After winning a $9.5 billion lawsuit in a court of Chevron's own choosing, human rights attorney Steven Donziger finds himself imprisoned after being prosecuted by a private law firm and denied a trial by jury.
Sara McMillen, Chevron Chief Environmental Scientist
Read Amazon Defense Coalition's September 2006 report: "Chevron's Dirty Business In Ecuador: 13 Examples That Expose a Corporate Cover-up."
Excerpt of questions to Chevron CEO Mike Wirth by Rep. Rashida Tlaib during House Oversight Committee hearing on Oct 28, 2021. The report Tlaib is referring to is "CHEVRON'S GLOBAL DESTRUCTION: Ecocide, Genocide and Corruption."
Definitive proof of Chevron's Devastation to People and the Planet can be found in the films, photos, interviews, reports and articles on this website.
Nine House Democrats on Tuesday called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene in the case of a former environmental lawyer who has alleged his prison sentence is in retaliation for his work against Chevron.
Chevron has used vast financial resources, political muscle, bribes, and retaliatory litigations to squash lawsuits and incident reports from communities and countries affected by their oil and gas extraction. Chevron appears to be among the most destructive oil companies in the world, destroying land and ocean ecosystems, poisoning rivers and streams, eliminating livelihoods, ravaging communities, and financing paramilitary violence, while filing frivolous and punitive litigations against anyone who dares to hold the company responsible for its crimes.
In response to lawsuits brought by national governments, indigenous communities, and other plaintiffs against Chevron oil company, one Chevron lobbyist told Newsweek, "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this." When indigenous communities in Ecuador attempted to hold Chevron responsible for one of the most massive oil spills in history, the company threatened the victims with "a lifetime of litigation."
The World's Worst Oil Related Disaster You've Never Heard Of.
Crude (The Story of Chevron — Texaco's Ecuador Disaster) by Joe Berlinger.
Lawrence O'Donnell interviews Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson about Chevron's corruption of the U.S. Judicial System in their case against human rights lawyer Steven Donziger. Chevron bribed key witnesses: "This testimony was fabricated."
Powerful documentation of Chevron's Ecocide in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest.
"I have seen many, many oppressive judges, and I have seen many, many rigged court systems. The way this is rigged is peculiar and amazing in New York. Nothing like this has ever happened before in the American legal system."
"It's how governments and big businesses, like Chevron, connive with each other to ignore the rule of law in order to further their aim. So, their aims are to fill the pockets of the oligarchs with money at the expense of the ordinary people of the world who are dying as we speak."
"Mr. Donziger's pre-trial home confinement is stunningly unique and never before seen in U.S. history for a person charged with a misdemeanor. In this ... the private prosecution fails to cite any case, from any federal jurisdiction, in the entire history of pre-trial release, where a misdemeanor defendant has been held in home confinement for a single day, let alone for 27-plus months."
"For refusing to turn over his confidential case files for the oil company to review, Donzinger has been on unprecedented house arrest. Scores of Nobel laureates are calling for Donziger to be freed. I stand with them to claim justice for the Ecuadorian communities who lost many loved ones due to toxic oil pollution as result of Chevron's illegal practices."
"Chevron now has paid millions of dollars which they could have used to make up for this horrible racist dumping into the Amazon and instead they chose to silence and persecute Steven. Why? Because it's also a signal to other activists, to other people who are trying to save our environment that you will have dire consequences if you open your mouth."
"U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska is expressing the outrage of Chevron, and by extension all oil companies, at the audacity of Steven Donziger and by extension the entire environmentalist movement to challenge its hegemony. It's meant to have a chilling effect on any of us in the environmental movement or just citizens of the planet who say this has got to stop."
"Cancer rates are off the charts as are the sickness and deaths of babies and children. It's so inhumane what I witnessed that Chevron has done to thousands of Indigenous people. Their water is polluted and their land will grow nothing. Their lives were perfectly delightful before Chevron /Texaco came along. Now their lives are hell!"
"To survive one has to poison oneself with contaminated water. Until ChevronTexaco addresses the environmental damage it has caused in Ecuador, it should be treated as an outlaw company that does not deserve the right to do further business or make further investments in any country anywhere in the world."
"I am in shock by the judicial system and how they are treating my friend and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger. This cesspool of toxic waste in the oil has damaged the life of this community. Chevron Oil must be held accountable. Please join me in the movement to stand up for Steven and Ecuador's victims of this tragedy."
"Chevron partners with corrupt political leaders, judges, governments and dictatorships and is complicit in the crimes of genocide and ecocide in 31 countries. Its executives believe they can ruthlessly run roughshod over anyone, with impunity, who gets in their way. Globally, we must all fight hard to end Chevron's crime spree."
"Chevron's Amazon oil has fueled cars, homes, and businesses in my state of California for decades, but I will not reward a company that devastates the environment and brings disease and death to men, women and children to save money, Every time I see a Chevron gas station, I just drive by and I hope you will too until they make it right for their victims in the Amazon!"
"Entire villages of people wiped out. Everything they lived on and off is poisoned! You just go to the side of any creek bed and you just stir it with your finger, and these rainbows of oil slick come up on top of the water. It's heartbreaking. There's epidemics of cancers, every kind of cancer, in children, in babies, in women, and men."
"The black area that you see here is oil. There must have been a pit here, a pit that Texaco dug to dump the toxic waste. And here we see a few meters away, oil continues to spill out and contaminate the environment."
"Someone has called this the rainforest Chernobyl... it's somewhere about three times the amount of oil dumped here than dumped by Exxon Valdez? It's the worse oil contamination in history. It's an area the size of Rhode Island that used to be paradise. That's the tragedy of it. It used to be paradise. And now it's toxic."
"Your lives don't matter to them my friends...They don't care about what you think or how many of your children die or how many people truly have cancer or how many women continue to miscarry. The only thing they care about is their money."
"He successfully sued oil giant Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Indigenous people for deliberately discharging 16 billion gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Yet Chevron has not paid a dime and instead turned Donziger into the one doing time. Let's do our best to help Steven Donziger and thousands of Chevron's victims."
"I have seen firsthand the reality of the aftermath of Chevron's actions in Ecuador. I met many people there who have lost their parents, their children, and who are losing heir own lives. The area is besieged with oil-related illnesses; families are plagued with extremely elevated levels of childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, birth defects, and other serious oil-related health impacts."
"The key ally of Chevron was Judge Lewis Kaplan, who came from a corporate law firm before he was appointed to his position, where he represented the tobacco industry... And Judge Kaplan proceeded to do such partisan maneuvers and denial of due process, the likes of which I've rarely read about in American judicial history."
"67% of Amazon crude from Ecuador comes to the U.S. Chevron still refines 17% of that oil - profiting daily from the destruction of Indigenous lives and territories as well as the world's largest rainforest. To date, the company has spent nearly $2 billion fighting its court-ordered mandate to pay $9.5 billion in cleanup and community reparations costs that it is responsible for in Ecuador."
"Chevron refused to pay the settlement and instead racked up $1B in legal fees to hire 50 law firms and over 2000 lawyers to obstruct the judgement and go to war against Steven Donziger. They have bankrupted his family and threatened the 30,000 indigenous plaintiffs with a lifetime of litigation."
"Steven Donziger performed a major service, for all of us, by exposing the shocking activities of Chevron. His reward? To be targeted by a vicious corporate-judicial campaign relying on the vast resources of the corporation whose malfeasance he exposed, and to be subjected to harsh punishment. This is not only a disgraceful miscarriage of justice, but also — as no doubt intended — a warning to others daring to expose the crimes of powerful corporate institutions."
"Imagine if instead of a movie telling my story, I'd gone to jail. That's essentially what has happened to Steve Donziger. And, since this litigation started in 1993, Chevron has not paid a cent or performed any cleanup. So far the only people who have paid for Chevron's alleged behavior are Donziger and those affected by the contamination — the poor and indigenous Ecuadorians who continue to live every day with the pollution's effects."
"Chevron's outrageous legal bullying is a familiar story to refinery neighbors in Richmond, CA. I've been one of them for ten years, an experience described in my book, Refinery Town. Richmond activists have formed a community-labor coalition to challenge Chevron's pollution of local politics and the planet. Our cross-border alliances with Chevron foes from Ecuador to Myanmar are a crucial part of the fight to hold Big Oil accountable."
Coming soon.
Entertainer Cher Says "Drive Past Chevron Until They Fix Their Mess in Ecuador."
Actor Danny Glover Speaking in Ecuador Supports Campaign tp Hold Chevron Accountable.
Musician Roger Waters Tells Chevron's CEO, Mike Wirth, "It's Time to Finally Clean Up Ecuador."
Actor Daryl Hannah Reports, "Entire Villages of People Wiped Out. Everything They Lived On and Off Is Poisoned!"
Actor/Activist Susan Sarandon speaking at the Free Steven Donziger block party in celebration of his release from 993 days of house arrest at the hands of Chevron's corrupt judges.
Let's Beat Chevron Campaign Director Ray Rogers speaking at the Free Steven Donziger block party in celebration of his release from 993 days of house arrest at the hands of Chevron's corrupt judges.
Chevron, on the surface, appears to be an impenetrable bastion of power because of the company's wealth, Wall Street and political connections and global reach. In reality, Chevron is nothing more than an intricate web of individual, corporate, financial and political interests — some more vital and vulnerable than others — that can be successfully challenged through a sophisticated divide and conquer strategy defined as a Corporate Campaign.
Exploited people and their communities can not confront ruthless corporations like Chevron and expect to gain justice — or any meaningful concessions — unless they are backed by a significant force of power. A Corporate Campaign is not simply a campaign against a corporation, but is a well researched, planned and executed strategy enabling exploited people and communities to triumphantly confront power with power.
The corrupt board members and executives running Chevron must be held accountable for "Chevron's Global Destruction" involving "Ecocide, Genocide, and Corruption." Whatever the costs, scofflaw Chevron must clean up its toxic waste pits in Ecuador, compensate its victims and stop ravaging communities and destroying lives and livelihoods throughout the world in order to amass obscene profits and pay exorbitant compensation to its executives and board members.
Justice demands nothing less. — Ray Rogers, Director, Corporate Campaign, Inc.
To learn more about Corporate Campaign, please visit CorporateCampaign.org
Emergildo Criollo, leader of the Cofan tribe of Amazonian Ecuador.
About a decade passed. I met my wife. She got pregnant and was drinking water that we didn't know was contaminated. My son was born but didn't grow well. He died at just six months. I took him to a hospital in Quito but they couldn't do anything.
Then our second son was born. I would take him to the river to swim. One day at the river he drank the water and started vomiting and vomiting. He soon started vomiting blood. Within 24 hours, he was dead too.
After seeing this, I realized we couldn't drink from the river. We started digging wells and looking for subterranean water, which we hoped was cleaner.
After being exposed my wife became ill. She had uterine cancer and had to have a hysterectomy. She was never the same after, always in pain.
The women suffered as well. The Cofan women never had miscarriages before. With Texaco and the contamination there were suddenly many miscarriages and children born with abnormalities. There has been so much pain for our women.
This continues today. People are dying of cancer and oil-related illness. They just left so many open oil pits and never cleaned up. (Read Emergildo Criollo's Whole Story)
In Ecuador, Chevron is viewed as a deacon of death brought on by decades of toxic pollution the company refuses to clean up even when ordered by a court. Chevron owes Ecuador $9.5 billion and they need to cough it up.
Chevron's acts like a champion of children by donating to organizations such as the Children's Miracle Network and other notable children's charities. This is done to propagandize the media into believing a lie.
From 1964 to 1990, the oil company Texaco knowingly and willfully polluted the Ecuadorian Amazon. During that period, the company deliberately dumped over 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled approximately 17 million gallons of crude oil and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits it had dug in the forest floor. When Chevron agreed to purchase Texaco in 2000, it also became owner of "the Amazon Chernobyl" created by that company.
In a 1993 suit against Texaco, some 30,000 indigenous people and campesino farmers sought restitution from the company. Fearing a jury trial in the US, Chevron, the new owner, petitioned that the case be heard in Ecuador. Contrary to its expectations, Chevron was found guilty in the case in 2011 and in all appeals leading to the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, which in 2013 upheld the previous judgments. Chevron was ordered to pay $9.5 billion to clean up its mess.
Rather than do so, Chevron sold its Ecuadorian assets, left the country and began a high- powered attack against the victims along with one of their attorneys, Steven Donziger. Hiring public relations firms and approximately 2,000 lawyers, including those from the "rescue squad" firm of Gibson Dunn, Chevron threatened the victim communities with a "lifetime of litigation" and vowed to fight the judgment "until Hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice."
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth Trying to Explain Why the Company Needed $20 MILLION in U.S. Taxpayer Subsidies.
Chevron bilked U.S. taxpayers for $19.3 MILLION between 2019 and 2021 according to Subsidy Tracker while simultaneously lobbying against polices that would fight the global climate crisis.
As the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in 2021: "Chevron is thumbing its nose at its own shareholders, who voted for corporate climate lobbying disclosure. Chevron's new report is worse than a box-ticking exercise, it's greenwashing. Shareholders should roundly reject this report and send Chevron back to the drawing board. Corporate reporting on climate policy advocacy and lobbying is fast becoming the norm among European oil and gas companies and Chevron should not be allowed to make a mockery of such reports."
Profiteers most responsible, currently, who must be held accountable for Chevron's poisoning : Chevron board members CEO Michael Wirth, Wanda Austin, John Frank, Alice Gast, Enrique Hernandez, Marilyn Hewson, Jon Huntsman, Charles Moorman, Dambisa Moyo, Debra Reed-Klages, Ronald Sugar, Jim Umpleby...Societies need to be protected from the greed of these white collar criminals!
Profiteers most responsible, currently, who must be held accountable for Chevron's poisoning: Chevron board members CEO Michael Wirth, Wanda Austin, John Frank, Alice Gast, Enrique Hernandez, Marilyn Hewson, Jon Huntsman, Charles Moorman, Dambisa Moyo, Debra Reed-Klages, Ronald Sugar, Jim Umpleby...Societies need to be protected from the greed of these white collar criminals!
Profiteers most responsible, currently, who must be held accountable for Chevron's poisoning: Chevron board members CEO Michael Wirth, Wanda Austin, John Frank, Alice Gast, Enrique Hernandez, Marilyn Hewson, Jon Huntsman, Charles Moorman, Dambisa Moyo, Debra Reed-Klages, Ronald Sugar, Jim Umpleby...Societies need to be protected from the greed of these white collar criminals!