Ecuador’s leftist President, Rafael Correa, international BFF of Iran and Syria, is going guano over the big hits taken on the infamous multibillion-dollar legal shakedown (by some Ecuadorean locals in cahoots with the Amazon Defense Front) of Chevron.
As I have reported (again and again and again) on this environmental lawsuit, Correa’s regime — armed with contrived reports, bought experts, phantom victims, tampered witnesses, biased judges, media lapdogs, international funders, and Washington lobbyists — has sought to squeeze the oil giant over bogus claims of poorly remediated, long-abandoned drilling sites. If Correa thought Chevron would fold and pay tribute, he thought wrong: The legal fight it has put up against the extortion is carrying the day in a variety of venues, including The Hague and the federal court in New York (where a RICO case against the original plaintiffs’ controversial counsel, Steven Donzinger, starts October 15).
So what’s a Hugo Chávez wannabe to do after rolling snake eyes? If you’re Correa, rant and intimidate. Included in the long list of his recent measures:
- He’s threatened Ecuadorean newspapers with sanctions for not promoting his anti-Chevron “thedirtyhand.com” campaign,
- Branded Ecuadoreans who have served as pro-Chevron witnesses as “traitors” and “criminals,” and is running tv ads revealing the names and faces of Ecuadorean attorneys who have defended Chevron, denouncing the “collaborators” for acting “against their own country and against their own countrymen,”
- Proposed criminal prosecutions against the former officials who released Chevron from liability when the well sites were originally remediated decades earlier,
- And to make sure Yanqui gets his, compared America to Nazi Germany.
The Economist has a sound explanation for Correa’s hyperbole and bullying, and that’s got plenty to do with scape-goating. There’s a lot of oil under Yasuni National Park, a “mega-diverse” Ecuadorean rain forest. The country’s constitution bans drilling there, except for reasons of “national interest.” Correa tried to get other nations to pay Ecuador billions to not drill. That didn’t happen. So Correa flip-flopped and has now approved drilling. Which in turn has infuriated the very environmentalists who have ballyhooed the Chevron shakedown (and they have a point in being concerned: Given Ecuador’s past lummox-like drilling practices, nearly half the forest may end up being destroyed).
’Tis a fitting near-ending for this entire escapade.