WEBVTT - The Colonizers: How Oil and Missionaries Shaped the Amazon 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:17.080 O ye lugar a in Agosto, the mill noveci yai 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:24.960 we progrimes petroleo in Las Carters in de la de 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.560 las Suga. 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:38.479 This is Luis Janza. He moved to the Oriente area 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.440 of the Ecuadorian Amazon, on the eastern side of the 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.480 country in the seventies. He says, when he stopped off 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.400 the bus in Lago Agrio, the largest city in the 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.280 area at the time, the streets were literally filled with oil, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.000 that there was oil running down them. He stepped onto 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.640 a street of oil. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:03.880 There is a societ and yomama, there's a there's a 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:16.680 demos mia siemprevis negras yeh Principio Nosavilla kravis Negras. 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.200 Jansa says growing up he would see big black clouds 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.720 in the distance nubis Negras. He didn't know what those 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:26.960 clouds were from, but he found out later that they 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.200 were from the oil refineries in the area. Later he 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.320 would see pits of oil and wastewater in various parts 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.560 of the Amazon as well. All of that, the oil streets, 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.759 the black clouds, the pits. Who created those and whose 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.520 responsibility it is to clean them up? That's what's at 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.559 the center of a lawsuit that started in nineteen ninety 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:53.240 three against one company, Texaco. That suit has lasted through 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.080 an acquisition. Chevron acquired Texco in two thousand and Multiple 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.000 trials and settlements in appeal aspects of this case have 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:07.600 been heard in courtrooms in Ecuador, New York, Canada, Argentina, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.720 and the Hague. An American lawyer Stephen Donziger you met 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.839 last time, is on house arrest and facing prison time 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.880 for his role in the case. Yansa is still working 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.399 on aspects of the case on the ground in Ecuador 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.280 and in various other courts around the world, and various 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.440 indigenous groups are just trying to figure out how they're 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.799 going to clean this stuff up and get access to 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:37.320 clean water. This is Drilled Season five, La Lucha Lahundla, 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.920 Episode two, The Colonizers. Today, we're going to go all 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.399 the way back and look at how that oil got 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.639 onto those streets in the first place. That story coming 0:02:47.840 --> 0:03:10.040 right up after this quick break from today's sponsor, Missing 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.200 America is the story of what happens when the United 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.120 States under Trump abdicates our role as an example for 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.480 the world. Ben Rhodes, who served as the deputy national 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.040 Security advisor to President Obama, hosts the show and speaks 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.679 to inspiring leaders and activists who are fighting to take 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:32.600 up the slack in America's absence in a world where nationalism, authoritarianism, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.400 and disinformation have taken hold like never before. This week, 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.400 Ben talks to several climate activists, including former Australian Prime 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.280 Minister Kevin Rudd, to ask can the biggest threat to 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.560 the entire world bring the entire world together? In their 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.600 penultimate episode, Be examines the enormous obstacles to confronting climate 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.600 change and how progressives in other countries have made headway. 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.640 Missing America is a nine part limited podcast series from Media. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.080 Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:04.880 to your shows. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:24.400 Hello, I'm Kyle Thomas. I've just been reading about Simon Believer. Believer, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.680 the great patriot of Latin America, fought for the freedom 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.160 of not just one country, but for the freedom of 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:35.520 six Spanish colonies in Latin America. For centuries. 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.680 In their poor and remote villages, most of the people 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:43.200 lived quiet lives, close to the soil. Then in the 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.880 early nineteen twenties something happened which changed forever. The life 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.719 of the Venezuelan people oil. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.919 As you can hear in these vintage oil industry promotional films, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:02.479 oil companies didn't see themselves as colin Colonialism was something 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:08.480 Spaniards did American companies they brought freedom. Oil Colonialism was 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.479 deeply intertwined with religion, and the situation in Latin America 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.480 was no different. Missionaries throughout the continent were often funded 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.480 by oilmen, most intensely from the nineteen twenties through the 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.200 nineteen sixties, and it wasn't purely cynicism. Men like Lyman 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.560 Stewart and John D. Rockefeller were extremely devout Christians who 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.880 believed God had ordained them to find oil and prosper 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.479 from it. Darren Dochuk, a history professor at the University 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.799 of Notre Dame, has written several fascinating books on this subject. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.440 Not all oilmen are developed Christian, but many of them are. 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.600 Dochuk says, there's a long history of missionaries and oilmen partnering, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.039 and it was no different in the Amazon. 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.520 These missionaries are pushing into the jungles of the Amazon. 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.680 It's no accident that they are coming in direct contact 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.760 with petroleum geologists and they are going to collaborate, they 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.640 are going to partner in terms of the flow of information. 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.160 These partnerships weren't just bringing religion to the supposedly godless 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.640 primitive people of the Amazon and opening up new land 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.840 for oil exploration. They were also exporting American style democracy 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:20.839 throughout the world. 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.920 Of course, this is all premise on the assumption of 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:30.320 a superiority of the modern Christian who, as ambassador of 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.480 the American Way, privileges their knowledge and their expertise and 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.080 sees it as again a God given way for them 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.640 to help uplift the world, and that has deeply, of course, 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.240 racist undertones. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.720 As the Cold War began in the late nineteen forties 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.920 and continued until nineteen ninety one, churches and oilman teamed 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.200 up again against a common enemy, Communism. 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.000 This pursuit of black gold is going to be all 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.000 the more intensified against the backdrop of the Cold War 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.159 and the fight with communism, in the fear that Latin 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.160 America might lose itself to the great secular communist threat 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.200 of the Soviet Union, So oil and the pursuit of 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.160 souls is going to become all the more important. 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.240 At that point, people began exploring for oil and Ecuador 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.040 in the nineteen twenties, but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties, 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.840 and then once again oilmen and missionaries teamed up to 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.360 explore deep into the jungle. In the nineteen eighties, Judith Kimberling, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.000 an environmental lawyer from Alabama, was drawn to Ecuador by 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.720 that timeless desire of environmentalists everywhere. She wanted to save 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.800 the rainforests. When she arrived, kimberly learned about the exact 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.480 partnership between oil and religion that Dotuck describes. 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.160 What of the groups the Bia, they had no contact 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.960 with the outside world until nineteen seventy. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.640 The Biwayeti are a subgroup of a larger tribe called 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.800 the Wadani, who lived throughout the Amazon in Ecuador. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.720 They were subjected to a program of forced contact because 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.600 after Texco discovered commercial quantities of oil and Lago Agrio, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.320 the company knew that it would want to expand its 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.240 operations into Warani territory. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.960 Lago Agrio is the name of the first well Texaco 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.840 drilled in Ecuador in the great tradition of American companies 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:37.280 exploring overseas. Texaco named that well and the town it 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.319 built up around it after its own history. Lago Agrio 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.719 means Sour Lake, and back when Texico was just the 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.120 Texas Oil Company, it first struck black gold in the 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.840 tiny sundown town of Sour Lake, Texas. Thirty years later 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.839 Lago Agrio would be the center of this big legal 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.840 case we've been talking about. But in the nineteen seventies 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.920 there was still more exploring to do. That's where the 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:03.280 missionaries came into it. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.000 And the Warni who lived in those areas had no 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.839 contact with the outside world. They were Fearce warriers and 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:15.240 great hunters, and so the company collaborated with US missionaries 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.320 to subject the Warani to a forced contact. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.480 Kimberly wanted to see for herself what was happening in 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.800 the Ecuadorian Amazon, and when she first got to Quito, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.800 she met an American oil consultant who repeated something she'd 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:29.880 read back home. 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:34.480 I had read that there was some oil development in Ecuador, 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.800 but I had read in this literature that oil extraction, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.160 oil drilling, expiration, and production does not harm the rainforest. 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:48.000 That the only harm is caused by road construction, that 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.880 oil companies have to build roads in order to lay 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:56.040 their pipelines. And that road construction by the oil industry 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:01.319 Leacity Fares station and there's never there's no other. I 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.800 had read that without thinking about it, and then after 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.600 I got to Quito, I met a consultant for an 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.640 oil company who said the same thing to me, and 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.959 somehow when he said it, it just didn't sound right. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:21.640 That consultant gave Kimerling a copy of his company's environmental 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.120 management practices and its plans for further drilling in the Amazon. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.280 She took it to a group called Company I, an 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.560 organization that represents fifteen hundred communities in the Amazon. 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.040 An environmental management plan for Block sixteen, which is in 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.080 a really important areas of Yasuni National Park and also 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:45.600 the territory of the Warani nation. You know, they looked 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:50.040 at it and they asked me if they could see it, 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.560 if they could copy it, and I said, of course. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.040 And I think that what made an impression on them 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.000 was that I was the first person who had ever 0:10:58.200 --> 0:10:59.720 shared information with him. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.400 Confany I asked her to come back, and then they 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.319 asked her, Okay, so you want to help. What exactly 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.599 do you want to do? She said, she wanted to 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.280 go out and see what the oil companies were really 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.000 doing in the rainforest. 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.240 So I went with company I. They took me out 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.560 they and they took me to Coca, which is an 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:22.000 oil boom town, and they introduced me to the local 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:26.840 federation and I met with the with the leaders there, 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.120 and I told them about, you know, what I had 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.120 heard about oil extraction. And I asked them, you know, 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:34.440 I said, I have some doubts. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:35.080 Is it true? 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.679 Is their contamination? And they looked at each other, they 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.520 looked at me. They had never heard that word before. 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.000 They did not know what it meant. And so when 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.840 I explained what the word contamination meant, they understood immediately 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.360 and they began to tell me about the oil operations, 0:11:54.800 --> 0:12:00.319 the routine waste, the spills, and then they took mend 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.760 so that I could see for myself. And so I 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:09.280 still remember the first waste pit that I saw, the 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.840 first abandoned waste pit that I saw. It was at 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.320 an exploratory well site, and the company had just dug 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.640 a hole in the ground, dumped their toxic drilling waste, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.640 and then abandoned it in the rainforest. And when you 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.680 abandon toxic waste in the rainforests, some of it seats 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:29.480 into the ground. You also get a lot of rain, 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.880 so it overflows into the surrounding areas. And I was 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.960 appalled because when I was a lawyer in New York City, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.920 I had worked on the Love Canal litigation. I had 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.400 worked for the New York State Attorney General's Office suing 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:50.760 Occidental Petroleum Company, an Occidental chemical company to recover the 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.760 monies that New York State had spent to buy out 0:12:54.840 --> 0:13:00.160 people's homes and contain the contamination at Love Canal. And 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.920 I thought that we had learned in this country from 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.439 Love Canal that you can't just dig a hole in 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.439 the ground, dump your toxic waste and walk away. But 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.200 that is exactly what Texico was doing. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.520 A US company was doing in the Amazon rainforest in 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.000 Ecuador in the you know, I went there in nineteen 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.319 eighty nine and they were still doing it. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:34.720 Then, This practice digging unlined open air waste pits, filling 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.480 them and just leaving them behind, and the dumping of 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.559 oil into rivers what we heard Hostino talk about in 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.959 the last episode. These are the original issues at the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:48.599 center of this decades long case that Chevron ultimately inherited 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.079 from Texico, and that the Ecuadorians are still trying to 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.320 settle today. No one really denies that this was done. 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.120 It's more a question of who did what and whose 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.600 job it is to clean it up. We actually found 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.760 a petroleum geologist who worked in Ecuador in the mid 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.400 nineties who told us what he saw there. Tim Lagonegro 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.400 thirty six years in the patroleymy industry. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.520 I've worked or lived in about seventy different countries. I 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.559 lived ten years in Latin America, eight in Brazil, two 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.920 in Ecuador. Going there, I did see these these oil 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.920 roads where they the crude oil was. It seemed like 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.480 it was deliberately spilled. I don't know how it happened, 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.840 but it seemed like it was also almost wat deep, 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.040 and it was lush, lush jungle out there. 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.000 An issue in this case is not whether this happened 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.320 or even whether Texaco was involved, it's whether they were 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.600 responsible for more cleanup than they actually did. Texicos and 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.880 now Chevron's arguments in this case boiled down to two things. First, 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.760 Texico cleaned up with the government said it had to, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.720 and second that any remaining issues were the res responsibility 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.360 of the state run oil company Petro Ecuador. The plaintiffs say, basically, 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.600 we don't care who owned what percentage of this partnership. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.640 It was Texico that was operating everything. Texico showed the 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.280 Ecuadorians what to do, Texico showed Petro Ecuador what to do, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:21.320 and they're responsible. My co reporter on this series, Karen Savage, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:22.920 asked lag Negro about that. 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:28.120 So Texico real lies in now chevrun on what they 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.400 call the settlement agreement that was signed I think it 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:32.800 was in ninety eight where they say they cleaned up 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.880 thirty seven percent of the unlined waste pits because they 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.480 said that's the percentage of their share of the consortium. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:42.880 Is that a normal kind of thing where they would 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.480 only clean up whatever their share is and then leave 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:46.800 the rest for Petro Ecuador. 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:53.280 I think that's an outlandish statement because what happens is 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:59.640 the major runs everything. No, I don't want to say 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.360 they're like, you know, imperialists or whatever, but they definitely 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.320 go in there with this big boy attitude a lot 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:14.520 with these broad shoulders, and they're there to do the operations, 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:20.640 to operate it, and usually the national oil company it's 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.120 just an observer. They really don't get their hands on 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:30.200 the operation. So I think that's an outlandish deception there, 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.800 really and truly and don't believe that for a second. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.480 Number one, you would never put wastewater in an unlined pit. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:48.040 Never everyone knows that's toxic water. Putting that into a rainforest, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:55.960 that is an outlandishly bold faced drilling one oh one error, 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.600 very extremely wrong, extremely dangerous. Doesn't app seven percent. I 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:07.320 think that's an outlandish deception really that it doesn't work 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:07.720 that way. 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.960 Kimberlin gives the example of the Trans Ecuadorian Pipeline, a 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.840 three hundred and thirteen mile pipeline that runs from the 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.320 Amazon up over the Andes and to the Pacific Ocean. 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.920 It was initially built by Texico in nineteen seventy two. 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.360 This pipeline that during the time it was operated by Texico, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.200 this pipeline alone had spilled more oil than the Exxon 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.520 Valdis And this doesn't count the secondary pipelines, the flow lines. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.040 I mean, most of the spills that occurred during Texico's 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.840 operations weren't even recorded. And there's actually a was a 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.800 directive from Texico in the US to the office in 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.680 Keito telling them not to record those spills, basically unless 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:49.280 they had to. 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.080 Both Texico and Chevron have admitted that Texaco was the 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.720 operator of the partnership, in other words, setting up oil fields, refineries, 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.119 and pipelines and running them from the beginning in nineteen 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.720 sixty four into at least nineteen ninety. They were still 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.800 in charge when Kimberling made her initial Save the Rainforest trip. 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.600 That experience prompted Kimberling to write the book Amazon Crude, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.720 which introduced Americans to what was happening in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:21.360 including Cristobal Bonifas, an Ecuadorian who had immigrated to America 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.159 and was practicing law there. When he read about what 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.520 was happening back home, Bonifas convinced his son, who had 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.760 just graduated from law school, to go on a fact 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.120 finding mission with him and see if they might build 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.560 a case. His son brought his law school pal, a 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.880 young Stephen Donziger, the attorney we met last time. 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:44.119 I was invited by a former law school classmate of 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.320 mine and his father, his father from Ecuador, but was 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.480 practicing law in Massachusetts, to go on with them on 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.560 a trip to Ecuador to do an investigation of what 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.920 they described as a massive pollution problem. Caused by Texaco. 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.040 In nineteen ninety three, Fast filed suit against Texaco on 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.240 behalf of a group of indigenous tribes. Here he is 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.920 at a press conference about the case in New York. 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.360 What happened with Texico didn't have to be that way, 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.160 he says. He goes on to say more or less 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.360 exactly what Tim lagoon Neegro, the petroleum engineer we heard 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.680 from earlier said. Lago Negro worked throughout South America, the US, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.520 and Africa as an engineer for Baker Hughes, an oil 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.360 field services company. He said that plenty of oil companies 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.600 were drilling responsibly at the time, that the pollution in 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:38.600 Ecuador was really over the top. 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.240 It was almost like a war on the environment. 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:45.000 That's what it seemed like. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.560 Texico argued that it had cleaned up what it was 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.040 responsible for. The company also argued that New York, where 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.879 the suit was filed, had no jurisdiction over what had 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.960 happened in Ecuador. For almost a decade, the plaintiffs, led 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.600 by Bonifas, fought to keep the suit in New York. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.440 That's at least in part because at the time, Ecuador's 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.240 government was almost entirely in the pocket of the oil companies, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.440 whose profits were helping the country develop and modernize. In fact, 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.520 the government even filed amikus breeze backing Texaco. In this case, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.879 they asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying it 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.480 would harm Ecuador's own oil industry and its relationship with 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.720 the US. In an internal Texico memo from nineteen ninety four, 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.600 doctor Rodrigo Perez, one of the company's representatives in Ecuador, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.680 is reporting back on a meeting with the President of 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:48.480 Ecuador and various ministers and the executives of various oil companies. 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:53.160 This seems to be a fairly regular occurrence. The last 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.920 monthly meeting of the representatives of the oil companies was 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.920 organized by City Investing and took place on Saturday, September 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.919 third in the town of Bahia, where President Aaran Balin 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.280 owns a beach house that reads, we flew down in 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:12.480 Petro Ecuador's airplane. Keep in mind this is nineteen ninety four, 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.000 so two years after Texico has officially left Ecuador, but 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.040 the company is still pretty cozy with the government there. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:24.040 When he gets to a section titled ecological problems, Perez writes, 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.680 quote the companies express their deep concern with what is 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.680 happening to Texaco. President Duran stated that the environmental issue 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.439 is being brought up by all lending agencies such as 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.960 the World Bank et cetera, which are conditioning their loans 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.760 to sound and firm environmental policies. With regard to the 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.720 Texico problem, he indicates that they are in the process 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.720 of being resolved through direct negotiation between the government and Texico. 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:52.480 The minister also said that he had met with the 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.240 leaders of the indigenous groups who have told him that 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.000 they are not interested in the lawsuits against Texaco, but 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.879 rather desired to have direct conversations with the company. The 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.119 president finally said that he received several letters from ecological 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.359 organizations from all over the world asking him to cancel 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.520 all contracts with foreign oil and mining companies, which he 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:24.479 will obviously never do. Okay, So the oil companies are 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.840 all meeting with the president during his beach vacation, and 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.639 he and the environment minister are telling them, don't worry, 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.200 we'll sort all of these environmental issues out for you. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.119 But also, hey, we're kind of going out on a 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.720 limb here with these banks and environmental organizations, so don't 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.399 forget the favor. It's all right there in black and white. 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.280 This is something that comes up in this case a lot, 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:52.600 the corruption of the Ecuadorian government for years. The plaintiff 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.160 said they wouldn't get a fair trial in Ecuador because 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.159 of it. Then Chevron said they wouldn't get a fair trial. 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.520 But Chevron also points to agreements the government made with 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:06.879 Texaco around this time as both valid and binding, particularly 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:09.880 a document in which the Republic of Ecuador signed off 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.879 on Texico's cleanup efforts in the country. That agreement was 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:18.680 signed in nineteen ninety eight. In various videos defending themselves 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.200 and in a written statement to us, Chevron is careful 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.360 with the language they use around this. They always say 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.480 the cleanup was done according to the government's requirements. 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.480 Before leaving, Texaco spent forty million dollars and worked with 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:36.240 independent environmental experts to clean up its share of well sides. 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:40.280 The whole process was overseen and verified by the Ecuadorian government. 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.440 Texico spent forty million dollars cleaning up its agreed upon 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:46.200 share of production sites, getting a complete release from the 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:48.440 Ecuadorian government and local communities. 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:52.120 An independent panel of experts found that Texico's remediation here 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:54.919 had followed Ecuadorian government requirements. 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.920 It was the Ecuadorian government's cozy relationship with the oil 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:02.480 industry that made Bone and the Equadorian plaintiffs fight so 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:05.840 hard for so long to keep their case in the US, 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:11.600 especially given that Texico was an American company. Here's Donziger again, 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:12.720 Given that. 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:17.320 The ecuador legal system seemed completely incapable of standing up 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:23.480 to the powerful Texico and then Chevron corporation, it didn't 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:27.720 exactly engender a whole lot of confidence that a lawsuit 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.520 in Equator could be successful, which is exactly why Texico 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:34.920 and then Chevron was so desperate to have the case 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.600 litigated down at Ecuador. They were so desperate that they agreed, 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.160 as a condition of the removal of the case to Ecuador, 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:46.400 they accepted jurisdiction of the Ecuadorian courts as an American company. 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:51.280 Very very significant victory for our side, and they also 0:24:51.359 --> 0:24:55.080 agreed to pay any adverse judgment that might come out 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:58.440 of Ecuador if they were to lose the case, subject 0:24:58.480 --> 0:24:59.520 to certain conditions. 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:03.240 At this point, Donziger was becoming increasingly involved in the case. 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.680 It was unusual for an American company to agree to 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:10.159 conditions like these, but maybe less so when you consider 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.040 how friendly the Equadorian government had always been to oil companies. 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:17.800 They thought they could engineer a dismissal because of their 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:21.720 political influence. You know, they saw what we saw, which was, 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.160 you know, we saw a court system that for decades 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:29.000 hadn't issued even one ruling against Texaco, even though the 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:33.440 pollution was all over the place. I think they theorized 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.760 that we would either give up, that is, the law 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.080 firm or lawyers in the US who were financing the case, 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:42.240 which is quit because it'd be such a hassle to 0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:45.000 start litigating in a foreign jurisdiction where none of us 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:47.160 were lawyers, none of us were members of the bar. 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:50.280 We would have to get a local legal team pay them. 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:55.320 The inconvenience factor rose significantly, and. 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:59.000 They knew that still the concessions Texico had made and 0:25:59.119 --> 0:26:02.960 that Chevron accepted too, gave the plaintiffs enough of a 0:26:03.040 --> 0:26:04.359 reason to keep going. 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:08.920 Having gotten those two concessions, which are huge because oftentimes 0:26:09.000 --> 0:26:12.480 companies will then you know, the case will be removed 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:15.240 to another country, and these big companies like Texico just 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:18.920 won't show up, or they'll show up and say, hey, 0:26:19.040 --> 0:26:22.040 this has to be dismissed because you lacked jurisdiction in 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:24.520