Chevron just doing what’s right for its shareholders?

The answer is: Definitely not. If the company agrees to pay the $18 billion judgment, its stock will certainly take a hit. But when BP was ordered to pay $20 billion to compensate victims of its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company not only agreed, but sold off some assets to raise the funds, and its stock recovered. At this point, it’s clear that the real threat to Chevron’s finances is continuing to NOT pay for cleanup in Ecuador. At least, that’s the way oil industry analysts and a growing number of Chevron shareholders see it (see here and here).

Continuing to refuse to pay is also jeopardizing Chevron’s future prospects in countries around the world who fear the company will pollute their land, poison their people, and then refuse to clean up after itself. Look no further than this Australian News broadcast for confirmation that Chevron is already meeting this type of resistance in countries where it seeks to expand its operations.

Shareholders are right to be concerned: Chevron’s recklessness and disregard for the impacts of its business operations are having a real impact on its future prospects. The company faces criminal charges and fines of up to U.S. $11 billion in Brazil for negligence that led to a recent oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and Chevron’s bungled response. If convicted, the company will be permanently banned from doing business in the South American country.

So, it’s clear the company should pay, if not because it actually wants to resolve the human rights and environmental crisis that has been ongoing for decades in the Ecuadorean Amazon, then because it’s really the best thing for the future of Chevron. But the company always bungles its excuses, and could really use your help in crafting its next absurd talking point. Go to this page, pick your favorite Chevron spokesperson, enter your ludicrous excuse, and we’ll post it to our “Excuse Gallery” on CheronThinksWereStupid.org.

Reuters reports:

Ecuador court upholds $18 bln ruling against Chevron

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador Jan 3 (Reuters) – An Ecuadorean appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that Chevron Corp should pay $18 billion in damages to plaintiffs who accused the U.S. oil giant of polluting the Amazon jungle and damaging their health.

A judge ordered Chevron to pay $8.6 billion in environmental damages last February, but the amount was more than doubled to about $18 billion because Chevron failed to make a public apology as required by the original ruling.

“We ratify the ruling of February 14 2011 in all its parts, including the sentence for moral reparation,” said the ruling issued on Tuesday, which was obtained by Reuters.

Plaintiffs accused Texaco, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, of dumping oil-drilling waste in unlined pits, polluting the forest and causing illness and deaths among indigenous people. They appealed the original court ruling, claiming that more money would be needed for the cleanup.

Chevron had argued that Texaco cleaned up all waste pits for which it was responsible, and said that the Ecuadorean judge in the original case had ignored evidence of fraud on the part of the plaintiffs. (Reporting by Victor Gomez; Writing by Eduardo Garcia; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Paul Simao)

About that cleanup Chevron claims it did:

Chevron Used Secret Lab to Hide Dirty Soil Samples from Ecuador Court, Say Company Documents

Oil Giant Also Duped Its Own Paid Experts To Give False Testimony About Deceptive Sampling

Chevron found no contamination in its testing at this well site in Ecuador.

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 /CSRwire/ – In an ever more stunning expose of Chevron’s fraud before the Ecuador court, a U.S. federal judge has ordered the disclosure of documents that demonstrate Chevron used a secret lab in the United States to hide the existence of dirty soil samples taken from the company’s contaminated former well sites in the Amazon.

The documents also show that Chevron’s scientific experts in the Ecuador trial — one of whom is a respected professor at the University of California — executed a scheme that guaranteed the company would find only “clean” soil samples from contaminated well sites while all “dirty” samples would be sent to a lab called NewFields, where they would not be disclosed to the court.

The existence of the NewFields lab, which is based in Atlanta, was not disclosed by Chevron to either the plaintiffs or the Ecuador trial court before it ruled in February that the company was liable for $18 billion in clean-up damages. Even though Chevron tried to present a false picture of the evidence to the court, the Ecuador judge found that scientific samples from the plaintiffs and other court-appointed experts clearly demonstrated extensive pollution at all of the 94 former Chevron well sites and production stations inspected during the trial.

Chevron executed its deceptive sampling plan by secretly and unilaterally pre-inspecting well sites in the days before court-supervised judicial inspections of the same sites, which were attended by both parties and the judge. Chevron used the pre-inspections to plot areas on ground higher than the contaminated waste pits where soil samples would come up “clean” during the official inspections process.  See here and here.

As a general matter, the documents show that only Chevron’s “clean” soil samples were submitted to the Ecuador court despite rampant pollution on the ground and in streams and rivers near all Chevron well sites that were inspected by the parties during the trial, which lasted from 2003 to 2011.  As an example, see this photo of Shushufindi 38, a former Chevron well site where Chevron in contrast to the plaintiffs reported that it found no contamination in its soil samples.

Other documents (here and here) show Chevron committed fraud by lying to some of its own technical experts so they would laud the company’s deceptive sampling practices even though they were designed to mislead the court.

At this point, Chevron’s attempts to justify why it won’t take responsibility for its environmental and human rights crisis in the Ecuadorean Amazon are just ridiculous. Given the especially poor job they’ve done in the past, Chevron’ PR folks definitely can’t handle this. So we’ve created this little tool to help you suggest a new ridiculous justification for Chevron’s callous disregard for the health and well-being of the Ecuadorean Amazon communities it has contaminated in its reckless pursuit of profits.

Vultures’ Picnic is basically a non-fiction book written in a hard-bitten detective novel style, which is pretty interesting. The Bukowski quote that serves as the book’s epigraph is fitting, since there’s something of Bukowski’s no-bullshit, uninhibited confessionalism to Palast’s voice. That’s definitely not the part that pisses me off.

I spend all day thinking about the excesses and abuses of Big Oil and trying to figure out how to turn the size and influence  of oil companies against them, jiu-jitsu style. I didn’t think there was much that could shock me about the ways Big Oil is screwing us all in the name of profits, but Palast manages to do so several times in this book.

I get into the field as often as possible to witness firsthand the impacts our corporate targets — companies with absolutely no scruples, like Chevron — are having on the planet. But I haven’t witnessed a damn thing compared to Palast. Vultures’ Picnic’s at times scattered narrative reflects his travels, from Kazakhstan to Alaska to Ecuador to the Gulf of Mexico, as he tries to track down the real story behind the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. This man is not only willing to travel to the belly of the beast, he’s rooting through the beast’s guts, too, searching for the real dirty shit no one else wants to touch. And for that, we should all thank him.

What Palast uncovers is the truly maddening thing about this book. Think BP and its corporate culture was the chief culprit of the Gulf oil spill? That’s not even half the story. Think Exxon and its drunk ship’s captain was solely responsible for the Valdez spill? Nope.

I’ve argued many times that Big Oil seems to have decided it was cheaper to pay the fines from oil spills than to try and prevent them in the first place. Throw in some lobbying, buy off a politician or two, and you can make sure those fines never get too excessive. It’s obvious to anyone observing Big Oil — there are systemic problems with the whole industry and regulatory structure that make oil spills an inevitability, and no oil company ever pays the full costs of its malfeasance. But Palast has actually assembled the evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy.

And don’t worry: Because the problems with the oil industry are systemic, Chevron does not get off lightly even though it’s not ostensibly the subject of Vultures’ Picnic. I learned all sorts of things about Chevron that I didn’t know. For instance, Chevron has removed 2.7 million acres of Gulf Coast wetlands in its pursuit of profits. Chevron also played a key role in helping cover up the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. And Palast has documents showing that the company deliberately destroyed internal records so they couldn’t be used by the Ecuadorean plaintiffs who have won an $18 billion judgment against the company — but I’m going to let Palast tell that story himself in an upcoming guest post on this blog.

So, believe me when I say: If you’re looking to really incense your loved ones this holiday season, look no further. You’ve just found the perfect gift.

A picture released by Brazil's National Petroleum Agency shows the oil leak on the ocean floor.

If the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster taught us anything, it’s that Big Oil has been doing very little over the last few decades to prevent oil spills despite their obscene record profits. Companies like Exxon, Chevron, and BP have all clearly decided that it’s more cost effective to use their profits to rig the system in their favor rather than prevent the next oil spill. By using their money to influence politicians and buy favorable public policies, Big Oil companies can limit their liability for the next disaster — which, if you don’t count impacts to the environment and human health, as Big Oil certainly does not, is way cheaper than actually taking adequate precautions.

Chevron’s recent oil spill off the coast of Brazil is another tragic example. Chevron reportedly pumped as much as $4 billion into its drilling operations in Brazil, yet had to be told by Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, that its well was spewing oil into the Atlantic Ocean in the first place. Even more shocking, Chevron then had to borrow the sonar equipment to locate exactly where the leak was coming from.

Think about that for a second: Despite spending billions, Chevron didn’t even have the basic equipment to monitor its operations for spills and move quickly to stop oil from leaking into the ocean.

In her recent TED Talk, “Addicted to Risk,” Naomi Klein explains why BP’s oil spill in the Gulf last year and Chevron’s spill off the coast of Brazil are inevitable in the modern economic system, which “cannot survive without perpetual growth and an unending supply of new frontiers”:

BP is as lax about safety precautions as Chevron. Greg Palast’s new book, Vultures’ Picnic, is one of the most maddening things I’ve ever read, as it seeks to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster and uncovers all sorts of malfeasance along the way. In 2006, BP’s pipeline in Alaska dumped over 6,300 barrels of oil in a totally preventable spill. As Palast writes:

The BP/Alyeska pipeline was dripping and ripping. In five years, it had dumped a quarter-million gallons of crude into the tundra. BP’s pipeline is an Exxon Valdez in slow motion. …

Based on the cancers I’d seen in Ecuador, I knew what would happen if this oozing continued. But this is America, not Ecuador, and we don’t let these things happen. So how come it is happening? …

Why is the pipe going to hell? I asked [Inspector Dan Lawn] for just the facts.

“They haven’t pigged it.” That is, they didn’t run the Pipeline Inspection Gauge, the PIG, the robot that runs inside the pipe. If they had, the Smart PIG (one with sensor-feelers) would have squealed at every crack and rusty chunk of the tube.

Sure enough, the records show that 400 miles of the Pipe hadn’t seen a PIG in eight years. Why? It costs up to a million dollars a mile to operate. Four hundred miles, $400 million. BP must have realized it’s cheaper to pay a fine.

All of the recent oil disasters we’ve witnessed are not isolated events. Nor are they mere “accidents.” In their quest for profits, oil companies are eagerly exploiting any new reserve that gets discovered, and the emphasis is always on production, not preservation or even basic caution. The problems at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig and Chevron’s Frade well off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, in other words, are systemic.

Brazilian officials have, thankfully, been very aggressive in holding Chevron accountable. They’ve already levied at least $28 million in fines against the company, and as the investigation into the causes of the spill and Chevron’s response continues, it’s likely that those fines could reach close to $200 million. That’s pocket change for a company that makes $100 million every day, but Brazilian officials have also been openly discussing jail time for the responsible parties at Chevron, and have even discussed kicking Chevron out of the country altogether. This would be a huge blow to Chevron. There’s a reason the company has sunk billions of dollars into its Brazil operations — the oil fields off Brazil’s coast are one of the most significant discoveries in decades, and are expected to drive growth for the oil industry for years to come.

Chevron’s Brazil spill doesn’t only show the dangers of allowing such a reckless company to expand its offshore drilling operations to new countries, however — it shows the danger of expanding offshore drilling operations at all. Companies like Chevron are focused entirely on production and profits, and are completely unequipped to deal with the inevitable disasters that occur. Indeed, Big Oil seems to accept that dumping toxic oil into fragile ecosystems and paying the resulting fines are a mere cost of doing their dirty business.

That’s why companies like Chevron spend millions on lobbying. Right now, Chevron is spending $1 million a day drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. So it’s no surprise that this past quarter, the company spent over $2 million lobbying every federal agency who might have anything to say about its permits or its response to a spill: “In the July-to-September period, Chevron lobbied Congress, the Executive Office of the President, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management & Budget, the National Security Council, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the White House, departments of treasury, interior, commerce, energy and state, according to the October report.”

This is as perverse a situation as I can imagine. Like Naomi says, “Life is too precious to be risked for any profit.” Yet Big Oil is not only doing just that, they’re buying their way into making it legal.

Send an email to Brazil’s environmental officials calling on them to throw the book at Chevron. For once, don’t let Chevron get away with its environmental crimes.

“It’s a bird!” Someone said. “It’s a plane!” Someone else corrected. “It’s a challenge to Chevron CEO John Watson to finally take responsibility for his company’s toxic mess in Ecuador!” The crowd suddenly realized.

Tiger Woods headed into day three of the Chevron-sponsored golf tournament with a three-shot lead. The tournament is an annual event that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, which provides access to educational opportunities for underserved youth. A worthy cause, to be sure — it’s just a shame they’re letting Chevron’s dirty name besmirch the event.

Chevron may ostensibly be supporting access to education for Southern Californians via this event, but the company’s real aim is to ensure itself access to stacks and stacks of cash. The company routinely sponsors these types of charitable events in an attempt to cover up the fact that its business operations are wreaking havoc on the environment and poisoning communities around the world. By greenwashing its dirty name with events like the Chevron World Challenge, the company is hoping to cover up its shameful past so it can continue business as usual and ensure future profits.

One of the most tragic impacts of Chevron’s business operations has been in Ecuador. Rather than take responsibility, however, the company has fought a decades-long legal battle to cleaning up the toxic mess it left in the Ecuadorean Amazon, triggering a human rights and environmental crisis that continues to this day.

A group of Ecuadorean Indigenous and farming communities have won important legal victories against Chevron in both U.S. and Ecuadorean courts in their efforts to bring the company to justice in Ecuador. But CEO Watson and other Chevron executives routinely defy court orders by stating publicly that they will never pay.

Chevron has spent the last 18 years waging unprecedented public relations and legal campaigns to avoid dealing with the environmental and public health catastrophe it left in the Amazon rainforest. That’s why we took action today to challenge Chevron to clean more than its public image and repair the toxic legacy it left in Ecuador.

Activists and concerned citizens from around the world are standing with Bradley Manning. So are Naomi Klein and Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Click to enlarge image.

if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time… … and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?  … say… a database of half a million events during the iraq war… from 2004 to 2009… with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures… ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?

This quote is attributed to PFC Bradley Manning, a 23 year-old intelligence analyst for the U.S. military who was stationed in eastern Baghdad until his arrest last May. It comes from an internet chat log turned over to the FBI by hacker Adrian Lamo, famous originally for his internet activism against large corporations. In these chat logs Bradley allegedly discussed his role in leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

PFC Manning’s case has already drawn the attention of most major news sources, with mixed coverage. On the positive side, he was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was the UK Guardian reader’s choice for the award. Undoubtedly, more Americans will hear of him as the year progresses.

But what should the public think of this undeniably complicated case? And why does discussion of PFC Manning belong here on an environmental blog? I will attempt to answer both of these questions shortly, but first allow me to introduce myself.

I currently work as an organizer for Courage to Resist, a non-profit that supports GI War Resisters facing various sorts of legal and political challenges. However, I organized for environmental justice throughout college and I even spent four months interning at RAN.

Courage to Resist is the fiscal sponsor for the Bradley Manning Support Network, an international movement involving a broad range of organizations and activists. We have taken up the cause of PFC Manning because he is the most prominent GI Resister of our time, and we believe the handling of his case will set a precedent for other government and military whistleblowers. Not only that, but the outcome of PFC Manning’s trial will have a significant influence on the future of our democracy, and the work of those advocating for social change in particular, RAN being no exception.

What we know about PFC Bradley Manning prior to his arrest is that he was a young idealistic man from a working class background. According to a gay rights activist with whom Manning had conversations, Bradley followed his father’s footsteps in joining the army because he had dreams of attending college to study Physics, but did not have the financial resources. Smart, technologically adept, openly queer (a friend once said Bradley credited his participation in anti-DADT marches for sparking his interest in other political issues), he also took the perspective of a world citizen. Although he wished the Army was more friendly to diversity, he hoped that through his service he could spread democracy, and save both U.S. and Iraqi lives.

Because of his technological skills, he was given the job of Intelligence Analyst stationed in Eastern Baghdad. At the beginning of his deployment, he told friends and family that he was happy and proud of his position. It was some time during his deployment that his views began to change. Insight as to why comes from the chat logs attributed to him:

i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything… was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees… everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently… i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

Several months after that incident took place, Bradley Manning was charged with releasing the documents now known as the Collateral Murder video, Iraq War Logs, Afghan War Diary, and U.S. Diplomatic Cables (which included one document which is being credited with the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all troops from Iraq).

The revealed information describes thousands of secret actions of top U.S. State Department and military officials, as well as officials from other governments around the world. Actions that fit into a historical pattern of how wealth and big business influence U.S. relations abroad, but that run contrary to the public image most politicians strive to present. The information he is accused of releasing has been cited in over a third of New York Times editions of the past year. The revealed documents give us tremendous insight into what it truly means to call the United States a world power.

Many environmental organizations, RAN being a prime example, recognize that the immense power of modern multinational corporations is a major threat in the struggle for a just and sustainable world. Beholden to their shareholders and their bottom-line above all else, these corporations stoop to promoting lies about how ethical their operating processes are, debunked by groups such as RAN. They also use their immense financial resources, with larger spending power than many small countries, to influence public policy through backroom lobbying.

Here are some examples of the sorts of environmental crimes revealed through the documents Bradley Manning allegedly gave to WikiLeaks, crimes which have been blogged about by Greenpeace, RAN, and other similar organizations:

• The 2010 BP oil disaster could have been predicted and prevented. It turns out BP had a massive oil blowout in Azerbaijan in 2008 that was very similar in cause and consequence to their blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
• The Fukushima nuclear disaster could also have been avoided. The disaster is now ranked more severe than Chernobyl, due to contamination. Japan was warned two years ago that their nuclear power plants could not withstand a major earthquake.
• The U.S. used spying, threats, and promises of aid to gain support for the Copenhagen Accord. The Copenhagen Climate Accord of 2009 has been criticized by environmental groups across the board, because it is not legally binding and does not commit countries to agree to a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Additionally, although the United States has the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world, the Accord allows us the lowest target for emissions reductions of any industrialized nation, at 17%.
• Peru’s government has secretly admitted that 70-90% of its mahogany exports were illegally felled. Home Depot, Lowe’s and Lumber Liquidators have all confirmed they use the timber in their products. The loggers pose a grave threat to uncontacted Murunahua Indians who could be wiped out by diseases brought by outsiders or face inter-tribal warfare if they are pushed off their lands.
• An Indonesian governor believes that the Indonesian Military keeps more troops in Papua New Guinea than it admits to in order to facilitate illegal logging operations. Additionally, a senior official for Freeport mine, Indonesia’s largest taxpayer, admitted that average Papuans see few benefits from the extractive industries’ revenues.
• Several countries, including the United States, are preparing to fight over Arctic oil. While President Obama publicly declared a commitment to protecting the Arctic’s unique ecosystem and Indigenous culture, State Department correspondence reveals an alarmingly different story.
• A U.S. diplomat warned the Obama administration about significant environmental impacts stemming from Canada’s controversial tar sands oil production program. This contradicts public statements from the State Department that attempt to downplay the environmental impact of the tar sands.
• The U.S. government conspired with Biotech companies to force genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the European Union.
• In correspondence with U.S. officials, the oil giant Shell claimed that it had inserted staff into all main ministries of the Nigerian government, allowing it secret insight and political influence in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
• Chevron executives worked in tandem with U.S. officials to avoid paying $18.2 billion in court-ordered damages after the energy giant acquired Texaco, which had dumped billions of gallons of waste in Indigenous areas.

Looking at this evidence, I conclude that we cannot create a sustainable world for ourselves and fellow living beings without government and corporate transparency and accountability. And we cannot have transparency and accountability of powerful systems without whistleblowers like PFC Bradley Manning.

When Adrian Lamo asked PFC Manning what he hoped to accomplish as a result of the leaks, he allegedly said “hopefully worldwide discussion, debate, and reforms… I want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” It will be nothing short of a tragedy for our democracy if a young, conscientious whistleblower who has exposed so much of the dirty underbelly of foreign diplomacy between powerful economic interests goes to prison for life to prevent the American conscience from being challenged with the truth. The truth that a world led by neoliberal policies and corporations cannot create a more just future. The truth that it’s up to us, as American citizens, to hold our leaders accountable and organize ourselves persistently until we create the world we want to see.

On Monday last week the Military finally announced that after 18 months of incarceration, Bradley’s first day in court will be held on December 16 in the Washington D.C. area. The Bradley Manning Support Network is organizing a demonstration on December 17, which is also Bradley’s birthday, and there will be solidarity actions taking place around the world. Please visit our website for more information.

More resources:

Bradley Manning now faces a military trial and the possibility of life in prison.  Find our petition to free him and other ways you can help here.

Filmmaker Michael Moore recently explained at the #OccupySF general assembly how Bradley Manning helped inspire #OccupyWallStreet. Watch the video.

This post was written by Emma Cape, former RAN intern and current organizer for Courage to Resist.

Photo: Rogerio Santana, via Reuters

Update 12/14/11 06:42PM PST: This is huge: Brazil is suing Chevron and Transocean for $11 billion over their “lack of planning and environmental management.” The suit also seeks to suspend the companies from operating in the country. Brazilian officials obviously meant it when they vowed not to let Chevron get away with its environmental crimes:

Brazilian prosecutors sued Chevron Corp, the No. 2 U.S. oil company, and top offshore oil rig operator Transocean Ltd for 20 billion reais ($10.6 billion) over their alleged roles in a November oil spill near Rio de Janeiro.

The civil suit filed by federal prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro state also seeks to suspend the companies from operating in Brazil, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement on its website on Wednesday, a move that could halt operations of the 10 Transocean offshore drilling rigs operating in the country.

“During investigations the prosecutors found that Chevron and Transocean were not capable of controlling the damages caused by the leakage,” the statement said. “This is evidence of a lack of planning and environmental management by the companies.”

Update 12/14/11 04:00PM PST: Despite what you may have heard: No, Chevron has not stopped the oil leaking from its well off the coast of Brazil yet.

Update 12/12/11 09:34AM PST: Brazilian officials are not satisfied that Chevron has effectively stopped the oil leak from Frade well:

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, may need to drill a relief well at its $3.6 billion Frade project in deep water off Brazil’s coast as part of measures to counter a spill.

The cementing at the Frade well that leaked last month currently “doesn’t guarantee 100 percent efficiency,” Magda Chambriard, a director at the regulator known as ANP, told reporters today in Rio de Janeiro. Drilling a relief well is “one possibility” if Chevron doesn’t convince ANP that the cementing is solidly stuck to the ground, Chambriard said.

A decision on the cementing may be reached as early as next week, Chambriard said.

Chevron may have to pay as much as 350 million reais ($193.5 million) in fines and damages for the Nov. 7 leak of at least 2,400 barrels of crude at the Frade project off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Update 12/09/11 12:00PM PST:Newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo has quoted Magda Chambriard, a director at the Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP), as saying the agency has identified 10 different infractions by Chevron in connection with the oil spill.

Update 12/03/11 01:01PM PST: Brazilian officials keep ratcheting up the rhetoric, now threatening to kick Chevron out altogether if it doesn’t fully clean up after itself. Millions of dollars in fines are not much of a punishment to a company that makes about $100 million a day, but being kicked out of Brazil would certainly be a serious blow. There’s a reason Chevron has spent close to $4 billion on its operations there, after all. Brazil’s offshore oil deposits are expected to be a significant source of growth for the entire oil industry in coming decades.

Update 11/25/11 01:27PM PST: Brazil has suspended all of Chevron’s offshore drilling activities while it investigates the companies “negligent” practices and seeks to hold those responsible accountable. Al Jazeera reports:

Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency said it decided to halt Chevron’s drilling rights after determining that there was evidence that the company had been “negligent” in its study of data needed to drill and in contingency planning for abandoning the well in the event of accident.

The agency, known as ANP, also rejected a request from Chevron to drill deeper wells into subsalt areas in the Frade field where the spill took place.

ANP said Chevron Brazil’s activities were to be suspended until “the cause and those responsible for the spill have been identified and safety conditions have been restored in the area”. …

The US company has already been fined $28m by Brazil’s environmental agency for the spill, an amount that is likely to rise as high as $145m when the ANP and Rio’s state government slap fines on the company, as they have pledged to do.

Anyone familiar with the ongoing battle to bring Chevron to justice in Ecuador knows that the company will do everything it can to protect its profits even at the expense of the planet and human health. That’s why it’s so reassuring to see Brazilian officials being so aggressive in holding Chevron responsible. Let Brazilian officials know you’ve got their back as they seek to hold serial polluter Chevron responsible for its environmental crimes.

Update 11/21/11 12:00PM PST: Well here’s something we didn’t even think the company knew how to do: Chevron has officially taken the blame and accepted responsibility for the oil spill off the coast of Brazil.

It’s very likely a strategic move on Chevron’s part, given the things Brazilian officials have been saying about the company’s response to the spill. All of Chevron’s attempts to deflect blame and criticism have failed, and the company must calculate that it’s time to pretend to show some contrition.

Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency says it’s possible that more than 110,000 gallons of oil have spilled into the Atlantic Ocean. Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira announced that Chevron faces at least $28 million in fines, and possibly several more of similar size as more infractions are uncovered. Here’s a roundup of what else Brazilian officials have been saying about holding Chevron accountable:

“We’re going to show this gang that they can’t come here and create whatever environmental mess they want. I want to see the CEO of Chevron swim in that oil.” – Carlos Minc, Rio de Janeiro state environment minister

“There is no doubt that a crime occurred. The spill comes from the drilling activity. What interests me now is to find who is responsible.” – Fabio Scliar, head of the Federal Police department’s environmental affairs division

“We believe the accident could’ve been avoided. There was an environmental crime. They hid information and their emergency team took almost 10 days to start acting.” – Carlos Minc

Some officials have also been pointing out how unprepared Chevron was to deal with an oil spill. Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, had to alert Chevron to the existence of the spill in the first place. Worse, Chevron had to borrow sonar equipment from Petrobras to determine the exact location of the spill. “The fact that Chevron had to borrow the equipment also shows that it was unprepared to respond to an emergency,” Fabio Scliar says.

No wonder Chevron has decided it’s time to be proactive about actually taking responsibility.

Update 11/20/11 02:45PM PST: Chevron continues its efforts to protect itself first and foremost. Brazil’s Federal Police are reportedly investigating claims that Chevron is using a technique called sandblasting to disperse the oil, which would minimize the appearance of oil on the surface of the ocean but  endanger marine life.

The Rio Times reports:

Brazil’s Federal Police will investigate claims made by State Environment Secretary Carlos Minc, who has accused oil company Chevron of implementing an illegal sandblasting technique to deal with the slick caused by a recent leak in deep-water oil fields off the Rio de Janeiro coastline….

If the accusations are proven, the U.S. oil giant could face environment crimes charges, which could lead to the company being banned from bidding for contracts for the vast “pre-salt” reserves, and even prison sentences of up to four years, Brazilian media reports….

Another police investigation is already underway into the causes of the incident.

The sandblasting technique can seriously affect marine life as, when mixed with the sand, the oil drops to the seafloor.

If these charges are true, it would be the latest in a string of duplicitous actions taken by Chevron since the spill was first reported. Initially, Chevron claimed the oil spill was the result of natural seepage, not its drilling operations, prompting Brazilian officials to publicly confirm that the spill was Chevron’s fault. Later, Brazil’s Federal Police said that Chevron had violated the terms of its drilling license. Throughout this ordeal, Chevron has drastically understated the size of the spill and overstated the extent of its response.

Update 11/18/11 04:32PM PST: Brazilian officials are now reporting that as much as 2,600 barrels may have leaked into the Atlantic as a result of Chevron’s spill. An official with Brazil’s Federal Police is also saying that Chevron apparently violated the terms of its drilling permit. According to the AP:

Nearly 110,000 gallons of oil may have spilled into the Atlantic Ocean because of a leak at an offshore Chevron drilling site, Brazil’s environmental protection agency said Friday.

Officials think between 8,400 to 13,800 gallons of oil leaked each day from Nov. 8 through Tuesday, Ibama said in a statement on its website. Chevron had said that only 16,800 to 27,300 gallons in total leaked into the ocean.

Officials are still investigating the cause of the leak, which has been almost entirely contained, but the Ibama statement said it was a result of drilling.

An official at Brazil’s Federal Police, which has opened an investigation into the spill, said Chevron “drilled about 500 meters (1,640 feet) farther than they were licensed to do.” The official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, said that information came from a person with knowledge of the drilling.

The leak occurred at a drilling site about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Rio state Environment Minister Carlos Minc said earlier he was sure the leak was larger than Chevron estimated and he called for more transparency from the company.

“We can’t trivialize this,” he told the Globo TV network. “It’s really serious and we don’t yet know all the consequences.”

Marine life in the area of the spill will be affected by the leak, Minc said, adding that whales are migrating from north to south through the spill area.

The oil slick, which was moving away from the coast, grew to 11 miles (18 kilometers), Ibama said. Most of the oil was concentrated around the drilling rig in a layer about 3 feet (1 meter) thick.

Update 11/18/11 09:07AM PST: More reports are surfacing of Chevron attempting to deceive Brazilian officials and the public about the extent of its oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Chevron has claimed that somewhere between 400 and 650 barrels of oil has been spilled, and that the leak is contained. But Ana Carolina Oliveira, a spokeswoman for Brazil’s oil regulator, the National Petroleum Agency, told the Associated Press that an estimated 1,000 barrels had leaked to the surface and that it was still unclear if the leak was contained. And as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, satellite imagery shows that the oil spill extends some 918 square miles across the surface of the ocean, leading SkyTruth, a nonprofit that specializes in using satellite imagery to assess environmental problems, to theorize that the spill rate as of Tuesday might have been up to 3,738 barrels per day — almost 10 times what Chevron is reporting.

Here’s the map put together by SkyTruth:

Brazilian officials reiterated that Chevron could face severe penalties as a result of this spill and its insufficient response: “If Chevron is not doing what it should (to contain the spill) it will be severely punished,” Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said Thursday.

Taken together with the fact that Chevron’s claim that it has 18 ships on hand to clean up the spill was directly contradicted by Brazil’s Federal Police agency, which did a flyover of the area and only observed 1 ship doing cleanup, it seems Chevron is in full disaster containment mode — that is, containment of the public relations disaster. As usual, Chevron is placing public perception and how that might affect its future operations and profits above the health of the planet.

It’s easy to see why: The drilling contractor for Chevron’s Frade oil well, which is the source of the spill, is none other than Transocean, the company that actually owned the drilling rig that exploded and sank in April 2010, causing BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. Chevron is probably desperately trying to fend off anyone making that connection. But as DeSmog Blog’s Farron Cousins points out, the similarities are just too eerie to ignore.

Update 11/17/11 10:22AM PST: Brazil’s Federal Police agency has announced that it is investigating the spill, and said in a statement that those responsible could be facing up to 5 years in prison.

According to CNN, Chevron has been fairly duplicitous in reporting the extent of the leak and its response:

Chevron told [Brazil's Oil and Gas Regulator (ANP)] that 18 vessels were on the scene to take care of the clean-up. But according to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, Federal Police did a fly-over of the site Tuesday and saw only one vessel.
“The reports do not correspond with the reality of the facts,” Fabio Scliar, from the police environment department, told Folha de Sao Paulo. “I want to understand what happened.”

ANP said the spill is dispersing and moving away from the Brazilian coast, so it does not appear to threaten Rio’s world-famous beaches. But it does raise questions about how prepared Brazil is for the development of its offshore “pre-salt” deposits, which are expected to turn the country into a major oil exporter in the coming years.

Original Post: After Chevron tried to blame it on natural seepage for a week, officials have confirmed that the oil spill off the Brazilian coast is in fact the result of Chevron’s operations at its Frade well.

Of course, attempting to minimize the damage of its operations in an effort to evade responsibility is nothing new for Chevron. I probably don’t need to even type the word Ecuador here, because you’re probably already thinking it, too.

Every single oil spill Chevron is responsible for but tries to downplay should be a cause of deep concern to all rational human beings on this planet. Chevron is attempting to expand operations everywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to Kurdistan. If you think Chevron would take any more responsibility for an oil spill in the Gulf than it has for its 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorean Amazon, you’re fooling yourself.

To illustrate my point: Chevron has invested $43 billion in its liquid natural gas project, called Gorgon, on Barrow Island off the Western coast of Australia. Environmentalists in Australia were horrified when the project was proposed and protested vigorously to stop Chevron from being allowed to move forward with it, their main argument being that Barrow Island is home to a number of threatened animal species and even several that exist only that island.

It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Chevron’s typical mode of operations that over 1,550 of these rare and threatened animals have been killed so far by the company’s operations. And that’s just what the company has officially reported. But don’t worry, a Chevron spokesman assures us that the company has “a range of measures in place to limit the impact of construction activities on the environment, including lowering speed limits to 40km/h during dusk and dawn when the animals are most active.” Doesn’t do much for all the dead animals, but isn’t it reassuring to know that Chevron is at least pretending to care?

I guess we should be somewhat impressed that Chevron isn’t trying to deny that it’s killing these animals the way it tried to deny it was at fault for the oil slick off Brazil’s coast. The fact that Chevron initially tried to say it wasn’t at fault just shows that the company is determined to never take responsibility for the impacts of its business operations and will use any means necessary to evade cleaning up after itself, just like in Ecuador.

Greenpeace protesters at Chevron's offices in Rio de Janeiro with a banner reading "Your mess, our problem."

So the question becomes: How much longer are countries around the world going to let this rapacious, greedy company enter their borders in its unending quest for profit? An Australian reporter already asked a Chevron spokesmanstraight up, “Why should we trust you?” How many more countries will ask the same exact question when Chevron comes knocking?

Seems like that’s a question Chevron management needs to be asking themselves, too — but somehow I get the feeling their too busy counting their fat stacks of obscene profits instead.

As a refresher: Diego Borja is the guy who claimed in 2009 that he had video showing the Ecuadorean judge presiding over the lawsuit against Chevron accepting a bribe. Chevron breathlessly announced the bribery “scandal” and claimed Borja was just a concerned citizen with no connection to the company.

Diego Borja - Chevron Human Rights Hitman

As it turned out, Borja was a Chevron contractor. And the video didn’t actually show any bribe taking place – because there had not actually been any bribe. Borja’s attempt to entrap the judge failed. Though he’d done nothing wrong, the Ecuadorean judge did recuse himself in order to ensure the trial was not tainted by the false allegations against him. His recusal caused at least a two-year delay in the trial.

For these shameful actions, we named Borja one of Chevron’s “Human Rights Hitmen.”

Borja’s lawyer, San Francisco-based Ted Cassman, has now made the rather unusual admission that his client could face potential criminal liability for his role in the failed sting operation.

The Amazon Defense Coalition has the scoop:

Borja, who Chevron moved to the United States just before the scandal became public in August 2009, is already under investigation by criminal prosecutors in Ecuador. He lives in an undisclosed location in Houston, where Chevron pays him a salary to maintain his loyalty while he does no work, said [Karen] Hinton, [U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians who are fighting Chevron to clean-up their ancestral lands].

Casselman made the comments about Borja’s potential criminal liability in the U.S. on September 28th in San Francisco during a discovery hearing where Chevron’s lawyers are fighting feverishly to prevent the release of documents related to the entrapment scheme. The Ecuadorian plaintiffs believe Borja’s actions on behalf of Chevron could violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits American businesses from bribing foreign officials, said Hinton.

The plaintiffs also believe Chevron helped Borja secure political asylum in the United States under false pretenses so he would be out of reach of Ecuadorian investigative authorities, Hinton added.

The plaintiffs assert that the documents sought from Borja and the Mason Investigative Group will shed light on what they call Chevron’s Nixon-style “dirty tricks” campaign to undermine the Ecuador trial. In phone conversations taped by a friend after the sting became public, Borja confessed that he had set up dummy corporations for Chevron, doctored scientific sampling results that were submitted to the court, and had information that would allow the plaintiffs to win the litigation immediately. He also bragged to his friend on the tapes that “crime does pay.”

Marina Aguinda Lucitante, an elder of the Cofán tribe in Ecuador.

Amazon Watch’s Mitch Anderson shared this story from Lago Agrio, Ecuador to mark the 18th anniversary of the lawsuit to hold Chevron accountable for its oil pollution.

The sprawl of scorched pavement and crumbling cement buildings in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. This city, once a small oil boom town founded by Texaco in the late 1960s (and given, appropriately, the name “Sour Lake” after Texaco’s hometown in Texas) is now a bewildering and feverish mess of oil workers, drug-traffickers, street children, shop owners, impoverished farmers, and indigenous people stripped of their ancestral territory and forced to survive, as the Cofán people say, in the kokama kuri sindipa ande (the white man’s world of money).

Just several days ago, at the edge of the pavement on the outskirts of the city, where the Cofán people have recovered (yes, purchased) a narrow tract of their ancestral territory, I spent the afternoon with Marina Aguinda Lucitante, an elder of the tribe. She was born along the banks of the Agua Rico river. She was married at a young age to a Cofán Shaman, Guillermo Quenama, who died, she says, “because the oil company poisoned him with alcohol.” She remembers when the forest was filled with animals. And she remembers when the river ran black with crude oil. She seems to remember everything — and all of her memories are divided: life before the oil company and life after the oil company.

It has been nearly 50 years since Texaco began oil operations here in the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Nearly 50 years since the death of Marina’s husband, Guillermo Quenama. And over that time, the impacts of Texaco’s (now Chevron’s) reckless pump and dump oil operations have been well documented. The abandoned oil pits littered throughout the rainforest, the billions of gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into rivers and streams, the felled primary forest, the noxious gases rising into the sky from 24 hour-a-day flaring, the crude oil sprayed on the roads, the towering black plumes of smoke from spilled and burning crude, the resultant public health crisis wracking indigenous and mestizo farmer communities, including cancer, spontaneous miscarriages, and birth defects.

But what has not been documented — what cannot possibly be understood by anyone who has not been here to endure the last 50 years of oil operations — is how the oil conquest has affected the spiritual life, the inner world, of those who live here.

Today, which marks the 18th anniversary of the monumental legal struggle against Chevron for massive environmental crimes in the Amazon rainforest, Marina has asked me to share with the world a song that she has been carrying within her for these last 50 years. Marina is one of the last Cofán women who remember how to sing in the way of her ancestors. This is her song.

Well, in honor of RAN’s big annual bash, Revel, the Yes Men put together this mini-documentary about how it all went down. You have to see it to believe how arrogant Chevron really is: Not only did the company apparently believe we were all stupid enough to fall for such blatant greenwashing of its horrendous environmental and human rights history (prompting us to create ChevronThinksWereStupid.org), but even reached out to green bloggers and street artists to help out. Those folks were horrified, of course, and came to us to help completely deflate Chevron’s new PR campaign.

Anyway, check out the video below — and then stay tuned, because we’re going to be having some more fun with Chevron’s PR efforts in the near future.

Last year Chevron made over $19 billion, which you may notice is more than the $18 billion it has been ordered to pay by an Ecuadorean court that found Chevron guilty of deliberately dumping a massive amount of oil pollution in the Amazon. The company could pay for the cleanup out of last year’s profits alone, and still have a BILLION dollars left over.

And now Chevron has already made more than it did in all of last year in the first three quarters of 2011. The company just announced third quarter profits of $7.8 billion, more than twice what it made in the third quarter of 2010. In the first and second quarter of this year, Chevron made $6.2 billion and $7.7 billion, respectively. Given that in those three quarters alone Chevron has already made $21.7 billion – almost $3 billion more than it did in all of last year – I don’t need to tell you that profits have been up every quarter of 2011.

Where have these obscene profits been coming from? It’s not because Chevron is working harder. Production has actually been down all year.

Chevron and the other Big Oil companies are raking it in thanks to high oil and gas prices. Oil apologists will tell you that the companies don’t set gas prices – it just laughs all the way to the bank while we face increasing pain at the pump. Well, fine, even if we’re willing to let Chevron off the hook when it hides behind “the free market” to explain its exorbitant income, no one can dispute that the company chooses where to spend its extra money.

Chevron has spent millions lobbying the US and the Ecuadorean governments to get out of its obligation to clean up the Amazon. It has spent millions more on the ridiculous “We Agree” greenwash campaign in a failed attempt to convince the public that it actually cares about communities and the environment. It pays executives like CEO John Watson huge salaries. It spent nearly 20% of its profits on stock buybacks, which does little more than enrich shareholders.

While the company likes to argue that it re-invests its billions in the communities where it operates, the LA Times has deflated that bogus talking point pretty thoroughly. The bottom line is that if Chevron really cared about anything but money it would have cleaned up its mess in Ecuador – and countless other communities around the world that have also suffered from a Chevron “investment” – a long time ago.

Specifically, Gheit is saying that a recent decision by the US Supreme Court to hear a case over Shell’s alleged violations of human rights in Nigeria has clear implications for Chevron. “If you open the case for Shell, you have to open it for Ecuador,” Gheit told Platts. He also claimed that the trial over Chevron’s massive oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon had become a “distraction” for the company’s management and that it’s time for Chevron’s legal team to “rethink their position.”

Another analyst, Mark Gilman of Benchmark Capital, adds that the unresolved Ecuador case puts a “3-5% ‘discount’” on Chevron’s stock. Gilman goes even further, saying that he believes “the shares are undervalued significantly more than that.”

But the absolute best quote of the Platts article was from Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson, who said: “I’m not sure I see how a ruling from the US Supreme Court, regardless of which way it goes, would have any influence over Ecuador’s courts.” This from a guy whose whole job has been to defend Chevron’s aggressive, endless litigation strategy with regards to its pollution in Ecuador, which has included seeking to get a court in New York to establish a “worldwide injunction” barring enforcement of the $18 billion judgment Chevron is facing in Ecuador.

US federal judge Lewis Kaplan did issue an injunction at Chevron’s behest, but the injunction was thrown out by an appeals court this past September, clearing the way for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs to seek enforcement of the judgment in countries where Chevron has assets should Chevron continue to refuse to pay to clean up its mess.

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli

Of course, it’s not just analysts expressing concerns over Chevron’s Ecuador liability: Shareholders are also requesting that the company reevaluate its endless litigation strategy. Many shareholders feel a more productive approach might be to reach a settlement that would provide proper remediation for past damages and allow Chevron to put this controversy behind it.

Thomas DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller and trustee for the $146.9 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, recently raised this issue in a Huffington Post op-ed entitled “What Chevron Owes the People of Lago Agrio,” in which he stated: “Chevron must do what’s right for its investors, and its future viability, by negotiating a fair settlement that restores the company’s reputation. Chevron, its shareholders and the general public have not and will not benefit from a never-ending courtroom drama.”

“How can we trust you with our land and our Indigenous people, when you’ve done this here in the Amazon?” Australian reporter Mike Munro asks Chevron spokesman James Craig.

This is the type of question Chevron can expect in any country it goes to from now until the company finally does the right thing and takes responsibility for the environmental and human rights catastrophe it created in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Chevron is investing heavily in liquid natural gas projects in western Australia off the Kimberley coast, which is why Munro asked James Craig, “How can we trust you with our land…?” Here’s one of many reasons the Kimberley is worth protecting (read the top 10 here):

The Kimberley’s coastal waters are a world class marine wonderland — with amazing coral reefs, sea grass meadows, sponge gardens and mangroves supporting the world’s largest population of humpback whales, as well as rare and threatened snubfin dolphins, sawfish, turtles, dugongs and a vast array of fish species — and so much more that has never been studied.

There are already some 500 Indigenous people working at some 24 Indigenous-owned tourism companies in the Kimberley. Yet, in a pattern that has become all-too-familiar, Chevron wants to trade their long-term survival, and the long-term health of the Kimberley coastal ecosystem, for its own short-term gain.

And as we’ve seen time and again, Chevron thinks it’s above the law. Hell, Chevron thinks it’s above even human decency. Australians are right not to trust Chevron will do what’s right for their country.

It will be interesting to see how Chevron responds to this piece. Typically when someone speaks the truth about Chevron’s business operations, the company tries to bully them into silence. My prediction: Get ready for a lawsuit, Mike Munro.

This Wednesday evening, The Yes Men will be honored with the Art of Activism Award at Rainforest Action Network’s annual gala REVEL. I interviewed Andy and Mike before the big night to hear the latest on their hijinx, arrests, lawsuits and revolution… As well as the true identity of one Mr. Alessio Rastani.

During a recent interview with BBC, the self-proclaimed “stock market trader and trainer” Alessio Rastani revealed sentiments which few traders were previously willing to admit, like dreaming about recessions to capitalize off of and his now infamous quote: “The governments don’t rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world.”

The Internet went wild with theories that Alessio Rastani was part of The Yes Men, and Huffington Post UK even published wild speculations that Alessio was indeed Andy Bichlbaum. What do you have to say about all this?

It’s flattering to be associated with a rare moment of televised honesty coming from a trader. Unlike most of the bigger fish who play the financial markets, Rastani did something decent by warning the 99 percent of us who are not filthy rich about the slow collapse of the markets. That’s a hell of a lot more decent than the likes of Goldman Sachs, who have a well-documented history of lies and obstruction which are all designed to fleece more people at the bottom of their pyramid schemes.

You’ve pulled off dozens of hoaxes — posing as Dow Chemical apologizing for Bhopal, derailing Chevron’s “We Agree” ad campaign, and even distributing a fake edition of the New York Times announcing the end of the war in Iraq. Which prank has personally been the most fun? Which do you feel has been the most impactful in the world?

Fun and impact don’t always go hand in hand.

They are separate questions.

Our action with RAN and Amazon Watch against Chevron’s absurd “We Agree” greenwashing campaign was definitely among the most successful. It was successful at torpedoing the launch of Chevron’s campaign, but it was also very fun to watch so many folks join in on the action. Each time more hilarious remixed ads got sent into the site, we had another good laugh at Chevron’s expense. As for the most impact: We don’t really know… but even if we had the money I don’t think we’d hire a giant multinational company to find out!

You’ve made it this far with few arrests (one due to an unpaid ticket for cycling through Washington Square Park) and even fewer lawsuits, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit back in ’09 in response to your announcement at the National Press Club that the Chamber had reversed its stance on climate change. What’s the latest update? Are they still just as pissed?

The Chamber lawsuit against us is sitting on a judge’s desk in Washington, where it’s been for the last two years. It could in theory move ahead at any moment. The Chamber are still, of course, horrid!

The Yes Men Fix the World was indeed the most laugh-out-loud documentary I’ve ever seen. Rumor has it you’ve got another one coming. Tell us about The Yes Men Are Revolting: A Feature Length Call to Arms.

For years we’ve been doing our thing as the Yes Men, and now we’re making our methods available to more folks than ever through the Yes Lab. But our methods are good for tactical interventions – and if we want to see big changes, which we need right now to save us from ourselves, we need to move into strategy. We need mass action, and some places in the world have been getting it. So we’re jumping on board – trying to join the non-violent revolutionary movements that intend to displace the system we’ve got with something sustainable.

So few people know this, but the two of you actually have “real” paying jobs on top of all the work you do devising elaborate hoaxes. What are you up to exactly?

We teach. Andy is at NYU, and Mike is at RPI. Luckily, that lets us do our thing… and we have lots of great students who come work with us to join in on some Yes Lab action.

Your focus seems to be moving from professional pranksterism to fostering revolution. What’s the bridge between the two and how are you crossing it?

Revolution requires creativity and a sense of humor! Every non-violent revolution needs creative communication, to build the ranks of the movement, to give it an identity and to speak to people who are not already in the streets. Whether you look at Women’s Suffrage, the Indian Independence Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, or even the recent revolutions of the “Arab Spring” you can find lots of examples of creative acts that were deployed tactically to contribute to the movement and to the success of revolution. That’s what we’re trying to work on, in whatever way that we can.

The cables, written by U.S. officials, show that Chevron engaged in a covert lobbying campaign aimed at getting the Ecuadorean government to intervene in the lawsuit brought against the company by thousands of rural and Indigenous Ecuadoreans over massive oil contamination in the Amazon (see the cables here, here, here and here). Intervention in judicial matters by the government of Ecuador is, of course, forbidden by the country’s Constitution. Nonetheless, Chevron tried to barter with the administration of President Raphael Correa: If the administration would break the law and save Chevron from having to clean up its mess, the company would return the favor by funding “social projects” in Ecuador. (Which begs the question: Why not just fund clean up of your mess, Chevron?)

But that’s not even why these revelations are so embarrassing for the company. You might recall that Chevron filed racketeering charges against the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and their US lawyers earlier this year. Those charges were based in part on allegations that the plaintiffs were colluding with the government of Ecuador to improperly influence the judiciary to rule against Chevron. You see where I’m going with this: At the very same time that Chevron’s lawyers in the US were attempting to build a racketeering case, Chevron’s operatives in Ecuador were engaging in the very criminal conduct Chevron was accusing the plaintiffs of.

Those racketeering charges were part of Chevron’s aggressive “Blame The Victim” legal strategy, which all came toppling down on Monday. When the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NYC threw out a preliminary injunction that barred enforcement of an $18 billion judgment finding Chevron guilty of polluting the Amazon, it also indefinitely postponed the trial over the racketeering charges.

No wonder Oppenheimer oil and gas analyst Fadel Gheit is speculating that Chevron CEO “John Watson is not a happy camper today.” Watson was a key player in Chevron’s purchase of Texaco in 2001, and the appeals court’s decision clears the way for seizure of Chevron assets to pay off the $18 billion judgment if the company continues to refuse to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights catastrophe in the Amazon.

Not a good week for Chevron at all. Which means the Ecuadoreans suffering from Chevron’s oil pollution are that much closer to seeing justice served at long last.

The decision comes after a hearing last Friday in which Chevron’s lawyers were all but laughed out of a New York courtroom while attempting to defend the “worldwide injunction” that barred enforcement of the judgment.

I had the pleasure of being in the courtroom that day, and needless to say, I left feeling some justice was finally served. After months of watching Chevron’s lawyers have their way in their attempts to shield the company from having to clean up its mess in Ecuador, it finally seems there is an American court willing to hear both sides.

The legal details: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction ordered by US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, which would have prohibited the Ecuadorean plaintiffs from enforcing the $18 billion judgment outside of Ecuador. This is a major victory for the 30,000 Ecuadoreans affected by Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon. It’s unusual for a court of appeals to completely reverse a lower court’s decision, but in this case it was obvious that Chevron and their legal hacks have continued to abuse the law and that Judge Kaplan rushed to implement a judgment without considering the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.

Jim Tyrrell, the attorney who argued for the Ecuadoreans before the Second Circuit, said of the court’s ruling: “We are very excited that the court has reached this decision,” calling it “a triumph of the rule of law over the sensationalism created by Chevron’s PR department.”

The preliminary injunction was probably futile and potentially illegal anyway, according to several international law scholars who reviewed the case. Why Judge Kaplan issued an injunction so far outside of his jurisdiction is anyone’s guess. He continually refers to the plaintiffs as the “so-called Ecuadorean plaintiffs,” as if their existence or the horrifying conditions they live in is somehow in question. He even allegedly suggested to Chevron’s lawyers that they should file racketeering charges against the Ecuadoreans and their US lawyers – which Chevron did.

In its decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals also indefinitely stayed the trial over the racketeering charges, which was scheduled to begin later this month.

In the meantime, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who shared Servio Curipoma’s story last week to let Chevron and Judge Kaplan know that the Ecuadorean plaintiffs are very real and for over 20 years have continued to fight for justice.

It’s important that we celebrate this historic milestone, but just as important that we continue to push Chevron to redirect the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on litigation and PR into cleaning up its toxic legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.