The Chevron Ecuador case is taking a new turn as we enter a new year in the almost 20 year old legal case. The tide has slowly turned over the past few years as evidence, most notably the outtakes from the movie “Crude” by director Joe Berlinger, was entered into evidence in the case and started to prove what Chevron has said all along: that the case is a scheme intended to defraud the company and its shareholders.
While a ruling today by an appeals court in New York says a lower court judge may have overstepped his bounds in blocking enforcement of the fraudulent $18 billion claim against Chevron, the plaintiffs have lost all credibility in the battle and will lose the case in the long run.
The fascinating thing about the legal case against Chevron is that the chief legal opponents of the oil company—the plaintiffs in the case and their supporters—have become the “Karl Rove” of the environmental movement, using every dirty trick in the book to try to win in Ecuador against Chevron. Fraudulent documents, an ‘independent’ report submitted by the plaintiffs themselves, an Ecuadorian judge who had to recuse himself because of bribery and bias against Chevron, and other proven misdeeds have pulled the rug under the plaintiff’s case against Chevron.
Most recently, it was disclosed that Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of the renowned U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, had sullied the family name by agreeing to accept a $50,000 up-front cash payment and has a $40 million payday if the legal case against Chevron is successful. It’s hard to imagine how badly this disclosure has tarnished what was once the greatest name in American politics and justice. Apparently, there is more evidence of payments to other ‘stars’ who stood up to support the legal case against Chevron.
All of this news of the corrupt nature of Ecuadorian politics and its justice system has not gone unnoticed around the world. Just this month, the New York Times editorial page weighted in, writing that: “President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is leading a relentless campaign against free speech, harassing his critics, forcing independent broadcasters off the air and hijacking the nation’s courts in his bid to bankrupt the country’s largest newspaper. Mr. Correa’s assault on the press has rightly drawn criticism from the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Organization of American States. Now he is trying to silence the rapporteur.”
The editorial concluded: “Latin America has a bitter history of authoritarian rule. It has struggled hard to get beyond those days. All of the hemisphere’s democratic leaders, including President Obama, need to push back against Mr. Correa.”
Perhaps it’s time for all of us to boycott Ecuadorian bananas as a symbol of our stand against the fraud, injustice and attack on freedom of the press that is occurring under the regime of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. It would be fitting for Americans to boycott the fruit as it is symbolic of the Banana Republic that Ecuador has become.
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