It’s in our nature to fight

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117715″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Ecuador is not a safe country for environmental defenders. They are criminalised, threatened, attacked and even assassinated for attempting to uphold the rights of nature decreed in the constitution.

While the overt incitement to hatred against environmental activists ended when Lenin Moreno replaced Rafael Correa as president in 2017, and some imprisoned indigenous leaders were freed, the intimidation and threats continue.

In 2018, there were several attacks against members of the Collective of Amazonian Women who work to defend the Amazon region from oil and mining. Margoth Escobar had her house set on fire and Patricia Gualinga, from Sarayaku, had rocks thrown through her bedroom windows at night. Others received death threats.

The same year, three water defenders – including Yaku Pérez Guartambel, then president of indigenous peoples’ organisation Ecuarunari – were kidnapped by mine workers, believed to have been following orders from above. An angry mob kicked, dragged and tortured Pérez Guartambel, accusing him of leading anti-mining efforts. They planned on crucifying him and started gathering materials until a group of journalists broke through with cameras and rescued him.

Since a 2019 uprising of indigenous peoples in the country, the government has more forcefully set its sights on the indigenous movement as the internal enemy to be defeated.

Indigenous leaders are repeatedly persecuted and intimidated. The repressive apparatus has been strengthened, with millions of dollars allocated for the provision of equipment for the police and military. The creation of a new legal framework in May 2020 would have enabled the deployment of the military to control internal order. This would have provided protection to strategic sectors such as mining, against which indigenous communities have been struggling for years.

In May 2021, right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso assumed the presidency in Ecuador, ending more than a decade of left-wing rule. Index on Censorship spoke to Franco-Brazilian academic and indigenous rights activist Manuela Picq about what the change means for censorship. After marrying Yaku Pérez Guartambel in an indigenous ceremony, Picq was herself censored by the government of Rafael Correa, which forced her into a three-year exile.

“There are many ways of censoring. We have seen traditional censorship mostly from the left in Ecuador, by Correa in particular, who implemented very repressive media legislation and enforced it with violent oppression. Then there are other forms of censorship, which are not traditionally recognised as such, the neo-liberal way of buying support. Under Lasso, journalists and media outlets are not fulfilling their critical role because they receive so much state advertising revenue. I see this as a form of censorship, when the public is left uninformed about the government’s activities, which happen largely in the dark. In this context, whistle blowers will play a critical role,” said Picq.

“This is a weak government that has been forced to ally with Pachakutik, the political party of Ecuador’s indigenous movement, which is currently presiding over congress. This means Lasso will carry out his agenda in the most discreet way possible, to avoid being overthrown. So, mining in indigenous territories, or the privatisation of the public sector will be labelled as “development”. We are relieved in Ecuador that we no longer have Correa-ism, with its traditional, explicit forms of censorship, but we should not underestimate the other forms of censorship that are more subtle and insidious.”

The multicoloured people

Jimmy Piaguaje is a young indigenous Siekopai defender from Siekoya Remolino, a community of 53 families living on the banks of the Aguarico River in the north-eastern Ecuadorian Amazon region.

The Siekopai (which means multicoloured people) are renowned for their shamanic acumen and knowledge of medicinal plants, with uses for more than 1,000 different plants.

The Siekopai are known as the multicoloured people, photo: Erin Deo

In the 1600s, when Jesuit missionaries arrived in Siekopai territory, there were 30,000 to 40,000 Siekopai in the zone between Putumayo, the Aguarico River and Napo.

Traditionally, the Siekopai lived communally in gigantic malokas (open sided wooden huts) with 40 to 60 families. This coexistence meant that people did everything together. Everyone got up at about 3am to prepare and drink yoko, twist threads of chambira (a palm from which the fibre is removed to make hammocks) and tell stories. The women would discuss what they would do that day, what the future would bring. The children would be there, too, learning from their parents and elders.

The missionaries brought illnesses such as measles, wiping out 90% of the population. Whole peoples and clans disappeared. The few who survived did so by hiding in the depths of the jungle. Then the rubber-tappers arrived and removed the Siekopai from there, too.

Currently only around 1,600 Siekopai remain – 900 in Peru and 700 in Ecuador, where they live in a 50,000-acre fragment of rainforest.

“We feel very threatened, very worried, because our territory is very small and we are surrounded by oil exploitation and monoculture agriculture,” said Piaguaje.

“I know from talking with my father, with our elders, how our territory used to be. Now we have almost no resources, almost no fish, no animals to hunt. Our rivers are contaminated by toxic waste from the oil palm industry. Lack of food sovereignty is a really big worry. These are the threats that we are facing.

“All of these things have made us think about where we are going. Will our culture survive another five, 10, 20 years? Or will we just die?”

The pandemic, too, has had a deep impact on the Siekopai.

“In the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Siekopai nationality was the first to confirm positive cases of Covid-19,” said Piaguaje. “A wise elder who died of Covid – a family member of mine – knew a lot about medicinal plants. That was major blow for the Siekopai because there aren’t many of us and we all know each other. Then a teacher died; he had long been involved in the struggle to defend our culture. It was a very difficult situation.”
The Siekopai sought help from the local and national governments but there was little or no response, although some organisations provided medicine, tests and accurate information.

“We started to realise that the medicine from outside wasn’t helping us,” said Piaguaje. “Faced with many cases of Covid, we started to look to medicinal plants. In the end, the majority of people who survived were treated with medicinal plants. And we’re still treating people with plant infusions, such as ajo del monte, chinchona and cedros, with good results.

“This has led to some very important reflections within the Siekopai communities; a rediscovery, appreciation and faith in our own ancestral medicines. And when everything collapsed in the outside world, although we were affected, we were more or less OK. This has been a deep reflection for us, seeing how the rest of the world is suffering and realising what is important.”

Just 1,600 Siekopai survive in a 50,000-acre fragment of rainforest, photo: Erin Deo

In response to the existential threats they face, Piaguaje and a group of other young Siekopai leaders have formed an organisation, Sëra, named after the spirit of heaven that arrives every summer to announce a new era. They have developed a number of innovative projects, safeguarding ancestral shamanic knowledge in video format and running environmental workshops with Siekopai youth.

“Ancestral knowledge is being rapidly lost,” he said. “Young people are no longer interested, due to the influence of the Western world. Our wise elders are dying without leaving a legacy.

“Together with another young Siekopai defender, I created a project to safeguard their knowledge with videos. We go out with them when they are harvesting plants and record them talking about how they identify and use them. This project brought our group of young leaders together.”

The group is now running school workshops to promote environmental awareness through intergenerational exchange between elders, parents and children.

“We talk about ancestral knowledge, the identification and uses of medicinal plants, the threats that we face. We ask, what is important to us, what do we want to preserve, as Siekopai? The aim is to instil in the children the consciousness that our territory matters, that they should have respect for the elders, for Mother Nature, for our own cosmovision [the worldviews shared by indigenous peoples].

“We know that the children are like seeds; if we plant in them the idea that they must cut down the jungle to plant oil palm, they will want to do that,” he said.

“But instead we are saying to them, ‘We must take care of the jungle, this is our wealth, there are other ways to do things, to survive’. That’s why I think education is so important.”

Piaguaje believes it can help combat climate change.

“The indigenous worldview is based on living in harmony with nature and other people, respecting everything around us,” he said.

“It is a model that does not require us to plunder all natural resources. We are taught that we are all part of Mother Nature, that it is our responsibility to use resources in a sustainable way.

“Mother Nature provides everything: medicine, food, water and air. We don’t need to destroy but to co-exist.
“This way of life is based on reciprocity. Even if the other person is different from me, we share. Sharing and co-operation. That is how our ancestors lived and that should be the model of how we live, too.
“I think a global shift towards these values could help to combat climate change.”

The People of Noon

José Gualinga is a leader of the Native People of Sarayaku, an indigenous Kichwa group with 1,400 inhabitants living in a remote part of Ecuador’s southern Amazon.

Known for their defence of the rights of nature and indigenous peoples, the Sarayaku call themselves the People of Noon, referring to an ancient prophecy of their ancestors claiming that they would be a pillar of resistance after other communities had surrendered – a beacon of light as strong as the midday sun.

In 2012, the Sarayaku won a historic victory at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found that the Ecuadorian state had violated their rights by allowing an oil company to prospect in their territory without consultation.

Photo: Beth Pitts

A turning point in the case came when José’s father, Don Sabino Gualinga, the spiritual leader of Sarayaku and their most eminent yachak (shaman), then aged 92, took the witness stand. He was asked about the impact of the 1,433kg of explosives that had been planted in Sarayaku territory by the oil company, accompanied by armed military personnel. Referring to the invisible beings that had been disturbed by the explosions, Don Sabino said that “half of the masters of the jungle are no longer there”.

He added: “It is a living forest. There are trees and medicinal plants and all kinds of beings … Many hid, others died when it burst. They are the ones who maintain the jungle, the forest … All of those who wish to cause damage, they don’t understand what they are doing. We do understand it, because we see it.”

The same year, the Sarayaku created the Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest) Declaration asserting that, as a living entity, their territory is subject to legal rights and demanding that these rights be upheld. The proposal was presented at global climate change conference COP21 in Paris and to French president François Hollande in 2015, and to the Ecuadorian government in 2018 before winning the prestigious UN Equator Prize in 2021.

The Sarayaku have also launched a professional football team to spread the word about oil exploitation in the Amazon; sailed a canoe down the Seine; and created a documentary, Children of the Jaguar, which won best documentary at the National Geographic Film Festival in 2012. Their 2021 documentary, The Return, which tells the story of one family’s retreat into the Amazon to escape Covid, was made for The Guardian and featured at the 2021 Sheffield DocFest.

In 2021, the Sarayaku are once again under threat, with the government’s plan to auction three million hectares of largely virgin rainforest to oil companies, including nearly all the Sarayaku territory. To represent their peaceful resistance to extractivism and commitment to defend the Kawsak Sacha, the Sarayaku are planting a 100km-long perimeter of flowering trees around their territory known as the Sisa Ñampi; it symbolises the fragility of life and the ephemeral limit of existence between life and death.

Gualinga believes that the philosophical thought of the Sarayaku can help combat climate change.
“Climate change will be resolved only if we actively seek solutions,” he said. “Global citizens must undertake a long road to resistance and peaceful struggle, towards a different perspective that we call tiam. By itself this philosophical thought is only a form of knowledge, but it can be made reality if each and every one of us participates in the minga [collective community work].

“Tiam is a counterpoint to the dominant worldview, which sees nature as ‘other’, as an object for exploitation. This has led to imbalance and severe climatic changes, as well as the current pandemic. At the heart of our philosophy lies the understanding that we live as an embryo in the womb of the Pachamama [Mother Earth]. Only in this way will nature be respected, will we live harmoniously, benefiting from the resources that the Pachamama bestows on us.

“We believe that if the human being accepts this way of life, the pain of the planetary wound will be felt, healed, and life will be born again.”

He added: “Indigenous peoples are already contributing towards global climate change solutions by taking care of their territories, which are mega-diversities of living beings. The Sarayaku conceived the Kawsak Sacha life project as a powerful nucleus, so that through these invisible beings, who are conscious and therefore have legal rights, we can regulate the balance of the earth and together we can fight climate change.”

Many communities of indigenous peoples have been divided by oil companies but the Sarayaku have maintained unity, said Gualinga.

“The unity of the Sarayaku arises from the legacy of our ancestors, from the great stories and prophecies that have led us to consider ourselves as the People of Noon, descendants of the jaguar, children of Amazanga Runa,” he said.

“Other nationalities – let us call them ‘communities’ or ‘peoples’ – their unity is maintained in a superficial way, through an organisation. While the statute of the organisation may be recognised by the competent authorities, the people lack the background of using their history and wisdom as a strength.

“When the unity of a society – or let’s call it a ‘cultural civilisation’ – of the Amazon forest is founded on historical and cultural principle, the oil companies cannot break it.”

The people of Sarayaku are masters in the selective use of modern technology, such as digital resource mapping, and using social networks without losing their cultural identity.

“If well used, technology can serve to strengthen new processes of collective and organised adaptation,” said Gualinga. “Based on this logic and analysis, the people of Sarayaku have adopted certain tools, such as the internet, which we use to disseminate the processes resistance in defence of our lives; to make known the proposals that come from within the territory and from the deep jungle. The jungle society has always been in a state of interaction, actively looking for solutions for threats such as climate change.

“Historically, it was impossible to make visible Sarayaku’s proposals in a dominant, complex world, full of wars and devastating economic conflicts. Now, with these new technologies, we can successfully disseminate communications on history, culture, proposals, visionary projects to conserve and protect the balance of the land and ensure the continuity of the Living Forest.

“These technologies have also allowed us to safeguard the memories of art, culture and stories, so that future generations can continue learning.”

Help the Siekopai Indigenous Amazonian Youth Foundation through its crowdfunding campaign at gofundme.com/f/siekopai-indigenous-amazonian-youth-foundation.

This article is based on interviews for Writers Rebel[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Climate of fear: Indigenous activists fighting for environmental justice

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”117589″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In preparation for COP26, Index on Censorship invites you to reflect on the role of indigenous activists in climate activism.

As we prepare for challenging and necessary conversations at COP26, Index on Censorship brings attention to the cases of people whose voices are too easily forgotten in climate change debates. Index sheds light on the challenges of speaking up about climate change.

Join us for the launch of the new Index on Censorship magazine, A Climate of Fear. The conversation will be chaired by Index on Censorship acting editor Martin Bright with a focus on indigenous activists in Ecuador fighting for environmental justice and those who tell their stories.

Steven Donziger is a US lawyer who was part of an international legal team that obtained a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment designed to remedy decades of deliberate toxic dumping by global oil company Chevron on indigenous ancestral lands in Ecuador.

Jimmy Piaguaje is an indigenous defender and filmmaker of Siekopai nationality from the community of Siekoya Remolino in Ecuador’s northeastern Amazon region. He is the co-founder of the Sëra Foundation, a grassroots organisation created by a group of young people from Siekoya Remolino to preserve their ancestral knowledge via audiovisual techniques and education. His latest documentary, about fighting covid in the Amazon with ancestral medicine, was published by the New Yorker.

Bethany Pitts is a writer and activist who has been working with indigenous communities in Ecuador since 2013, especially those defending the Amazon from oil exploitation. She is the author of the Moon Guide to Ecuador & The Galapagos Islands, the first internationally published guidebook on Ecuador with a focus on ethical travel. It was while Bethany was in the Amazon researching for her book in 2018 that she met Jimmy Piaguaje. Since then, she has been working to support the Sëra Foundation.

Martin Bright has over 30 years of experience as a journalist, working for the Observer, the Guardian and the New Statesman among others. He has worked on several high-profile freedom of expression cases often involving government secrecy. He broke the story of Iraq War whistleblower Katharine Gun, which was made into the movie Official Secrets (2019) starring Keira Knightley. He is the founder of Creative Society, a youth employment charity set up in response to the economic crash of 2008.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

When: Tuesday 19 October 2021, 17:30 to 18:30 BST

Where: ONLINE

Tickets: Free, advance booking essential

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Contents – Climate of fear: The silencing of the planet’s indigenous peoples

Cover illustration, Autumn 2021 (50-3) Wilson Borja

The Autumn issue of Index magazine focuses on the struggle for environmental justice by indigenous campaigners. Anticipating the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, in November, we’ve chosen to give voice to people who are constantly ignored in these discussions.

Writer Emily Brown talks to Yvonne Weldon, the first aboriginal mayoral candidate for Sydney, who is determined to fight for a green economy. Kaya Genç investigates the conspiracy theories and threats concerning green campaigners in Turkey, while Issa Sikiti da Silva reveals the openly hostile conditions that environmental activists have been through in Uganda.

Going to South America, Beth Pitts interviews two indigenous activists in Ecuador on declining populations and which methods they’ve been adopting to save their culture against the global giants extracting their resources.

Cover of Index on Censorship Autumn 2021 (50-3) Cover of Index on Censorship Autumn 2021 (50-3)[/caption]

A climate of fear, by Martin Bright: Climate change is an era-defining issue. We must be able to speak out about it.

The Index: Free expression around the world today: the inspiring voices, the people who have been imprisoned and the trends, legislation and technology which are causing concern.

Pile-ons and censorship, by Maya Forstater: Maya Forstater was at the heart of an employment tribunal with significant ramifications. Read her response the Index’s last issue which discussed her case.

 

The West is frightened of confronting the bully, by John Sweeney: Meet Bill Browder. The political activist and financier most hated by Putin and the Kremlin.

An impossible choice, by Ruchi Kumar: The rapid advance of Taliban forces in Afghanistan has left little to no hope for journalists.

Words under fire, by Rachael Jolley: When oppressive regimes target free speech, libraries are usually top of their lists.

Letters from Lukashenka’s prisoners, by Maria Kalesnikava, Volha Takarchuk, Aliaksandr Vasilevich and Maxim Znak: Standing up to Europe’s last dictator lands you in jail. Read the heartbreaking testimony of the detained activists.

Bad blood, by Kelly Duda: How did an Arkansas blood scandal have reverberations around the world?

Welcome to hell, by Benjamin Lynch: Yangon’s Insein prison is where Myanmar’s dissidents are locked up. One photojournalist tells us of his time there.

Cartoon, by Ben Jennings: Are balanced debates really balanced? Ask Satan.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Credit: Xinhua/Alamy Live News

It’s not easy being green, by Kaya Genç: The Turkish government is fighting environmental protests with conspiracy theories.

It’s in our nature to fight, by Beth Pitts: The indigenous people of Ecuador are fighting for their future.

Respect for tradition, by Emily Brown: Australia has a history of “selective listening” when it comes to First Nations voices. But Aboriginal campaigners stand ready to share traditional knowledge.

The write way to fight, by Liz Jensen: Extinction Rebellion’s literary wing show that words remain our primary tool for protests.

Change in the pipeline? By Bridget Byrne: Indigenous American’s water is at risk. People are responding.

The rape of Uganda, by Issa Sikiti da Silva: Uganda’s natural resources continue to be plundered.Cigar smoke and mirrors, by James Bloodworth: Cuba’s propaganda must not blight our perception of it.

Denialism is not protected speech, by Oz Katerji: Should challenging facts be protected speech?

Permissible weapons, by Peter Hitchens: Peter Hitchens responds to Nerma Jelacic on her claims for disinformation in Syria.

No winners in Israel’s Ice Cream War, by Jo-Ann Mort: Is the boycott against Israel achieving anything?

Better out than in? By Mark Glanville: Can the ancient Euripides play The Bacchae explain hooliganism on the terraces?

Russia’s Greatest Export: Hostility to the free press, by Mikhail Khordokovsky: A billionaire exile tells us how Russia leads the way in the tactics employed to silence journalists.

Remembering Peter R de Vries, by Frederike Geeerdink: Read about the Dutch journalist gunned down for doing his job.

A right royal minefield, by John Lloyd: Whenever one of the Royal Family are interviewed, it seems to cause more problems.

A bulletin of frustration, by Ruth Smeeth: Climate change affects us all and we must fight for the voices being silenced by it. Credit: Gregory Maassen/Alamy[/caption]

The man who blew up America, by David Grundy: Poet, playwright, activist and critic Amiri Baraka remains a controversial figure seven years after his death.

Suffering in silence, by Benjamin Lynch and Dr Parwana Fayyaz The award-winning poetry that reminds us of the values of free thought and how crucial it is for Afghan women.

Heart and Sole, by Mark Frary and Katja Oskamp: A fascinating extract gives us an insight into the bland lives of some of those who did not welcome the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Secret Agenda, by Martin Bright: Reforms to the UK’s Official Secret Act could create a chilling effect for journalists reporting on information in the public interest.

Standing up to a global oil giant

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IN FEBRUARY 2011, a court in Ecuador delivered a historic victory for indigenous and rural communities in that country’s Amazon region: a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment designed to remedy decades of deliberate toxic dumping by global oil company Chevron on indigenous ancestral lands.

I was a member of the international legal team that obtained the judgment after Chevron had insisted the trial take place in Ecuador. Since then, I have been targeted by the company with what can only be described as a vicious retaliation campaign against me and my family – a campaign designed to silence my advocacy and intimidate other human rights lawyers who might think of taking on the fossil fuel giants.

The evidence against Chevron, as found by Ecuador’s courts, was overwhelming. It consisted of 64,000 chemical sampling results reporting extensive oil pollution at hundreds of oil production sites. Billions of gallons of toxic “produced water” were deliberately discharged into rivers and streams that locals relied on for their drinking water, fishing and bathing. Cancer rates in the region have spiked dramatically.

One experienced engineer who had worked on oil operations in dozens of countries told an energy journalist it was the worst oil pollution he had ever seen. When the indigenous people complained, the company’s engineers told them that oil was like milk and that it contained vitamins.

At the time we won the judgment, I was living in Manhattan with my wife and young son in a small apartment. I was travelling to Ecuador on a monthly basis to help the affected communities while maintaining a small law practice.

To keep the litigation going, I helped my clients raise significant funds from supporters and I helped recruit and manage attorneys from around the world who were preparing to enforce the winning judgment. Enforcement of the judgment became necessary after Chevron vowed never to pay and threatened the indigenous peoples who won the case with a “lifetime of litigation” unless they dropped their claims.

Chevron’s counterattack targeting me came swiftly. In 2009, the company had hired a new law firm that broadly advertised a “kill step” strategy to help rescue corporations plagued by scandal from legal liabilities. This primarily involved accusing the lawyers who won a judgment against the firm’s client of “fraud” to distract attention from the company’s wrongdoing. The ultimate goal was to drive lawyers off the case by demonising them and making life so uncomfortable that their careers were at risk; under such a scenario, the victims of the company’s pollution would be left defenceless.

In my case, Chevron lawyers sued me under a civil “racketeering” statute – accusing me of authorising the bribing of a judge in Ecuador. This is something I have not done, nor would I ever do.

The civil lawsuit was crafted by the Chevron lawyers to read like a criminal indictment. When it was filed in New York in 2011, my life was turned upside down. The company claimed the entire case I had been working on in Ecuador since 1993 was “sham” litigation even though Ecuador’s courts had validated the pollution judgment based on voluminous scientific evidence. Chevron also sued me for $60 billion, the largest potential personal liability in US history. When I refused to give up, the company convinced a US judge in 2018 to charge me with criminal contempt of court for appealing an order that I turn over my electronic devices, passwords and confidential case file to the company.

At the time of writing, I have been under house arrest in Manhattan for roughly 600 days on a petty charge that carries a maximum sentence of just 180 days in prison. I am being prosecuted by a Chevron law firm in the name of the public after the charges were rejected by the regular federal prosecutor.

To monitor my whereabouts on a 24/7 basis, the court shackled my left ankle with a GPS monitor. It never comes off — I sleep with it, eat with it and shower with it. It often beeps in the middle of the night when the battery runs low.

In all, Chevron has used the US court system to subject me over the past 10 years to multiple attacks:

  • Chevron paid an Ecuadorian witness at least $2 million. It also flew him and his entire family to the USA where they were settled in a new house. Chevron lawyers then coached this person for 53 days to be its star witness. He testified I approved a bribe of the trial judge in Ecuador. This was the “kill step” in action: I was falsely being accused of a crime to ruin my career and remove me from the case. The witness later recanted much of his testimony, but the judge in the case denied me a jury of my peers and used the testimony to rule the Ecuador judgment was obtained by fraud and that I could not collect my legal fee.

  • Chevron used these so-called findings of fact – findings contradicted by six appellate courts in Ecuador and Canada that rejected the company’s false evidence – to orchestrate the suspension of my licence in New York without a hearing. I later won my post-suspension hearing; the case is currently on appeal.

  • Chevron launched a series of financial attacks against me and my family. Even though the company had denied me a jury (required by law in damages cases), the judge allowed Chevron to impose draconian financial penalties on me to “repay” the company for some of the legal fees it used to prosecute me. The judge also imposed billions of dollars of fines on me for supposedly failing to comply with discovery orders that I had appealed. He also authorised the company to freeze my personal accounts and take my life savings.

  • In the ultimate coup de grace, Chevron convinced the judge to essentially block me from working on the case by issuing an injunction preventing me from helping my clients raise investment funds to help enforce the judgment against Chevron’s assets. The cold reality is that Chevron, which grosses about $250 billion a year, is free to spend what it wants to block enforcement actions brought by the Ecuadorian communities. The indigenous people of Ecuador,nmost of whom cannot afford even bottled water, are barred by US courts from raising money to enforce their judgment. The US court did say they could receive “donations”, which will never be enough to cover the costs.

  • In any criminal contempt case, no person charged with a petty crime in the federal system has served even one day’s pre-trial in-home detention; I have served almost two years without trial.

My trial on the six criminal contempt counts is scheduled for 10 May. All the counts relate to legitimate discovery disputes I had with Chevron that I was litigating at the time the judge charged me criminally. At the time, I was in Canada helping lawyers there enforce the Ecuador judgment.

I am a human rights lawyer who has received significant public support, including from 55 Nobel laureates who have demanded dismissal of the criminal case and my release. Thousands of prominent lawyers around the world, including Harvard professor Charles Nesson and legendary civil rights lawyer Martin Garbus, have rallied on my behalf. Courts around the world have validated the judgment I worked years to help secure. Yet Chevron, working through its 60 law firms and hundreds of lawyers, has effectively weaponised the judicial system in service of its interests to nullify my ability to fully function as an advocate. This has happened in retaliation for our success, not because of any errors along the way.

The victims of this new corporate playbook are the people of Ecuador; its higher purpose is to protect a fossil fuel industry that is destroying our planet from being held accountable under the law. The racketeering is the conspiracy organised by Chevron and its allies not only to “win” the case and extinguish the company’s liability but also to kill off the idea that this type of environmental human rights case can happen again. It is critical that environmental justice lawyers, campaigners and all who believe in free speech stand up for the important principles so central to the proper functioning of a free society that are contained in this saga.

INDEX looks at how Texaco and Chevron became involved in Ecuador and the twists and turns of Steven Donziger’s campaign to get compensation for local people

1964: Texaco begin oil exploration and drilling in Ecuador.

1992: Texaco hand over full control of the oil operation in the country to state-owned oil company PetroEcuador.

1993: Steven Donziger and his team file a suit against Texaco in New York, but Texaco successfully lobby to have the case heard in Ecuador.

1995: A settlement agreement is reached and Texaco agree to help with the clean-up of toxic waste.

1998: The clean-up costs $40 million and Ecuador releases another agreement stating Texaco had met its obligations under the 1998 agreement.

2000: Chevron buy Texaco for around $35 billion.

2003: A US legal team including Steven Donziger sues Texaco on behalf of over 30,000 Ecuadoreans, claiming that between from 1971 to 1992, Texaco dumped four million gallons of toxic wastewater per day.

2011: In February, Chevron sues Donziger and co. under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging extortion.

The original suit, the monetary claims of which were dropped before the trial, saw Chevron seeking $60 billion in damages.

2011: An Ecuadorean court gives a judgment for Chevron to pay $18 billion, which is later raised to $19 billion, to plaintiffs. Chevron appeal the decision.

2013: Ecuador’s Supreme Court upholds the decision but halves the damages to $9.5 billion.

2014: US District Judge Lewis Kaplan rules the decision to be tainted and accuses Donziger of perverting the course of justice. Six other courts rule the decision to be valid. Much of the decision was based on the testimony of former Ecuador judge Alberto Guerra, who claimed there was bribery involved in the 2011 judgement. Parts of this testimony have since been retracted.

2018: Donziger is suspended from practising as an attorney.

2019: Kaplan charges Donziger with contempt of court and orders him to pay $3.4 million in attorney fees.

2020: In August, Donziger is disbarred. 29 Nobel laureates condemn alleged judicial harassment by Chevron.

SEAN COMEY, senior corporate adviser, Chevron Corporation, sent Index this response

Steven Donziger continues to try to shift attention away from the facts. In his own words, “we need to make facts that help us and the facts we need don’t always exist”.

The facts are that Donziger has been disbarred because of a pattern of illegal activity related to the case. Decisions by courts in the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Gibraltar and an international tribunal in The Hague confirm that the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment should be unenforceable in any court that respects the rule of law. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the judgment against Chevron was the product of fraud and racketeering, finding it unenforceable in the USA. The court found Donziger violated the US racketeering statute by committing extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. The judgment is final after been unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals and denied review by the Supreme Court.

Even the government of Ecuador now acknowledges the judgment was based on fraud. The international Bilateral Investment Treaty tribunal in The Hague – including an arbitrator appointed by the Ecuadorian government – unanimously ruled the Ecuadorian judgment was based on fraud, bribery and corruption, and rejected the environmental allegations against Chevron, ruling those claims were settled and released by the Republic of Ecuador decades ago following an environmental remediation supervised and approved by the government.

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