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ECUADOR: Avatar Downfall
a Blow for Indigenous Communities
By Gonzalo Ortiz
QUITO (IPS) - Science fiction
blockbuster Avatar was the big loser in
the Oscar awards ceremony - not only a
blow for director James Cameron but also
seen as a symbolic reverse in the
struggle to recover Amazon rainforest
areas in Ecuador from the effects of oil
pollution.
Several environmental organizations,
like the Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
and the Amazon Defence Coalition, had
asked Cameron to "let his legions of
fans know that while Pandora is
fictional, what is happening to
(indigenous) communities in Ecuador is
as real as it gets."
In the film, Pandora, a moon orbiting
the planet Polyphemus, comes under
threat when human beings decide to
extract a mineral essential for energy
supply on Earth from its surface.
Rebecca Tarbotton, acting head of RAN,
compared Avatar's story-line to the
real-life drama of the struggle of
Ecuadorean indigenous people who have
brought a multi-billion dollar lawsuit
for environmental damages against the
oil giant Chevron.
After an email campaign last month,
backed up by weblog columns and press
releases, Tarbotton called on Cameron
Sunday morning to make good the promise
he had made to use the movie to inspire
mass environmental activism.
But Avatar failed to win the Oscars for
Best Director and Best Picture, taking
awards only in three minor categories
out of the nine for which it had been
nominated, so Cameron never got a chance
to deliver a speech during the American
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences awards ceremony held Sunday in
Los Angeles.
Cameron has also been swamped by other
requests: Survival International, the
movement for tribal peoples, for
instance, took out an advertisement in
Variety magazine asking him to help the
indigenous Dongria Kondh people of
India, who are struggling to defend
their land against a British mining firm
bent on extracting bauxite from their
sacred mountain.
At any rate, Cameron need shed no tears
over not winning the Oscar, as his movie
has already raked in 2.5 billion
dollars, making it the greatest box
office success in the history of cinema.
What has really lost out is the
environmental cause, even as the
16-year-long Chevron trial continues to
crawl through the courts.
Speaking of records, this is the biggest
class action suit ever launched against
a transnational corporation: the
indigenous communities of northeastern
Ecuador, where the oil drilling took
place, are demanding 27 billion dollars
in reparations for damages.
The plaintiffs, some 30,000 indigenous
people and mestizo (mixed ancestry)
settlers, have accused Texaco, a company
acquired by Chevron in 2001, of ditching
18 billion gallons of toxic waste water
and spilling about 17 million gallons of
crude into the rainforest during its
operations in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990.
These illegal actions contaminated the
soil, groundwater, rivers and streams in
the area, causing cancer, congenital
defects and abortions among the
indigenous population, according to the
plaintiffs.
At first Chevron refused to be tried
before Ecuadorean courts, so the case
was transferred to the United States.
However, the U.S. courts ruled that
Ecuador did have jurisdiction.
The changes in jurisdiction and various
legal manoeuvres by the defence have
dragged the trial out for over 16 years.
Since mid-February the new judge
presiding over the trial at the
provincial court in the northeastern
province of Sucumbíos is Leonardo
Ordóñez. He replaced Judge Juan Núñez,
who Chevron alleged had taken bribes.
"All we ask of Judge Ordóñez is that he
enforce the law transparently and
impartially, and not allow Chevron to
continue delaying the trial," said Pablo
Fajardo, lead counsel for the Amazon
Defence Coalition, in a statement.
The U.S. oil company's manipulative
strategies have included attempting to
block the extension of preferential
tariffs in the United States for
Ecuador's trade goods, as the former
Ecuadorean foreign minister, Fander
Falconi, confirmed in January.
According to Falconi, in 2009 Chevron's
lobby against the renewal of
preferential tariffs for Ecuador was
"one of the strongest and fiercest that
Ecuadorean foreign policy has ever
faced."
By hiring law firms and expert
negotiators and engaging in intense
action on the diplomatic front, the
Ecuadorean authorities managed to
neutralise Chevron's political and
diplomatic influence in Washington,
Falconi said before leaving the post of
foreign minister.
The import tariffs he referred to are
granted by the United States for
hundreds of products from Ecuador,
Colombia and Peru, in exchange for
cooperation in the fight against drug
trafficking. Bolivia was also a
beneficiary of the scheme until it was
excluded last year. |
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