Death in The Garden #17 Steven Donziger - The Battle for Accountability Against Chevron
On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we had the honor to interview Steven Donziger in his Manhattan apartment on his 623rd day of house arrest for the baseless misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt.
For 27 years, Steven has been fighting for the indigenous & rural peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon who, from 1967 to 1992 suffered cancer causing abuses and atrocities at the hands of the oil company Texaco, which has since merged with Chevron. Texaco executives had made deliberate decisions to cut costs by polluting the rivers and streams, creating an ecological disaster worse than the Valdez oil spill. They admitted to dumping 16 billion gallons of toxic waste during this time. This waste has caused unimaginable horrors for the humans and the ecosystem in this region of the Amazon.
In 2011, Steven and his Ecuadorian partners won a historic judgement against Chevron. This judgement would be $9.5 billion to clean up the rainforest so that some semblance of paradise might be returned to the victims of this crime: the Secoya, the Siona, the Cofan, the Quechua, the Waorani, and the now extinct Tetete, who were wiped out by this atrocity.
The judgement against Chevron has been affirmed by 6 appellate courts including the Supreme courts of both Ecuador and Canada.
Instead of complying with the court order, Chevron began a retaliation campaign to discredit and demonize Steven, as well as a number of his associates in Ecuador (Secoya Indigenous leader Javier Piaguaje and farmer Hugo Camacho). Chevron claimed that the case was fraudulent based solely on admittedly false testimony from a witness that the company (Chevron themselves) had paid $2 million, Alberto Guerra.
In July of 2019, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan charged Steven with criminal contempt for refusing to break his attorney-client confidentiality by turning over his cell phone & computer over to Chevron. Steven has been imprisoned under house arrest since then.
His trial is May 10, 2021. Steven's lawyers say the preceding will be a farce given he is being denied a jury with the sole fact-finder being a judge who has locked him up for 2 years pretrial. The judge, Loretta A. Preska, and Rita Glavin both have extensive financial ties to Chevron. Glavin was appointed by Kaplan after the regular federal prosecutor refused to take on the case.
Steven deserves a fair trial. Share widely. Call your representatives. Make your voice heard.
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For a comprehensive timeline of the case, click here.
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Watch Crude, by Joe Berlinger here.
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Editing: Jake Marquez
Music: Daniel Osterstock
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