Saturday, May 21, 2011

Open Letter to the USA from the Ecuadorian Amazon

This open letter in video form, from the communities in the Amazon area in Ecuador to the American people, is a scream for justice.

An Ecuadorian court has found Chevron (formerly known as Texaco) liable for $18 billion in damages for its environmental crimes, but the oil company promises to fight the verdict “until hell freezes over." That´s why a delegation of Ecuadorians are traveling to the US to meet with reporters, lawmakers, institutional investors, shareholders, activist allies, supporters, ahead of Chevron's annual shareholders meeting on May 25th and, at the same time, they have decided to release this letter.

Suggestion for English practice: Watch the video twice. Firstly, with no sound so that you will focus on reading the English subtitles (the images will help you understand those words you don´t know the meaning of); secondly, with the audio key on in order to listen to the beautiful intonation and accent of an Ecuadorian person reading the letter in Spanish while you read the subtitles in English.


Remember you should always try to see the two sides of any problem (even if you totally agree with one of them) , so click here for more information from the point of view of Ecuadorians and here to read Chevron´s point of view on the subject.

If you know anyone who would like to sign the Solidarity Petition of the Ecuadorians to call on Chevron to cease its efforts to evade accountability and clean up its contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon, tell them they can sign here.


5 comments:

  1. Sara Pardo, 1ºE30 May, 2011

    I'm surprised of knowing that even after fifty years the persons who run this company have not realized the damage they do to the people of the Ecuadorian Amazon region, or really they realize, but they not do anything for them, which is worse. The only thing important for them is their benefit and increase the production to make more money. And I really think that the fact of taking action should be of themselves. I do not understand that a company run by members of a country that defend the rights of citizens, be able to continue killing people just for wanting to be the most powerful.
    Material is not more important than human life so it´s obvious that it is not fair, and not only this fact, because they are also destroying the middle of the world in which we all live.
    And as always happened, people who suffer most from the actions of these adults are children because they can´t do anything to avoid spoiling their future in this way.

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  2. Sara, I think one of the things that turns a young person into a mature one is the fact that he/she realizes that things in life are not what they seem -and you have seen that in this video. I should say, Congratulations!

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  3. Óscar Pallín Arias02 June, 2011

    I totally support the petition of the people from Ecuador. I think that the people were happier before the company established in there.
    I assume Texaco did not bother about the life conditions of the people from there. They were bussy maximizing profits.
    The company does not follow the regulations or laws of the contry where they are and also they don't respect the deccisions of the court of Ecuador.

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  4. Óscar, it is important to see what some big companies are doing all over the world; doing something about it is not easy but we should, at least, think about it and let it be known

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ernesto Jarabo04 June, 2011

    I dont understand why this company had to disturb the life of so many people within this religion, there is innocent people, where Texaco lied to all these people saying that the gasoline would be good for them and now these gasoline destroyed their lives. nothing could repare the dammaged being caused by the gasoline.

    ReplyDelete

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