Los Angeles – Members of an indigenous tribe from the Peruvian Amazon sued the oil giant Occidental Petroleum yesterday in California’s superior court, alleging that the company knowingly put the health of the Achuar people at risk and damaged their habitat.
The claim alleges that over the course of three decades Oxy, as it is known, engaged in “irresponsible, reckless, immortal and illegal practices” in an “unchecked effort to profit from Amazonian oil”. It adds: “These practices were below accepted industry standards, prohibited by law, and Oxy knew they would result in the severe contamination of water and land.”
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Marco Simons, a lawyer for EarthRights International, which is representing the Achuar, said: “If you think about the harm that was done here, the widespread lead poisoning of hundred of children and the exposure of hundreds of adults and children to contamination, you’re certainly looking at substantial damages. But more important than that, the Achuar want injunctive relief to clean up the mess.”
While the Achuar live below Peru’s $64 (£32) per month national poverty line, Occidental is one of the world’s biggest oil companies. Its revenue for 2004 was $11.37bn, while its chief executive, Ray Irani, was the second highest paid CEO in the US last year, receiving £160m.
The claim comes after members of the tribe attended Occidental’s AGM last week to force the company to address their grievances.
Andrés Sandi Mucushua, a tribal representative, said: “My people are sick and dying because of Oxy. The water in our streams is not fit to drink and we can no longer eat the fish in our rivers or the animals in our forests.”
Occidental started drilling for oil in 1971. By 1975 field 1AB was the largest onshore oil field in Peru, with 230 wells producing 115,000 barrels of crude oil a day – 42% of the nation’s oil production.
Mr Simons said: “The Achuar’s struggle is something of an inspiration to other peoples in Peru who are resisting oil exploration. It’s a critical time to send a message that the oil companies cannot operate in the way Occidental did in Peru.”
Occidental sold its concession for the area to the Argentinian Pluspetrol in 2000. But the Achuar argue that Occidental is responsible not only for what it did over 30 years but also for setting up the systems that continue to pollute the area.
A report released last week claimed that Occidental dumped “an average of 850,000 barrels per day of toxic oil by-products … directly into rivers and streams used by the Achuar for drinking, bathing, washing and fishing, totalling approximately 9bn barrels over 30 years”. The report, compiled by environmental and human rights groups in the US and Peru, states that Occidental “knowingly employed out-of-date practices … and used methods long outlawed in the US, and in violation of Peruvian law”.
Richard Kline, a spokesman for Occidental, said he had not seen the claim, but that the company had ceased all activity in the area in 1999. He said the report contained “numerous inflammatory statements, unfounded allegations and unsupported conclusions … [which] don’t inspire any confidence in the sincerity of the messengers”.
