Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Seeking "Do Over" of Eight-Year Pollution Trial Before Favored Jud

Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Seeking "Do Over" of Eight-Year Pollution Trial Before Favored Judge
Oil Giant Shelves RICO Case and Now Plans to Call Experts To Assert Massive Pollution In Ecuador Is Not Its Problem, Say Legal Papers

NEW YORK, Aug. 30, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ecuadorian indigenous residents are accusing a New York federal judge of improperly allowing Chevron to re-litigate an eight-year pollution trial that it lost to help bail out the company from a potential $18 billion clean-up liability, according to legal papers filed in recent days in New York federal court.

In a series of motions, the Ecuadorians detail how New York federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan repeatedly has denied them time to prepare for a controversial trial scheduled for November where Chevron seeks to have Ecuador's entire judicial system declared unfit. The Ecuadorians also asked Kaplan to dismiss the case entirely because it has no legal basis.

In the court filings, the Ecuadorians assert that Kaplan is "pushing this case towards a trial date for which the Ecuadorian plaintiffs cannot possibly be prepared."

"Continuing on this course will prejudice the Ecuadorian Plaintiffs, deprive them of their due process rights, foster an injustice, and result in a proceeding" with a "pre-determined result," said the papers, filed by the Texas law firm Smyser Kaplan & Veselka, which recently joined the case on behalf of the Ecuadorians.

Chevron's hope is to use a favorable decision from Kaplan to try to block the lawful enforcement of a final Ecuador judgment in countries where Chevron operates. Chevron has stripped its assets from Ecuador and vowed to never pay the judgment despite promising to do so in 2002, when it persuaded a federal judge to move the case from the U.S. to Ecuador. When seeking the transfer of the case, Chevron heaped lavish praise on Ecuador's court system.

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If I were Queen, the first thing I'd do would be to turn all of Chevron's assets over to the 30,000 Indigenous whom they polluted and ravaged, and the second thing would be to put their billion dollar executives, lawyers and professional liars to useful tasks like emptying bed pans in Veterans hospitals and separating all the plastic from all the garbage swirls in the oceans that their product has created, with these true criminals wearing electronic anklets, so we know where they are, and all under surveillance cameras broadcast to the world.

The bed pans punishment was my sentence for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, et al, appropriate for all oil war profiteers. The plastics part is specially designed for Chevron's malefactors, who refuse to clean up after themselves, anywhere.

In lieu of being crowned Queen, all I can do is vote against their political operatives in Diebold/ESS&S, Inc. machines and speak out against them for a long as we can hang onto that right, and for whatever it's worth.

It's difficult perceiving the vastness of our problems in the U.S. and in the world, and the seeming impossibility of solving them. But I think that's why we evolved such amazing brains, altruistic hearts and souls seeking the good of all--of everyone living and all future generations. If we can perceive the problem--however vast--we can solve it, by means of individual perception and our collective democratic will. It IS possible.

Many human problems start off with good intentions--for instance, the guys who invented refrigerators never intended to rip holes in the atmosphere. Their intention was to preserve food, to give humans that advantage. The Oil Culture started off that way--to increase human mobility, power and long term prospects. We have both impulses within us--to help, and to get uber-rich exploiting good or at least clever ideas; to improve and prolong human life, and to force or manipulate others to give us all the wealth. Right now we need to collectively boost our "better angels" or we lose the planet and the future. I think we can do it--however dire our circumstances appear to be. I can't do it, myself. My vote has been rendered useless and meaningless. It's now someone else's "private property." And I am only one voice. We need to remember this and not get too discouraged when we perceive seemingly insoluble problems. No individual can do it. No "Queen" can do it by fiat. It is a collective problem of the human soul, and can only be solved by consensus.