Equador Wikileaks Leakead Cables Exposes Chevron Lobbying Efforts

Leaked Cables Reveal Chevron Lobbying Efforts in Equador

(CN) - Chevron tried to shake off multibillion-dollar environmental claims in Ecuador by lobbying government officials, even as it blasted opponents for allegedly playing to the courts' corrupt and political side, according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.

A provincial court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, slapped Chevron with an $18.2 billion penalty in February to remediate decades of damage to the Amazon caused by oil drilling. Chevron's predecessor, Texaco, had drilled there from 1964 to 1992, and the court found it had decimated the rainforest and groundwater by dumping billions of gallons of oil in a region home to 30,000 people.

Chevron was pulled into a decade-old lawsuit over the spill when it acquired Texaco in 2001.
About seven years later, in a cable to the U.S. secretary of state, former U.S. Ambassador Linda Jewell wrote that Chevron had begun to "quietly explore" a deal with the government of Ecuador (GOE) to make the case disappear.

"Chevron had begun to quietly explore with senior GOE officials whether it could implement a series of social projects in the concession area in exchange for GOE support for ending the case, but now that the expert has released a huge estimate for alleged damage, it might be hard for the GOE to go that route, even if it has the ability to bring the case to a close," Jewell wrote on April 7, 2008.

Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the Ecuadoreans suing Chevron, said the oil giant has "consistently tried to end run" the court case through government negotiations, in defiance of the official separation of powers in Ecuador.

Though Chevron has previously decried a lack of separation in Ecuador's "politicized" courts, it defended past political maneuvers.
Chevron spokesman Justin Higgs confirmed that the oil giant spoke to Ecuador but did not address whether the oil giant asked the government to pressure its judiciary to dismiss the case.
Higgs focused on Chevron's domestic ties, which he said the company needs to contest the verdict.

"Chevron has indeed had discussions with U.S. Embassy officials and the USG [U.S. government] more broadly to secure its support in ensuring that Chevron's contractual and treaty-based rights in Ecuador are protected," Higgs said in an email to Courthouse News.

The Wikileaks cables also show that Chevron did not always have misgivings about the Ecuadorean courts. One rallying cry Chevron has used to undermine the Lago Agrio trial is a video that allegedly implicates the presiding judge, Juan Nuñez, in $3 million bribery scheme. Chevron has claimed it received videos unsolicited and published them over the Internet on Aug. 31, 2008.

But two years earlier, Chevron had nothing to report about the Ecuadorean judiciary when speaking to Charge d'Affaires Jefferson Brown. "Chevron had not had any real complaints about the judge in the Lago Agrio case," Brown said in a March 21, 2006, cable to the State Department.

Two days after Chevron published the Nuñez footage, then-U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges sent a cable to the secretary reporting that Chevron lawyers phoned the Embassy to give diplomats a "heads up" about the disclosure. Ecuador ultimately expelled Hodges this past April for disclosures she made in unrelated cables obtained by Wikileaks.

While denying wrongdoing, Nuñez stepped down from the case to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But cracks quickly surfaced in Chevron's allegations.
Summarizing hours of footage, The New York Times later reported, "No bribes were shown on the tapes."

Hodges explained in the cable that the "tapes were recorded clandestinely by Diego Borja, an Ecuadorian who had performed work for Chevron as a logistics contractor, and Wayne Hansen, a U.S. citizen with no ties to Chevron."

Although Chevron has distanced itself from the cameramen, Courthouse News discovered emails currently under a court seal that show Hansen contacted the company's investigator months before the release of the videos.

Hansen claimed in the email that Chevron duped him, and he threatened to ask Judge Nuñez for forgiveness if the company did not contact him.

More than a year later, he sent another email to Borja's investigative firm. Hansen claimed that he was in Peru, to which he had apparently fled in defiance of a subpoena that would compel an explanation of the videos.

Hodges, the ambassador, told Washington that Ecuadorean government officials were immediately skeptical and indignant about the recordings.

President Rafael Correa's Legal Secretary General Alexis Mera "pointed out that Chevron's disclosure was based on illicitly obtained recordings and called it a disgraceful attempt to influence the outcome of the judicial proceeding," Hodges wrote.

In a follow-up cable sent about a week later, Hodges said that Ecuador's prosecutor general called on the attorney general to "initiate proceedings against Chevron in the United States, presumably for violations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."

The Ecuadorean government has not backed off from allegations that Chevron orchestrated a "judicial entrapment" scheme, and it continues to ask a U.S. federal judge to unseal the Borja and Hansen communications.

Meanwhile, the Ecuadoreans' spokeswoman hopes that the cables will turn the tables on which party allegedly committed misconduct in Ecuador.
"These diplomatic cables reveal a shocking level of misconduct on the part of Chevron's lawyers to undermine the rule of law in Ecuador," Hinton said. "They also demonstrate the company's extremely close ties to U.S. embassy officials in Ecuador who seemed open to helping Chevron shut down the legal case."

In one of the first discovery proceedings Chevron initiated last year in New York, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan interrupted counsel for the Ecuadoreans as the lawyer assailed Chevron's litigation strategy.
"I am not naïve," Kaplan said. "I don't assume that anyone's hands in this are clean."

Source: http://www.courthousenews.com/

Greece Economy IMF Bailout: Strauss-Khan Exposes Papandreou’s Lies ALPHA tv Lazopoulos Video

Last night Greek people all over the country held their breath when television actor/comedian and star of the Al Tsantiri show on ALPHA tv, Lakis Lazopoulos, started off his regular Tuesday night show with a revealing video showing IMF Director (and expected presidential candidate for France) Dominique Strauss-Khan literally burying Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and his want-to-be socialist government.

Before I get into the details of what Straus-Khan said, I just want to say that Lazopoulos is not on my list of favorite people, but last night I actually applauded him for hours. I was so relieved that he did this, for it literally exposed the government and all their lies but also made people understand that everything that has occurred in Greece over the past year can also be characterized as an act of treason.

Although the blogs have been screaming it out for months, the mainstream media still refuses to even criticize the prime minister’s choice in ties, and rather chooses to continually channel government propaganda to us every single day. Today, none, and I repeat none, of the news services on the net or on Greek television even uttered a word about yesterday’s event on the Lazopoulos show. The only medium getting the news out there was once again the blogs. I guess that is why they want to abolish the freedom act and apply limitations huh?


So back to our story, Lazopoulos presented a video featuring IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Khan openly admitting that the IMF worked “underground” with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s party, to promote Greece’s entry to the IMF months before we supposedly succumbed to the infamous bailout package.


As revealed in the video below, Strauss Khan is quoted by a French reporter as saying that: “when I say that the IMF came to Greece and we wrapped things up in 15 days I am (obviously) exaggerating. We wrapped things up in 15 days because we worked for months before that with Greek authorities, (in a hush hush environment or) underground, (in order to prepare for this). Why? Because Greek authorities wanted the IMF bailout, but for political reasons Papandreou refused to tell (the truth) to the Greek people.”

He also added that Papandreou had called him right after he took office as Prime Minister in 2009, specifically in November-December of that year, and was very clear to him from the beginning about succumbing to the IMF… “It is true that he had realized that he wanted the help,” but in Greece Papandreou was feeding us with lies.


It was a BOMBSHELL to many… the reaction by the crowd on the video is priceless… but it is not shocking to all of us who knew in our gut that the debt crises was fake to begin with and it was not shocking to all of us that never once believed the propaganda news being shoveled to us by the mainstream media which till this day is still aiding the government and generating even more lies.


I want to reiterate that the reason I started this blog in the first place was in revolt to everything that I was being thrown at about about the so called Greek crises by the mainstream media. I knew I had to search for the truth, as most people today are coming to realize. In fact, anyone who has an inquisitive mind just needs to write fake debt crises Greek in google, or Youtube and millions, I mean millions, of stories will be generated. My motto is sit and read, sift through the information, search for the truth and always question what the media is telling you. If you are like me your biggest worry will not be finding out the truth it will rather be being looked at or regarded as a m…laka or makaka for not doing so.


Nonetheless there are several questions still unanswered.


Firstly, why did Papandreou, secretly hold talks with the IMF and Strauss Khan without informing the Greek people, but rather chose to lie to us telling us that the scenarios that wanted Greece to turn to IMF support were nothing more than conspiracies and that Greece would never result to this financial mechanism?


Secondly, if the Greek prime minister and his government knew about the crises (which was manageable at the time), why did they bloat (by adding God knows what to) the deficit after the October elections in 2009, and thus technically increasing expenditures and abolishing specific income measures set to increase state revenues?

Another question that comes to mind is why after assuming office in October 2009, did the government of PASOK purposely delay in implementing measures that were necessary so that the crises can remain manageable?


Moreover, why did they outwardly and on every level, both in Greece and abroad, and on every level, bash and criticize Greece and the Greek people characterizing us as a corrupt nation with a bankrupt economy? Which prime minister, leader of a country or even citizen does that?
Most importantly, why didn’t Papandreou seek help first from the European Union, since we are part of the Eurozone and the European Union but he went to the IMF first?


Why in June of 2009 did Papandreou characterize IMF tactics as being “formal measures that actually cut (abolish) the future (and development) of a country” and thus condemn the country from developing on a permanent basis, but he was already preparing to drive the country towards a bailout from them?


Furthermore why didn’t the want-to-be socialist government of George Papandreou secure international borrowing when the cost of borrowing, or the spreads, was/were low? And obviously…. how can the government still claim that they did not know the situation of the Greek economy when they assumed office, and that they were never properly briefed about it but already were in secret talks and working “underground” with the IMF for a bailout?


Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory Mr. Papandreou, or have you finally been exposed by the same regime of people that elevated you to power?


All of this reminds me of an article in the New York based Greek newspaper “Ethniko Kirika” that was saying back then that the number three in power at the US Whitehouse was in Athens in the summer prior to the 2009 federal elections to make sure that Papandreou won the election from the then prime minister of the ND party Kostas Karamanlis.

I do not think I need to repeat that Karamanlis was never one of the most liked persons in Washington, for he vetoed FYROM’s accession to NATO. George Bush Junior who was the President at the time probably never expected that from a small nation such as Greece, and I ask how could he? Which patriot, which Hellene would sell out his country? Karamanlis was a Macedonian that alone is enough, and also he never cared about “power” he only cared about the welfare of the Greek people. I am sure Karamanlis knew that his political career was doomed from then...


Also Karamanlis rejected the UN’s proposal for the divided island of Cyprus, which we all realized later on would have been catastrophic for this nation.


Lastly Karamanlis had decided to side with Russian President Putin and go ahead with the multi-million dollar Bourgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline venture which would have created thousands of jobs in the northern section of Greece as well as generate much needed income for the economy. That probably also infuriated Washington!


Some do not even know about that venture... because when George Papandreou came to office he ignored it... and it was abolished in no time. In fact, the first thing he did was abolish the word “national” from all the ministries and federal buildings. Secondly he canned two key ministries, the ministry of Macedonia and Thrace as well as the Ministry of Merchant Marine and Shipping. Thank goodness he came to his senses with the latter ministry since the second largest industry in Greece is shipping… but nonetheless it these childish “or pre-planned” actions that weaken a nation Mr. Papandreou, or did you know that already? I mean how can you abolish the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace when you know that the issue of Skopje, or FYROM, is still pending?


So many lies… aside from the “Lefta Yparxoun” or -Money Exists-, our prime minister also said another unforgettable phrase back then… “den xrostao se kanenan” which translates to –I do not owe anything to anyone- and I ask… when the number three in power from the US government comes to Athens, as reports say, and directly helps you with your presidential campaign... you not only sell your soul to him Mr. Prime Minister, you bend over backwards and in this case sell out your whole nation!

Do you still think that you do not owe anything to anyone… but how can I, as a simple citizen, a no one, expect to hear a forward answer from you… you will probably lie again!

Source: hellasfrappe