AlterNet: Chevron Employs Felon and Drug-Trafficker to Derail Trial to Escape Enviro Crimes

[marmar]

Chevron Employs Felon and Drug-Trafficker to Derail Trial to Escape Enviro Crimes

By Han Shan, AlterNet. Posted October 30, 2009.

It appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods -- and people -- that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.




To defend itself in a major environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, it appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods -- and people -- that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.

In early September, I wrote here about a dramatic last-ditch attempt by Chevron to monkey-wrench legal proceedings in Ecuador over massive oil contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron is facing up to $27 billion dollars in damages to clean up what has become known as the 'Amazon Chernobyl,' where tens of thousands of indigenous people and campesinos suffer an epidemic of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and other ailments.

On August 31, just weeks before a final judgment had been expected in the case, Chevron posted on YouTube what at first appeared to be a 'smoking gun' spy video, which Chevron said showed the judge in the case ensnared in a bribery scandal.

Except, as I wrote before, it didn't:

The company instead revealed videos showing a former Chevron contractor named Diego Borja and an American businessman named Wayne Hansen, who appear to be trying fruitlessly to entrap the presiding Judge, Juan Nuñez. Borja and Hansen secretly shot the videos themselves using a spy-camera pen and watch they bought in a catalog. In the videos, Borja introduced Mr. Hansen as an executive of an American groundwater remediation company willing to provide a kickback for a government contract to clean up the oil contamination left behind by Texaco, now Chevron. The California-based oil giant claimed the videos showed obvious government bias, corruption and judicial misconduct and called for an annulment of the judge's rulings in the case.

But almost immediately, the entire supposed "corruption scandal" began unraveling. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/action/143628/chevron_employs_felon_and_drug-trafficker_to_derail_trial_to_escape_enviro_crimes