Accompanying Servio to Chevron's "Alternate Reality"

June 3, 2013 | Alex Goff

I can't think of a better term to describe the world that the Chevron board and CEO John Watson are living in than "alternate reality." It certainly must seem that way to Servio Curipoma, the peasant farmer I had the honor of accompanying on a journey from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the San Francisco Bay Area to confront Watson at Chevron's Annual Shareholders' meeting over his failure to accept an Ecuadorian court ruling that found the company liable for $19 billion in reparations for its reckless dumping of toxic wastewater into local water sources in the Amazon for over 20 years, resulting in an ongoing public health crisis and wide scale damage to the environment.

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Forget WallyWorld, at Chevron They Live in WatsonWorld

May 31, 2013 | Paul Paz y Miño

There are many ways to describe the experience of participating in a Chevron Annual Shareholder Meeting. One is often left wondering if those inside are as completely divorced from reality as their words suggest, or if they are just putting on a show for a room full of cardboard cut outs of corporate yes-men. This past Wednesday was no exception. While hundreds protested outside the 2013 Chevron Annual Shareholder Meeting holding the largest "pink slip" you've even seen reading, "Watson: You're Fired!" Chevron CEO John Watson once again demonstrated that he is largely divorced from reality when it comes to the company's $19B liability in Ecuador and its other environmental problems, both local and global. Watson would hate to admit it, but once again the meeting was dominated by his critics and the largest ever shareholder support for Ecuador-related resolutions.

The Chevron Way: We Know Better

Time and again when faced with shareholder resolutions critical of Chevron or the compassionate voices of community members living with the harsh reality of exposure to the company's toxic operations, Watson claimed it was his critics who were "unfamiliar with the facts". Servio Curipoma, who has lived his entire life in the Ecuadorian Amazon surrounded by Chevron waste pits, who lost his parents to cancer caused by Chevron contamination, does not need Watson to tell him what it's "really like" in Ecuador. Yet Watson dismissed his testimony and offered Servio nothing but his "pity" for being "used by US trial lawyers."

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Belo Monte Occupation Update

May 31, 2013

A judicial eviction order and threat of violent removal notwithstanding, the Munduruku and other indigenous occupiers of the Belo Monte work camp continue to resist on-site.

We believe that the steadfast nature of the protesters themselves, the national-level accompaniment they have of activists and human rights lawyers, and the international solidarity as manifested through the thousands of action alert emails sent so far are dissuading the Brazilian authorities from carrying out violent actions to try to resolve the situation.

Yesterday was a roller coaster fraught with heightened anxieties and small signs of hope. News came in about another eviction of indigenous peoples in southern Brazil in which Federal Police killed one Terena man and wounded others who had occupied ancestral lands against the wishes of a local rancher who is also a politician. This terrifying news prompted occupation leader Valdenir Mundurukú to ask, "We know they killed one of our relatives in Mato Grosso do Sul today, is that what they will do here?"

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URGENT: "We will die. We will not leave without being heard."

May 29, 2013

Only two days after the reoccupation of the Belo Monte Dam began, the fate of 170 indigenous people is at stake. Yesterday, the Federal Court in Altamira ordered them to leave by 4 pm today or they would be removed by Federal Police. They responded by tearing up the order and refused to leave by the deadline. Instead, they are standing strong and are demanding that President Dilma’s Chief of Staff, Gilberto Carvalho, come meet with them. Their letter to the Brazilian government is below. Read, share and take urgent action right now!

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Indigenous People Occupy Belo Monte Again over Consultation Process

May 28, 2013

About 170 indigenous people returned to occupy the main construction site of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the municipality of Vitória do Xingu, in southwestern Pará State in the early morning this Monday (the 27th). Their central demand is that the construction of the Monte Dam and the environmental feasibility studies for the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Rio Tapajós be suspended until prior consultations with indigenous peoples are carried out. At this time the indigenous protestors are finalizing a letter that will state explicitly and in more detail their reasoning and the demands of the occupiers, who are made up of representatives of Xipaia and Arara ethnicities from the Big Bend of the Xingu River in addition to representatives of Kayapo, Mundurukú, and Tupinambás ethnicities.

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