After Chevron, the march snaked it’s way to the EPA regional offices where groups called on the EPA to be held accountable for the toxic dispersants used after the gulf oil spill. Of course none of those dispersants would have been necessary if it were not for the marches next target, BP.

After the brief stop at the EPA the march turned its sights on the BP offices. While at the BP offices over a dozen people blockaded the main intersection outside the office while a group of other activists blocked the front entrance of the corporate offices. With the support of over 150 people the blockades went on for over an hour. The day’s blockades resulted in 15 arrests making it the largest direct action against BP in the US since the oil spill.

However, judging by the energy and urgency in the crowd yesterday it won’t be the last against BP…or Chevron

Chevron is up for a huge award this month and we need your votes (VOTE HERE)  to help them win this much-deserved award. Each year ten corporations are (dis)honored by being named as finalists in the “Corporate Hall of Shame”.  This year Corporate Accountability International has deemed Chevron worthy of their final list because of the company’s toxic legacy of pollution in the Ecuadorean rainforest. It will surely be a close race as Chevron is up against some stiff competition:

Monsanto – “for mass-producing cancer causing chemicals, aggressively running small farms out of business and for recklessly promoting genetically engineered seeds that threaten food scarcity globally.”

McDonlads – “for influence peddling and predatory marketing to children that is driving the deadly epidemic of diet-related disease now devastating communities globally and leading to the breakdown of the entire food system.”

BP – do I really have to explain?

Nestle – “for undermining the human right to water and aggressively expanding its environmentally destructive water bottling operations over the objections of communities globally.”

However, Chevron is responsible for one of the largest oil disasters on Earth. Chevron is responsible for over 17 billion gallon of toxic wastewater and 15 million gallons of crude oil dumped in Ecuadorean communities. It is because of this unprecedented, and tragic, example of Chevron’s corporate culture that they are a deserving winner of this year’s award. I’m voting for them to be inducted into 2010’s Corporate Hall of Shame, and you should too!

We promise, if Chevron wins, to come up with a creative way to deliver the company the award!

To learn more about the campaign to hold Chevron accountable visit changechevron.org

We’ve seen an illustrious chain of embarrassing Chevron snafus. There was the well-documented collusion with a known felon and former employee conspiring to bait an Ecuadorean judge. Then there was the instance in which Chevron did not like the media they were receiving on a national level. Following a scathing 60 Minutes piece exposing Chevron’s double speak and ill-crafted lies, Chevron conjured up the idea to produce their own “news reporting” for their YouTube audience. In this news report Chevron hired a retired CNN reporter to “report” their side of the story and pass it off as “journalism.” An event that nearly had the New York Times at the edge of their seat with laughter.

Now Chevron has gone from YouTube news to flat out bribes.  That Chevron tried to manipulate the media is not news. I can’t blame them really. If I were Chevron I’d also be fearful the media will continue to non-objectively cover my responsibility to clean up my pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon. Facts are a pesky thing when the media continues to report them.

Now Chevron, having used up any credibility as a genuine actor (outside of a few bloggers) in the $27 billion lawsuit, must now outsource their deceptions. They’ve enlisted the private investigation firm Kroll to do their dirty work. What was Kroll’s latest task for Chevron? Buying up a journalist to act as spy in Ecuador.

See part 2 of the new story here, with reaction to Chevron’s attempts to buy journalists HERE

In a well-publicized case, Kroll has been outed for offering to pay a journalist $20,000 to go to Ecuador undercover to “report” on Chevron’s behalf. To the reporter Mary Cuddehe’s credit she did not accept Chevron/Kroll’s offer, and instead reported on the shady dealings of Chevron in Ecuador.

Chevron’s strategies read like juvenile pranks, yet unfortunately there is much more at stake than which table you get to sit at in the cafeteria. Chevron continues to trivialize, with games and delay tactics, the health and well being of over 30,000 Ecuadoreans.

Chevron may very well continue to dig deeper into their bag of tricks as they reach for any way to distract the world from their responsibility in Ecuador.  Yet it’s clear at this point Chevron will only be building up their reputation as a disingenuous company with cynical motives, because the world is squarely focused on the facts of the lawsuit, the suffering Chevron is causing, and not the desperate efforts to distract from the truth.

Chevron has a playbook, a playbook they use to silence critics, dodge legal liability, create illusions of pollution clean-up, buy favorable media (or attempt to), and disempower communities, to name just a few. One of Chevron’s most tired tactics is that of masquerading public relations stunts as court claims. Chevron to their credit is very savvy when it comes to these kinds of games. Chevron lines up their bloggers and leans on their media contacts as they role out a meticulously manufactured story. So it should come as no surprise that last week Chevron filled, yet a again, to have their $27 billion court case in Ecuador to be dismissed. Chevron has done this a few times, always for PR never because of substance. Why, because Chevron is grasping for straws.

This most recent charade struck me as desperately elaborate, even for Chevron. Chevron went to great lengths to manufacture their latest claim, and I was struck by the sloppy nature of how they executed the ploy.

Last month Chevron won a court motion allowing them access to hundreds of hours of film footage from the documentary CRUDE. This request was met with fierce opposition from thousands of film-makers, journalist and 13 media giants like the Washington Post and Dow Jones who filed a “friend of the court brief” on behalf of  CRUDE filmmaker Joe Berlinger. The court, ignoring journalist privilege under the first amendment, decided to allow Chevron access to film footage under the strict stipulation that Chevron would only use the footage they acquired in judicial proceedings. In fact the Second Circuit court’s decision reads, “material produced under this order shall be used by the petitioners solely for litigation, arbitration, or submission to official bodies, either local or international.” So had Chevron’s intentions been genuine they would surely have honored the courts decision. Why risk the repercussions of violating a court order for a public relations stunt?…Unless all it is, is a public relations stunt.

Fact is that is all it was, a new round of public relations trickery. First, Chevron has turned around and submitted blatantly edited video which was done so poorly that Joe Berlinger, the films director, explicitly called out Chevron’s tricks.

“The footage citations are being taken out of context and not being presented to the court in its entirety, creating numerous false impressions, precisely what we feared when we were first issued the original subpoena.”

Secondly, Chevron has gone against the court’s order prohibiting Chevron from using the footage or PR. Instead of first filing a claim based on Chevron’s edited video Chevron actually went on a media blitz before they filed any such claim.

Upon editing the video Chevron immediately distributed the material on Twitter and provided it to bloggers hours before it was even served to opposing lawyers.

According to Berlinger’s legal filing, Chevron’s violations of the court order include:

• On August 3 at 7:47 p.m. — more than two hours before Chevron served its motion on Berlinger’s lawyers — a detailed article on the film outtakes was posted on the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers.
• Nineteen minutes later and also well before the papers were served, Chevron posted “Crude’ Footage Reveals Lies Behind Trial Lawyers’ Suit Against Chevron” to its Twitter.com page, and linked to the above-referenced article.
• On August 5 the San Francisco Chronicle posted an article entitled “Chevron: Outtakes prove collusion with expert,” in which the author states that he was given the outtakes by Chevron.

As laid out in a recent press release, the simple above timeline shows Chevron’s intentions are only to divert attention from their responsibility, and the decades forth of pollution in the Amazon while dragging film directors, lawyers, and courts through another merry-go-round of deflection and delay. Deflection and delay that becomes more elaborate and desperate as Chevron realizes they have run out of options to obstruct justice any further.

The Indigenous Ecuadorean leaders are in the Gulf coast to meet with American Indian tribes in the Gulf region and share their experiences coping with decades of Chevron’s massive oil contamination in their home.

Emergildo Criollo (right) is a leader of the Cofan tribe in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest. Humberto Piaguaje (left) is the representative of the Secoya people to the Assembly of Delegates of Communities Affected by Chevron/Texaco.

Michael Dardar, Vice Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation sits with Emergildo Criollo, Humberto Piaguaje, Mariana Jimenez as they take a boat trip into the marshland to see BP’s oil disaster.

Local resident Philip Simmons takes Houma and Ecuadorean leaders in his boat to see BP’s oil disaster.

Mariana Jimenez on the boat ride leaving from Port Sulphur heading out to Bay Baptiste. She is a 71-year old grandmother from near Lago Agrio, Ecuador. Her home was soon surrounded by oil spills and contamination. Her husband, who worked for Texaco (now Chevron), and her sister, both died of cancer.

Oil contaminates the wetlands in Louisiana’s Bay Baptiste.

An oil boom laying in the marshland grass with oil on both sides.

Thick brown oil covers marshland grass while oil sheen floats on top.

Mariana inspects the oil spill saying the smell and feel of the oil reminds her of the oil contamination left by Chevon (formally Texaco) in her Amazon home.

Mariana’s oil coated hand after picking a blade of grass from the mash.

Humberto Piaguaje inspects BP’s oil disaster in the marshlands.

Rosina Phillipe of Grand Bayou village welcomes Ecuadorean leaders to here home on the water.

Rosina Phillipe and the delegation share stories and lessons learned from living with oil contamination. (From left: Rosina Phillipe, Maria Ramos, Matiana Jiminez, Mitch Anderson, Humberto Piaguaje, Emergildo Criollo)

Emergildo Criollo in the boat leaving Grand Bayou Village.

See all the photo from the Gulf Coast trip in the Rainforest Action Network Flickr set

In confronting their own oil disaster, Indigenous Ecuadoreans have learned many lessons about cultural survival and what it takes to hold a company accountable for harms it has caused. Included in the document are 10 lessons communities in Ecuador have compiled from their experiences living with Chevron’s billions of gallons of oil contamination for the past 30 years.

Click to download the PDF file (2.2mb)
Descargar el informe en español (2.2mb)

As the Chevron in Ecuador blog reports:

Four very different people arrived last night in New Orleans on a late flight from Quito, Ecuador. One is a quiet but fierce 71-year-old grandmother with 27 grandchildren. Another is a gentle, soft-spoken man who is a leader of his Indigenous tribe from the Amazon. Another is a serious and sober man who has won worldwide acclaim for his unique work. And the last is another Indigenous man from the Amazon, who is more sharp-tongued than his traveling companion, but shares his good humor and dignified demeanor.

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.

With them is Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Secoya tribe who has been outspoken about Chevron’s impact on his people, and Luis Yanza, who has helped organize the 30,000 people who have mounted the historic legal action against Chevron. In 2008, Luis won the Goldman environmental prize, often described as the Nobel Prize for the environment.

Gulf Coast American Indian Tribes in southeast Louisiana impacted by BP’s oil disaster will be hosting a cultural exchange with their Ecuadorean counterparts who have been severely impacted for decades by Chevron’s oil contamination in Ecuador’s rainforest. The Amazon leaders will tour areas of the Bayou affected by the spill, have community exchanges with the Houma and other Gulf coast residents, and participate in a public meeting in the heart of the largest Houma community on Thursday evening. The Ecuadorean leaders hope to share their experiences in recovery and protecting health, livelihoods, and culture in the wake of an oil disaster of this magnitude.

“The Gulf spill is an absolute threat on who we are as Houma people and our way of life. Our homeland and the health of our people are at risk and we must plan for the long-term effects of this catastrophe,” said Thomas Dardar Jr., Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation. “We look forward to meeting our brothers and sisters of the Amazon and sharing ideas and solutions regarding protecting the indigenous way of life when faced with such huge environmental impacts.”

The United Houma Nation is a state recognized Tribe of approximately 17,000 citizens that reside along the coastal marshes of southeast Louisiana. Traditionally Houmas have lived off the land and work as fishermen and trappers. As the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolds it holds a deeper meaning for the Houmas, who reside on the front lines – it is the uncertainty of whether the culture of the Houma as it stands today will survive.

“Our hearts broke upon seeing images of the tragic spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Emergildo Criollo, a leader of the Cofan tribe in Ecuador’s rainforest who is participating in the delegation. “We are honored to accept the invitation of the United Houma Nation to visit the Gulf. We hope what we have learned from our own torment at the hands of Chevron will strengthen the resolve of the communities affected by the BP spill.”

Follow the Ecuadoreans journey in the Gulf this week on Twitter @ChangeChevron or on Facebook.

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.

Written by dozens of community leaders from sixteen countries and ten states across the United States where Chevron operates, the 60-page report encompasses the full range of Chevron’s activities, from coal to chemicals, offshore to onshore production, pipelines to refineries, natural gas to toxic waste, and lobbying and campaign contributions to greenwashing.

On May 25, forty report authors will appear in Houston at a press conference to address the true cost of Chevron’s operations in their communities. On May 26, they will deliver the report directly to Chevron inside the company’s Annual Shareholders Meeting.

The 2009 report has gained even greater import in the wake of the BP/Transocean explosion as it exposes Chevron’s role as the largest leaseholder in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and its role at the forefront of lobbying to expand offshore drilling across the U.S. and around the world. Chevron also contracts with Transocean for its massive offshore operations.

The true Cost of Chevron’s global operations and the resulting environmental and human rights abuses have never before been so collectively and thoroughly documented. As this unprecedented coalition continues to build pressure on Chevron it looks more likely than ever that we will Change Chevron, because energy shouldn’t cost lives.

A California federal judge threw out eight of nine claims (pdf) in Chevron’s malicious prosecution case against a Massachusetts lawyer on Wednesday.

But while she granted most of the lawyer’s anti-SLAPP motion, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken left the door open a crack for Chevron to try to prove one claim that Cristobal Bonifaz maliciously sued the energy giant.

“She has set a very high bar for any plaintiff bringing a malicious prosecution case,” said Chevron’s attorney, Scott Edelman, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Chevron’s suit stemmed from an action Bonifaz brought in 2006 on behalf of nine Ecuadoreans against the energy giant and two if its subsidiaries. The plaintiffs alleged the company’s oil exploration and production in Ecuador had made them sick.

The plaintiffs didn’t prevail, and Chevron sued Bonifaz in November. The company is seeking $4 million in special damages.

In court filings, Bonifaz’s attorneys at San Francisco’s Kerr & Wagstaffe have said Chevron sued the 75-year-old semi-retired attorney, who operates his solo practice from a barn in rural Massachusetts, because he “had the audacity to dedicate the last 15 years of his legal career to legally assisting the poor, indigenous people of the Ecuadorean Amazon.”

Kerr & Wagstaffe partner Jacqueline Scott Corley heralded Wednesday’s decision as a vindication of her client.

“Mr. Bonifaz, as we showed in our motion, is a respected human rights lawyer with a long career,” Corley said. “This helps remove a cloud over that career. It’s unfortunate that Chevron dragged his name through the mud.”

In its malicious prosecution complaint, Chevron theorized that Bonifaz filed suit after a group of plaintiffs in a separate case replaced him as their lawyer. Bonifaz filed the new complaint, Chevron alleged, “in an attempt to gain media attention and leverage as a key component of his efforts to extort money from Chevron,” adding that he was “maliciously motivated by a desire to retain or enhance his financial interest” in the other litigation.

Edelman held to that theory on Thursday.

“The lawsuit continues,” Edelman said. “Under no circumstances is this a vindication of Mr. Bonifaz. The case that he brought remains what it always was — an effort to extort Chevron to try to settle purportedly multibillion-dollar claims brought in Ecuador.”

Wilken deferred deciding on one claim, allowing Chevron 60 days of discovery on the “discrete, narrow issue” of whether Bonifaz pursued a claim on behalf of one Ecuadorean plaintiff even though he knew that she didn’t actually have cancer. The woman had admitted she wasn’t sick to Bonifaz’s co-counsel in Ecuador.

“If Bonifaz knew of her admission and did not dismiss her claims, malice on his part could be inferred,” Wilken wrote in her order in Chevron v. Bonifaz, 09-05371.

Corley said she was “confident” that the discovery “will not support Chevron’s allegations and that this claim, too, will be dismissed.”

Because of Wilken’s ruling, Chevron is on the hook for Bonifaz’s attorney fees, Corley said.

Edelman said the issue of attorney fees isn’t so clear. “That is something that will have to be sorted out,” he said.

The original article can be found HERE