The trial of Chevron v. Steven Donziger is under way as this is written, and this blogger has to fire off at the totally phony narrative that’s been launched and spun by Mr. Donziger and the old-reliable Amazon Watch. It’s hard to blog for laughing, but it has to be done.
First, Steven Donziger says that Chevron’s trying to destroy” him. I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors at Chevron, but I’ve never seen a news item or anything in a court document that would lead me to believe this “giant American oil company” is trying to destroy him.
But what anyone, company or individual, would do if being the target of a fraudulent smear campaign of the kind Donziger launched against Chevron, basically for buying Texaco (let’s get that straight) is fight back with all barrels blazing. And for good reason.
Second, Chevron itself was never in Ecuador. It bought Texaco, which had an oil production deal with the Ecuadorian Government such that Texaco partnered with Petroecuador to do oil production from 1967 to 1992. Texaco cleaned up its part of the land used, but Petroecuador did not, instead electing to pass blame on to Texaco, even though Ecuador owned over 70 percent of the consortium and collected much of the profits from it.
The land that is and was polluted when actress Darryl Hannah famously stuck her hand in a pool of oil water in the Amazon, was owned and used by Petroecuador, and they did nothing to clean it up. But they, and Amazon Watch and Donziger, did lie about it, making fools of people like Ms. Hannah in the process.
The truth is that Ecuador should be sued for how it’s harmed its own damned people. In cozying up to Ecuador’s Correa, Donziger has avoided suing them, in part because it would go no where, and in the other part, Correa, with his nasty temper, would have Donziger tossed in jail on some trumped up charge.
So, Steve leaves the big bully Correa alone, and goes after Chevron.
Third, regardless of what he told the Huffington Post (which has eagerly lapped up all of his phony stories), Steven Donziger got involved in going after Chevron because he saw a way to get billions for himself, and at one point did admit he expected to be rich from his efforts.
Donziger and his charges basically used a small number of “indigenous people” of Ecuador for the purpose of making it look like they were suing Chevron for an environmental damage claim it did not do, and did so even to the point of forging the signatures of 48 Ecuadorians, and claiming they represent 30,000. And even worse, Maria Aguinda, a woman who’s name is on the official lawsuit “Aquinda v. Chevron” told the makers of the movie Crude that she didn’t know she was suing Chevron.
In other words, Maria Aguinda’s name, and signature, and words were being used by Steven Donziger without her knowledge.
Now, let’s stop there for a moment. Doesn’t it read like Steven Donziger has no regard for the people he’s using? And before you say “He was going to give money to them,” not so fast. Because Ecuador, which Amazon Watch operatives personally attacked me for saying was a party to the Donziger “Aquinda v. Chevron” lawsuit, was indeed a party to it, and stepped forward to inform the World that 90 percent of the damage award (which is an uncollected $19 billion, would be collected by Ecuador. You can only do that if you’re involved in the lawsuit itself.
And Steven Donziger’s own diary shows how he worked to make buddies with Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa because he needed Correa to win the trial – he needed to have the President of Ecuador be able to pressure the Ecuador judges to get the kind of treatment Donziger wanted and all for the money.
Read it for yourself as all 109 pages are there:
Steven Donziger's 109 Page Chevron Ecuador Diary by Zennie Abraham
But the real smoking gun that should have ended this crap a while ago, was how all of his so-called experts jumped ship and turned on him, basically rendering the whole case a total sham. Watch this:
In the case of Maest and Beltman of Stratus Consulting, not only did they admit they wrote part of the Ecuador Court’s damage assessment written by the court-appointed expert Richard Cabrera (Got that?), but then rejected all of the scientific findings and conclusions within it.
In other words, Steven Donziger somehow convinced the Ecuador Court to be an accessory in a cover-up, even to the point of being allowed to write a fake report all to find Chevron guilty and so they could legally extort $19 billion from the American Oil giant.
The scientists all said that they disavowed the claims made that Chevron polluted Ecuador – assertions written in documents they prepared.
Steven Donziger Did Not Use His Own Money To Battle Chevron
What’s really funny is that Steven Donziger claims he used his own money to sue Chevron and fight them. That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen. Steven Donziger got millions from investment companies like Buford Capital, and while they stopped funding the case when all of the fraud stories came to light, you can bet that Steven socked away some of that money for himself and his family. Hey, he’s got kids and a college bill to consider in the future.
So, look, don’t cry for Steven Donziger. Ok? He create this thing, manipulated a lot of people, and now it’s all going south on him.
Stay tuned.