Oakland, CA – Today Amazon Watch released an edgy satire created by Pulitzer-winning animator Mark Fiore blasting Chevron’s unprecedented tactics to avoid responsibility for its admitted acts of environmental destruction in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Despite losing a 20-year legal battle and receiving a $9.5 billion judgment, Chevron maintains that it will never pay for its damage. The company launched an extraordinary racketeering and extortion (RICO) lawsuit against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, U.S. attorneys and various consultants alleging that the original case was “sham litigation.” Fiore’s piece comes on the heels of a campaign supported by a diverse coalition including Amazon Watch and the Sierra Club calling on members of the Senate to investigate and put a stop to Chevron’s vilification of the environmental and human rights community.
Chevron’s actions set a dangerous precedent and represent a growing and serious threat to the ability of civil society to hold corporations accountable for their misdeeds around the world. Now a wide cross-section of U.S.-based environmental and corporate governance groups have condemned Chevron’s most recent retaliatory attacks to intimidate the Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and farmers who have been harmed by the oil giant’s massive contamination of their ancestral lands.
To draw public attention to this threat to open society and freedom of speech environmental group Amazon Watch released an animation by Pulitzer Prize-winning animator Mark Fiore entitled: “Donny Rico & Chevron make it a crime to defend the environment.” The satirical look at Chevron’s actions highlights the serious threat to all environmental and human rights activism if the tactics Chevron has employed are to be replicated by other corporate actors. A grassroots campaign has already been launched by the Sierra Club and Amazon Watch asking members of the U.S. Senate to investigate and put a stop to Chevron’s vilification of the environmental and human rights community. Close to 50,000 US Citizens have already participated in the call.