By Patrick Bele. There are moments where he must learn to rejoice at the news reaching us from the South American continent. This week the court sentenced the Ecuadorian American who Chevron oil at 9.5 billion dollars in fines for having probably irreparably damaged an area of Amazon border with Colombia.
Thousands of hectares of land have been impregnated with residues of oil that Texaco then merged with Chevron, has been driving for years 60 and 70. It is not just accidental pollution, errors or technical. No, the oil company had knowingly used outdated technologies and highly polluting oil operations in Ecuador for the sole purpose of maximizing profits. In comparison, the pollution caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico a few months ago like a fly on frass a lampshade.
is the epitome of arrogance that Western groups have too long shown in the exploitation of natural resources of Third World countries. This allows the populist and sometimes simplistic Liders South American collect a wide audience in the U.S. Latino population.
Facts: Texaco gets in the 60 concessions to exploit oil in the north-eastern Ecuador. For 30 years, the U.S. company will drill 300 wells over an area half the size of Corsica. That territory covered by primary forest of biologically rich Indian tribes that lived were never consulted. This operation was born a city Lago Agrio, the "bitter lake". An explicit reference to Sour Lake, where Texaco was born in Texas. But there the similarities end: unlike the practices used in Texas, Ecuador, Texaco has deliberately used methods that made the land unusable for hundreds of years and the dangerous environment for people who live there.
Texaco intentionally dumped waste oil exploitation in holes without protections soil pollutants for hundreds of years the water supply. Texaco rejected the wastewater resulting from oil directly into the rivers feeding the people of the forest.
Visit Lago Agrio and surrounding nauseous. Unable to find a family where there is not a disabled child birth. When men seek to exploit the earth, digging the hole causes less smelly and oily fumes. These people have not only been deprived of their land by pollution has caused the oil but also future, most of their children on the legacy of pollution caused by Texaco. Today
Texaco is appealing the conviction. But families also. Indeed, a U.S. firm has estimated the damage at tens of billions of euros. The only soil remediation represent at least a hundred billion. This scandal was probably largely inspired the project developed by the Ecuadorian government in Yasuni. This is for Ecuador to commit not to exploit the oil resources hidden in the basement of the Yasuni park, which houses one of the biodiversity the most extraordinary of the world in exchange for international financing of the non-exploitation.
The reasoning is as follows: biodoversité the Ecuadorian forest belongs to humanity. For the defense, it is necessary that the world works through the funding of non-exploitation of these resources and thus their preservation.
PS: on assignment in Chile, I just received an email from the Embassy of Mexico telling me that the Ambassador of France in that country withdrew from the Senate after the foreign minister, Michele Alliot Marie, refers, in a debate unconnected with this case, Florence Break, sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence for his alleged involvement in kidnappings. The arms drop me ... It reminds me of unsuccessful actions of France to liberate Ingrid Betancourt. I particularly remember a trip to Buenos Aires François Fillon for Christina Kirchner's inauguration. French Prime Minister received President Uribe at the Embassy of France for the maintenance exclusively of Ingrid Betancourt. The only effect was to provoke the anger of the Colombian president saying that France did not meddle in the internal affairs of Colombia. History has vindicated Alvaro Uribe, as he managed to free Ingrid Betancourt, a spectacular action of the armed forces at the time directed by Juan Manuel Santos, the current president. France at the time pushed Bogota to discuss with the FARC ...
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