Eugene weekly., August 13, 2009, Page 13, Image 13

water and watching neighbors suffer
from health complications, he speaks
passionately about conditions of the place
he and roughly 120,000 others call home.
Although this is Fajardo’s fi rst time
legally defending his community, it is
not his fi rst fi ght for human rights. When
Fajardo was 14, he and his family moved
from the coastal province of Manabi to
Shushufi ndi, a small village in the Amazon,
east of Quito. There he became involved
with the Catholic church, working with
indigenous communities and people from
the countryside. Through his work with
the church, Fajardo says he became aware
of the problems affecting his community.
He realized that livestock that people
depended on for food were falling into
Texaco’s petroleum pits, and that people
and animals were becoming ill from
drinking the murky water and inhaling the
dirty air. Something had to be done.
Along with the priest, Fajardo organized
a group of roughly 20 people to defend the
rights of the community. He was 16 years
old and the leader of the group. The rights
group would listen to accusations of people
living in the area, but little could be done.
“If someone went to the authorities, they’d
tell the person to go get a lawyer,” Fajardo
says. “But there weren’t any who would
help us. The lawyers who lived in the
area all worked for the big oil companies.
That’s when I decided to study law.”
Before he could begin that study,
Fajardo had to fi nish high school. He
studied at night and worked during the day
for an oil company to support himself. But
after a while the company fi red Fajardo,
he says, for standing up against poor work
conditions and low pay. Once Fajardo
had completed high school, he was able
to pursue law. Because there weren’t
any universities nearby, he began a six-
year correspondence program through a
university in Quito. Meanwhile, the case
against Chevron was gaining speed.
Soon after Fajardo joined the team, the
two lawyers he was assisting moved away
and couldn’t continue the case. Fajardo
stepped forward and assumed the role of
lead lawyer. “I was the only one, and I had to
face Chevron’s team of eight attorneys, each
one with more than 25 years of experience,”
Fajardo says. “It was challenging, but at
that point I decided that my only strategy
would be to tell the truth.”
Fajardo says that his goal was to face
his opponents as one should, as a human
being and with respect. “Thanks to God,
I’ve never felt as though I was less than
anyone or superior to anyone,” he says. “I
believe we’re all equal.”
BIG BAD OIL?
Chevron says it’s getting the short end
of the stick in this case. “We’ve been fairly
outspoken in our belief that the complaint
against Chevron is without merit,” says
Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson.
In 2008 when Fajardo and activist
and community leader Luis Yanza
were awarded the prestigious Goldman
Environmental Prize for their work on the
case, Chevron went on the attack, taking
out an advertisement in major newspapers
calling Fajardo a “front man for a group
of Ecuadorian and American trial lawyers,”
and saying Fajardo and Yanza were
“complicit in protecting polluters.” A site
at Texaco.com calls Fajardo’s case “a
farce” and calls Fajardo’s claims about the
pollution and its affects on human health
“big lies.”
The site shows photos of green and
productive fi elds, a far cry from the oily
toxic mess the small farmers of Lago Agrio
say is killing their hard-won livelihoods.
Robertson says, “The entire process
has been something of a distraction.” He
says, “What has been allowed to happen is
PetroEcuador has been allowed to escape
scrutiny for its environmental practices.”
According to Robertson, Chevron has
done the clean up it is responsible for — 37
percent, the same percentage as the interest
it once held in the consortium — spending
about $40 million. “PetroEcuador is
responsible for the balance of the clean up
work that needs to be done,” he says.
Fajardo says what clean-up was done
against Chevron will be heard, are biased
against them. That strategy doesn’t seem to
be working out. For one thing, the plaintiffs
in the original case sued Texaco in the U.S.,
but Texaco convinced a U.S. circuit court
(one that then included newly appointed
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomajor)
that the case should move to Ecuador and
praised Ecuador’s judicial system in their
court documents.
Most recently, the U.S. Supreme
Court dealt Chevron another blow when
it refused to hear one of Chevron’s cases,
The Republic of Ecuador and PetroEcuador
v. ChevronTexaco Corporation and Texaco
Petroleum Company. That case was related
to Chevron’s claim that the Ecuador’s
government and PetroEcuador are
responsible for the mess oil extraction has
made of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron
withdrew the case on July 20.
Recently the case has taken Fajardo outside of the Amazon, and not just to Eugene, which
he likes in part because it’s so bike-friendly. It’s perhaps not surprising that someone
in a fi ght against major oil companies uses a bike as his major form of transportation.
This summer he spent three days at the home of Sting and his wife Trudie Styler in Pisa,
Italy. He was there along with other activists, brainstorming ideas to further support
the cause. Sting is not the only celebrity who has taken an interest in the case. Daryl
Hannah traveled to Ecuador to see the pollution for herself, and Fajardo has on his
computer, along with the photos of his devastated home town, photos of himself with Al
Gore and the rest of Sting’s former bandmates in The Police.
wasn’t nearly enough. “For every 100 pits,
Chevron was responsible for cleaning 37,
while the government cleaned the rest,” he
says. “However, when they declared that
there were 100 pits, in reality there were
200. And when they said that 100 pits had
been cleaned, really they had just covered
100 pits over with dirt.”
“It’s like putting makeup over skin
cancer,” Woods says.
According to Woods, “Chevron is after the
government to pay for something Chevron
did.” An expert appointed by the Ecuadorian
court recommended the judge award $27
billion in damages from Chevron. Chevron is
“avoiding any sort of responsibility,” Woods
says. In addition to the main case, Woods
says that Chevron has fi led other cases in
an effort to get a U.S. court to say that the
courts in Ecuador, where Fajardo’s case
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BIG OIL IS WATCHING YOU
After six years of battling Chevron,
Fajardo says that aside from an “immense
pain in his back,” it would be a lie to claim
that everything, good or bad, that has
happened to him has been a result of the case.
But one thing is true: His family ties are a
casualty of his battle against Big Oil. “I have
two children in Ecuador, whom I barely see
every 15 days,” says Fajardo. “And in 2004,
one of my brothers was assassinated. I can’t
say it was Chevron who killed him. But I
can’t say it wasn’t, either.”
Chevron’s spokesman Robertson takes
umbrage at this. He says Fajardo’s claim is
“an outright lie.” He adds, “Quite frankly,
it’s disgusting. He knows what happened
and is now exploiting it. It’s repugnant.”
In the months following the death of his
brother, Fajardo says he became a target.
But whose target exactly? Fajardo isn’t sure.
However, for the next three months he says
that he was persistently harassed. And from
what others have told him, a few times he
narrowly escaped being shot. “I was being
looked for everywhere: at my house, my
room, my work,” he says. “It was challenging,
because you begin to lose trust in everyone.
And it doesn’t matter if the person is an
acquaintance or a stranger. Anyone could be
the person who’s going to shoot you.”
“It’s a hell of an accusation,” Robertson
says of the notion that Chevron could be
behind these pressure tactics.
So Fajardo began taking precautionary
measures; he changed his clothes often and
varied his routine. But he wasn’t the only
one being harassed. The other lawyers on
his team received telephone threats, and
eventually they all had to ask for court
ordered protection from the OEA (The
Organization of American States), he says.
Despite the stress and the danger, Fajardo
is determined to continue the fi ght — living,
he says, by the words of poet Carlos Portela:
“No one dies a day early or a day late.”
In addition to the OEA’s protection,
Fajardo says that as the case has progressed
and gained media attention, the public has
started to recognize him and his colleagues.
“If anything bad happens to me or anyone
else working on the case, the public will
know and think that Chevron is at fault,”
Fajardo says. “The fact that Chevron
knows that makes me feel more secure.”
Fajardo says he wants the public to
know too that the “people living in and
around Lago Agrio need support, strength
and unity.” He says, “These companies
should be held to the same responsible
standards in all parts of the world.”
Robertson contends that some of the
illnesses experienced by the people of Lago
Agrio are caused by their own fecal matter
and that of their livestock. According to
Woods, “Essentially Chevron’s attitude is
that these are dirty peasants. That’s incredibly
insulting.” He points out that fecal bacteria
don’t cause cancer.
Fajardo says, “We need to rethink
what we value and what we put a price on,
because currently we give more merit to the
things that have prices than those that have
value. The things that have value, oxygen,
clean water, life, a good ecosystem, don’t
have a price. We often think about the cost
of life, but we don’t think about the value
of it that we’re destroying.”
The lawsuit is expected to be settled
before the end of this year. If Fajardo wins,
it could would not only be a win for the
environment — this suit is possibly the
biggest environmental lawsuit in the world
— it would be a win for social justice. The
plaintiffs accuse ChevronTexaco not only
of sickening people and polluting the
environment but of destroying indigenous
cultures as well.
Fajardo says, “I think it’s possible
for everyone to coexist if only the oil
companies could drill for oil in more
responsible ways, with respect for the
rights of indigenous communities, the
environment and the ecosystem and if
governments were capable of maintaining
better standards.”
ew
You can meet Pablo Fajardo at 5:30 pm Aug. 27 at an
ELAW event at the Lord Leebrick Theater. Purchase
tickets at: www.elaw.org/give or call ELAW at 687-
8454. $40 per person or $75 per family in advance.
EUGENE WEEKLY AUGUST 13, 2009 13