corporate appreciation week - day two - CHEVRON

(Elaine Gilligan/Friends of the Earth - picture at right)
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the following is just the VERY BEGINNING of an extensive report by amnesty usa (link on the title above)

chevon in nigeria:
"It is like paradise and hell. They have everything. We have nothing. They throw our petitions in the dustbin. They are the cause of all our problems. If we protest, they send soldiers. They sign agreements with us and then ignore us. We have graduates going hungry, without jobs. And they bring people from Lagos to work here." – Eghare W.O. Ojhogar, Chief of the Ugborodo community, one of whose members died during a protest at Chevron Nigeria’s Escravos oil terminal where demonstrators were assaulted and injured by the security forces on 4 February 2005.1

"At around 10am the soldiers arrived in 15 gunboats. There were about 100 of them. They started pouring petrol on houses. I could not count the number of firebombs used; there were too many. They fired with big guns, but no teargas was used. Two- to three-year-olds and the old ones stayed in their houses, and 12-year-old Lucky was shot dead."
L.D.I. Orumiegha-Bari, Chairman of the Council of Chiefs, following an armed forces raid on the town of Odioma, 19 February 2005, in which at least 17 people died.

and this Chevron in the Amazon – Oil Rights or Human Rights?Texaco’s legacy, Chevron’s resposibility

“Our health has been damaged seriously by the contamination caused by Texaco. Many people in our community now have red stains on their skin and others have been vomiting and fainting. Some little children have died because their parents did not know they should not drink the river water.”
Excerpt: Affidavit of the Secoya tribe given by Elias Piaguaie -Aguinda, et al v. Texaco Inc. - Case # 93-CV-7527.

.......Over the past four decades, a succession of U.S. petroleum companies including Texaco (now owned by Chevron Corporation), Occidental Petroleum, ARCO, and Maxus Energy Corporation, among others, have come to Ecuador in search of oil. Environmental and human rights defenders claim that these companies have left behind a trail of destruction, posing a serious danger to people’s survival............

.............Texaco intentionally dumped more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters into the region and was responsible for 16.8 million gallons of crude oil spilling from the main pipeline into the forest. By comparison, the infamous Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in 1989 spilled 10.8 million gallons off the coast of Alaska. The report alleges that these actions contaminated both the soil and the groundwater of the communities in the area and will continue to threaten the economic and cultural bases of Indigenous peoples' survival....................

.........On 4 February 2005, soldiers from the Joint Task Force fired on protesters at the Escravos oil terminal on the Delta State coast. One demonstrator, Bawo Ajeboghuku, was shot and later died from his injuries, and at least 30 others were injured, some of them seriously, by blows from rifle butts and other weapons. Security personnel were said to have fired first tear gas, then live ammunition, to disperse between two and three hundred demonstrators from Ugborodo, a small community of the Itsekiri ethnic group, who had entered the high-security facility at first light. Chevron Nigeria, which operates the terminal, said that 11 employees and security officers received minor injuries. The industry-strength boundary fence was cut in five places, and windows and helicopter windscreens were smashed. It was several hours before the injured protesters reached a hospital, a lengthy boat journey away. Neither the security forces nor Chevron Nigeria provided adequate medical care or assistance to transport the injured. The protest was over a Memorandum of Understanding signed by Ugborodo community representatives and Chevron Nigeria in 2002. The Ugborodo protesters said that Chevron Nigeria had not provided the jobs and development projects promised in return for a "non-disruptive operating environment". Until October 2005, Amnesty International had received no information suggesting that a thorough or independent inquiry − to establish what happened, who was injured and who was responsible − has been carried out by the federal government or by Chevron Nigeria. The company said it could not control the actions of the security forces in any way, and did not indicate taking any immediate steps to avoid a recurrence of such a case. 1.3 Death and devastation by gunboat At least 17 people were reported to have been killed and two women raped when members of the Joint Task Force raided the community of Odioma on the Bayelsa State coast in gunboats and other vessels. The attack on 19 February 2005 was ostensibly to arrest members of an armed vigilante group suspected of killing four local councillors and eight others earlier that month. The suspects were not captured but, over a period of a few days, 80 per cent of the homes in Odioma were razed, most of them near the waterfront. Two of those killed, Balasanyun Omieh, a woman said to be 105 years old, and two-year-old Inikio Omieye, burned to death. Three people were reportedly shot dead. Many inhabitants fled the violence and did not return. Over 100 of them have not been able to return. The roots of the violence lay in a dispute between communities, all part of the Ijaw ethnic group, for control of land planned for oil exploration by Shell Nigeria since 1998. Shell Nigeria had identified the landowners as the Obioku and Nembe- Bassambiri communities, but withdrew from the area in January 2005 when it became aware that Odioma disputed its ownership. Members of the vigilante group in Odioma suspected of the killing earlier that month were reported to have been recruited by a subcontractor of Shell Nigeria to be responsible for security in the area, despite their alleged record of criminality. Shell is not known to have expressed concern about the attack on the people of Odioma or their continuing destitution. A Judicial Commission of Inquiry appointed by the State Governor to investigate...................

there really isn't much i can add here. i'm a human being. the powers that be obviously are NOT human. this is OUR earth, they are OUR people. whatever happens EFFECTS ALL OF US ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. i've said it before and i'll say it again. i KNOW these people (the powers that be people that is) have families. have wives and husbands and children and grandchildren. do they NOT want a SAFE EARTH for them? do they not want ALL people treated like they want their families treated? how do they sleep at night? i sure as shite don't know but i DO know i only sleep two or three hours a night............

HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY PROFESS TO BELIEVE IN A GOD?