Wednesday, Chevron opened it’s annual Shareholder meeting in Houston. Inside CEO John Watson, in his first shareholder meeting since assuming the position in January, described Chevron as a “good neighbor. However outside at the very moment John Watson uttered those words he was having global community leaders, all with legal proxies to attend the meeting, removed from the entrance of the building after being refused entry to the meeting. After traveling from as far as Australia, Burma, Nigeria, Ecuador and Alaska, community leaders were rebuffed and outwardly disrespected by Chevron CEO John Watson.
27 people from around the world traveled to Houston for Chevron’s 2010 Annual Shareholders meeting. Of the 27 only 7 were allowed to enter the meeting. One of the people that was refused entry to the shareholder meeting was Guillermo Grafa, an Indigenous leader from Ecuador. “We don’t need empathy from Chevron, we need them to accept full responsibility for the pain and suffering they have caused our people and clean up Ecuador now,” said Grafta.
In response to Chevron’s actions, four people took part in a sit-in at the entrance of the shareholder meeting while other blocked the outside exit. The 4 who refused to leave Chevron property after they were denied access to the meeting were arrested on trespassing charges and hauled to waiting police vans.
The four arrested at the entrance were Juan Parras a long time environmental justice activist in Houston and founder of TEJAS, an EJ group fighting refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast; Rev. Jerome Davis a livelong civil rights hero who marched in Selma and has long fought for environmental justice in Richmond, CA; and Mitch Anderson and Han Shan from Amazon Watch, an organization working in solidarity with Indigenous communities fighting Chevron in Ecuador.
In addition to the four arrested, Antonia Juhasz of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange was also arrested inside the meeting. She was forcefully removed from the meeting after calling in
Han Shan of Amazon Watch summed up Chevron’s intention for the day while being taken to an awaiting police van
“This is the way Chevron operates everywhere around the world–silencing people who raise concerns about its operations. Shame on Chevron!”
Unfortunately for Chevron it looks like the calls for accountability are getting louder and louder, and They won’t be silenced ant time soon.
You can see more Photos from the day HERE
Note: all arrested have been released and await their hearing on June 6.
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47 Comments so far
[...] The four Indigenous and community leaders from Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest are on the front-lines of the nearly two-decade struggle to demand oil giant Chevron clean up the massive contaminate the company left behind in their lands. I’ve written profiles of two of them here before; Cofan leader Emergildo Criollo was in the U.S. in early March to help deliver 350,000 letters of support for cleanup in Ecuador to new Chevron CEO John Watson and campesina activist Mariana Jimenez was in Houston just a few weeks ago to speak out at Chevron’s 2010 shareholder meeting. [...]
Pingback by Ecuadorean Indigenous Leaders Share Oil Spill Experiences with Gulf Coast Communities | We Can Change Chevron06/28/10 at 3:05 pm
[...] The four Indigenous and community leaders from Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest are on the front-lines of the nearly two-decade struggle to demand oil giant Chevron clean up the massive contaminate the company left behind in their lands. I’ve written profiles of two of them here before; Cofan leader Emergildo Criollo was in the U.S. in early March to help deliver 350,000 letters of support for cleanup in Ecuador to new Chevron CEO John Watson and campesina activist Mariana Jimenez was in Houston just a few weeks ago to speak out at Chevron’s 2010 shareholder meeting. [...]
Pingback by The Understory » Ecuadorean Indigenous Leaders Share Oil Spill Experiences with Gulf Coast Communities06/28/10 at 3:08 pm
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