Today, communities from across the world and the San Francisco Bay Area converged on San Ramon, CA to protest and take direct action against the third largest corporation in the world, Chevron. The oil giant held it’s annual shareholder meeting deep in the belly of it’s corporate headquarters.
Inside the meeting delegates from around the world, confronted Chevron CEO David O’Reilly with a long list of grievances. Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond California joined delegates from Nigeria, Burma, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Philippines, and Canada to speak truth to Chevron’s power. Amazonwatch, Rainforest Action Network and several other NGO’s put together a report, written by author Antonia Juhasz, called “The True Cost of Chevron.”
O’Reilly remarked in the meeting that the report was “an insult and should have been thrown in the trash”. I guess our movements are getting under his skin.
To download the True Cost of Chevron, go HERE.
Outside, the protests took on a festive tone as speakers spoke and activists rallied. Rising Tide Bay Area, Unconventional Action and the Iraq Vets against the War took direct action and locked down on the main entrance once the delegates went into the meeting under the banner “United Against Chevron.”
Activists also performed “Sub-Advertisement Theater” with creative advertisements designed to subvert Chevron’s greenwashing campaign.
Chevron is expected to pay $27 billion to indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon after they left hundreds of lakes filled with toxic waste. They are also the target of campaigns for their abuses in Nigeria and Richmond, CA.
Later this summer, the West Coast Climate Camp will happen in Richmond at the front door of Chevron’s largest refinery. Groups are mobilizing for a mass action to follow the camp.
Lovin it! Time to wake up, Chevron. Oil is over.
There’s a pretty good AP article covering the story here:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNPvoaeRVTkddUP7ZvrTSgGmp1HQD98EU2F00
Photos are brilliant. I love the image of the Richmond Mayor and Ecuador activist in front of the O’Reilly ad saying “I will pretend to care about the environment”.
Get your facts straight before making statements like “Chevron is expected to pay $27 billion to indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon after THEY left hundreds of lakes filled with toxic waste.” THEY is PetroEcuador.
Chevron’s (and LM’s) effort to scapegoat Petroecuador is baseless, and frankly its interested to see Chevron pull out all the stops in the last throws of their flailing defense. “They” in fact is not PetroEcuador. While PetroEcuador is no poster child for clean operations the 8 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, 17 million gallons of crude oil left behind in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor is the legacy of Chevron. Fact is, the lawsuit against brought before Texaco(now Chevron) was filed about the same time PetroEcuador took over operations. This was home to over 30,000 indigenous peoples that Chevron was content to make a corporate sacrifice. Here are a few FACTS they are living with: drinking water polluted from open pit leaching, increased miscarriage rates, 2x cancer rates.
i encourage you to read this letter from a community leader living with Chevron’s operations. Ya know to get so facts and all.
http://matadorchange.com/an-open-letter-to-america/
best
congrats. it’s really cool that IVAW was involved with this too!
Hey there people in this Hot Garbage can that Chevron has created.
I have created a video with the Help of CBE that you may not be aware of.
I have included the link to it below.
Remember there is a Community Rally/Mobilizing this Feb 2nd 2010 in Richmond (440 Civic Center Plaza, CA (94804) food&drinks 5pm No Agenda Item so hope to be out by 7:30pm
http://www.cbecal.org
http://www.FoRealTv.com
The video is called Rising out the Garbage Can of Chevron!
Let me know what you think.