An Op-Ed in The Guardian by Actor and Activist Alec Baldwin and Paul Paz y Miño of Amazon Watch

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At a time when so many are protesting systemic racism, we'd like to highlight a different story of marginalized people speaking truth to power on behalf of their most basic human rights.

It's the story of how "big oil" is using Harvey Weinstein-like destroy-the-accuser tactics to try to crush environmental defenders. It is also the story of how we can all help those defenders peacefully fight back.

In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, including all of its assets and a giant liability known as the "Amazon Chernobyl," a 1,700-square-mile environmental disaster in Ecuador. Texaco admitted that it deliberately discharged billions of liters of toxic waste into the environment, which ended up in the local water supply, causing cancers and other chronic health problems. According to multiple Indigenous witnesses, the company actually claimed that the oil wastes were medicinal and "full of vitamins."

Originally, the company attempted to walk away with impunity, but somehow David beat Goliath. After 18 years of court battles, a coalition of Indigenous peoples and local communities won $9.5 billion in damages.

But Goliath won't pay up. In the words of one Chevron official: "We will fight this until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice." In 2011, the company filed a retaliatory civil RICO case in New York against the group's US lawyer and all 47 Ecuadorian villagers who signed the lawsuit, claiming the case was a "racketeering conspiracy."

READ THE FULL GUARDIAN OP-ED
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