By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

QUITO, Ecuador—Locked in a lawsuit over their allegedly environmentally unsound oil practices, Chevron Corp. has now turned up the heat against their legal opponents.  Chevron has subpoenaed and published numerous documents privately exchanged between members of the plaintiffs’ legal team.  The documents include emails and letters, and even a diary.  Also released are cut scenes from a documentary about the case.

Outtakes being used from the documentary “Crude” include a scene of plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Donziger saying that Ecuadoran judges respond better to fear than the law.  Donziger goes on to say that any judge ruling against the plaintiffs might not be killed by angry Ecuadorans, but “[the judge will think] he will be [killed] . . . which is just as good.”

Although Chevron thinks that their line of documents and film scenes add up to fraud and misconduct by the plaintiffs’ legal team, the team’s spokesperson explained:  “The comments were all born out of a frustration with Chevron’s efforts to undermine the trial in Ecuador.  The real fraud in this case is Chevron’s intentional contamination of the rain forest and its efforts, now on display in the United States, to cover it up.”

In 2003, a class action lawsuit was brought against Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001.  The lawsuit was brought in Ecuador by claimants alleging that the company contaminated the land where it was performing oil operations.  The claimants believed that the environmental pollution increased cancer rates and other medical issues in those who lived in the area.  After judicial inspections of the region, an independent expert in 2008 recommended that the court demand Chevron pay $27 billion as compensation for their activities.

The initial judge in the case recused himself after allegations were made about judicial misconduct; the current judge has intimated that a verdict may be expected sometime this year.

This present chapter in the lawsuit is preceded by a history dating back to a similar lawsuit filed against Texaco in 1993.  Texaco drilled for oil in an Ecuadoran rain forest from 1964 until 1992, unloading a petroleum and water mix into pits near the oil wells.

For more information, please see:

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre-Case profile: Texaco/Chevron lawsuits (re Ecuador)-12 January 2011

Westlaw News & Insight-Film outtakes steal stage in Chevron Ecuador case-11 January 2011

San Francisco Chronicle-Chevron tries to use foe’s words against them-29 December 2010

By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia—The top-ranking leader of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has announced that the paramilitary group will become more persistent in the year ahead, increasing its activities.  The FARC is known for guerrilla-style violence throughout Colombia, and many Colombians live in fear of the organization’s notorious operations.

Alfonso Cano, the FARC’s number one man, released a New Year’s video on Friday containing statements about the group’s activities.  The video was uploaded on YouTube and also the website of a Swedish news agency called Anncol.  Anncol has been known as a conduit for FARC messages in the past.

Cano’s video included an ominous promise:  “In 2011, we’ll redouble our activities in every sense, [drawing on] our convictions, the care that comes with experience and the valor of all our fallen fighters.”  In the 12-minute long video, Cano went on to ask legislators to focus on laws that would return land stolen from farmers by paramilitaries and pay reparations to those who have suffered under Colombia’s numerous internal clashes.  Cano is seen in front of the camera reading his words off an out-of-date Macbook Pro laptop.  The FARC leader opined that if issues like these were taken “seriously” by lawmakers, it would be a step towards “solving the conflict” that has been rampant in Colombia.

Cano inherited the top position in 2008 when the FARC’s founder, Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, died of natural causes.  In Friday’s video, Cano vowed to “fight for a political solution to the conflict,” but that until such a solution is found, the FARC will “develop the guerrilla war.”

Already in the new year, the FARC is thought to have been responsible for three attacks in Neiva, the capital of Huila province.  At least one person has been injured in these events; homes have sustained damages and electricity has been suspended in some areas.

On Friday, members of the FARC descended on San Vicente del Caguan, a town in the south of the country, planning to capture and occupy a police station.  Five guerrillas, three soldiers and one bystander, an 11-year-old girl, died in the incident.

The FARC has been waging war against the Colombian government since 1964 and includes between 7,000 and 11,000 paramilitary soldiers in its ranks.  At least 19 soldiers and police officers are currently being held hostage by the FARC.

For more information, please see:

Latin American Herald Tribune-Colombia’s FARC to Step Up Activities in 2011-8 January 2011

Colombia Reports-FARC to ‘redouble actions’ in 2011-8 January 2011

AFP-Colombia rebel attack leaves nine dead-7 January 2011

By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILIA, Brazil—On Monday, 88 more private firms were accused by the Brazilian government of engaging in slave labor, or forcing laborers to live and work in conditions equivalent to slavery.  The Labor Ministry now lists 220 such firms on Brazil’s registry of worker exploitation.

The accused companies will be punished by steep fines and will be unable to obtain credit at public banks or sell their products to government entities.  The firms will be blacklisted this way for at least two years until they demonstrate that they have brought their practices up to code.

Agricultural firms listed on the registry are believed to have forced workers to live and work in dangerous conditions, threatening their safety, hygiene and health.  There have also been allegations that the agricultural workers have been made to work illegally long hours and receive less than adequate pay.

The majority of the workers who have been trapped in slave labor were recruited from the poorest areas of Brazil.  After the laborers agreed to be relocated in promise of a job, they became imprisoned by employers who demanded money for food, rent, and previously unmentioned services.  The workers become imprisoned in debt bondage and have little choice but to do as their employers order.

The recent influx in slave labor in Brazil is the most severe since records on the matter emerged in 2003.  The 220 firms on the updated list include plantations, sugar mills, coal yards, timber businesses, construction companies and textile factories.

The government blacklist is updated every six months and 14 firms were recently dropped because they improved their operations to meet government standards.

Last year, a government task force rescued almost 5,000 slave laborers after conducting 133 raids on suspected farms in Brazil.  According to the United Nations International Labor Organization, there are roughly 12.3 million workers suffering from similar situations throughout the world.

For more information, please see:

EIN News-Brazil Cracks Down on Farm Slave Labor; 88 Firms Accused-5 January 2011

Sify News-Over 200 Brazil firms found treating workers as slaves-5 January 2011

Fox News-Brazil accuses 220 firms of using slave labor-4 January 2011

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – Five soldiers, including an Army major and four former soldiers, were charged with murdering three farm laborers and presenting them as rebels killed in combat.  The murders, which occurred in 2002, are just a few of the approximately 2,000 that investigators have uncovered and pinned on Colombian Security Forces.

The murderous scandal, which is known as the “false positives” scandal, has been blamed on a system that offered soldiers and officers the hope of promotions and extra leave time for increasing body counts in the conflict with leftist guerrillas.

According to the Colombian Attorney General’s office, the current case occurred on Dec. 11, 2002, in a rural part of the municipality of Campamento, a northwestern province of Antioquia. On that day, troops under the command of then-Lt. Juan Carlos del Rio Crespo “removed from the cane field where they were going about their daily tasks laborers Alejandro Agudelo Agudelo, Angel Ramiro Agudelo and Gonzalo Agudelo Perez.”

The soldiers later reported that “the deaths of those people as casualties in combat with members of the 26th Front of the FARC,” according to the statement by the Attorney General’s office.  An investigation established that the laborers “were executed when they were totally defenseless” and that the troops planted guns next to their bodies to bolster their argument that the laborers were rebels.

Four of the charged men are currently being held in a military prison while authorities search for the fifth soldier. Since 2008, when the scandal first broke, 272 soldiers have been convicted and 58 have been absolved in similar cases.

For more information, please see:

Latin American Herald Tribune – Five Colombia Soldiers Charged with Murdering Civilians – 3 January 2011

Latin American News Dispatch – Colombian Major and Four Soldiers Accused in “False Positive” Murders – 3 January 2011

Miami Herald – Colombian Soldiers Accused of Killing 3 Civilians – 1 January 2011