Chevron grant for Kiva

[Guest]

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[Peter S]

Thanks for that extra information, Gerard.  I must confess to still being a little puzzled as to why Premal attended that Chevron-sponsored breakfast event in San Francisco, if the details weren't fleshed out enough for Kiva to be able to share the good news with its stakeholders, including lenders.  The press was invited, so it would be strange if the news didn't leak out, and sure enough it did, with Chevron's press release the following day, and Zennie Abraham's blog @ SFgate.com and YouTube video a couple of weeks later.

Let's hope we will know in time for the festive season, so that we can all appropriately celebrate Chevron's largesse.

Peter

[Gerard]

Thanks for that extra information, Gerard.  I must confess to still being a little puzzled as to why Premal attended that Chevron-sponsored breakfast event in San Francisco, if the details weren't fleshed out enough for Kiva to be able to share the good news with its stakeholders, including lenders.  The press was invited, so it would be strange if the news didn't leak out, and sure enough it did, with Chevron's press release the following day, and Zennie Abraham's blog @ SFgate.com and YouTube video a couple of weeks later.

Let's hope we will know in time for the festive season, so that we can all appropriately celebrate Chevron's largesse.

Peter

Good point - I think Premal attended that breakfast, like most of the other NPOs there, because he was invited and we were working on a partnership with Chevron. Regardless, we'd not put anything up on our website or make a formal announcement on our end until everything is tied off and ready to go. Worst case would be that we make an announcement until something is formalized and finalized, and then the terms change and we have to re-announce.

Hope that helps put things in perspective.

[RichardF]

So, what misrepresentations are present in the Chevron press release?

[TheTatiana]

I just want to go on record as saying that I buy gasoline, and put it in my car, and sometimes I buy it at Chevron stations.  I don't see why if Chevron wants to turn around and do some good things with the money I give them, that I should be anything but pleased with it.  I think big multinational corporations should be held accountable for what they do in the developing world.  But that shouldn't take away from allowing them to be good citizens in all different ways.  To me, the one good encourages the other. 

And we all of us use energy and want there to be energy readily available in the world.  Even people who bicycle to work every day still buy bicycles built in factories which need lots of electric motors running in order to work.  Saving energy, being efficient, is a good thing, of course, but still we want refrigeration for our food, and elevators in tall buildings, fresh water on tap that must be pumped uphill to the tank, and so on.  So I'm not at all an enemy of Chevron, though I'm certainly in favor of them being held accountable for how they do business both in developed and developing countries.

[Gerard]

So, what misrepresentations are present in the Chevron press release?

I actually didn't say that Chevron misrepresented anything.

[RichardF]

I actually didn't say that Chevron misrepresented anything.

Then, once again, I'm baffled at Kiva's lack of willingness to acknowledge with a parallel press release the level of information presented in Chevron's press release.

[Jan & John]

I always hear a "not now children, the grown-ups are busy" from Kiva and I wonder if Gerard would mind fleshing out that last comment with a little more of the reasons why. 

I don't always agree with Richard. 

but golly gee, if Chevron thinks it's good PR, but then Kiva remains silent...   

hmmm

-jan-

[RichardF]

I don't always agree with Richard. 

[Peter S]

while we're (still) waiting for Kiva to announce the terms of its partnership with Chevron, 6 weeks after Chevron's own announcement, those interested in this development might be interested to know that Congressional Representative Linda Sánchez (D-California, 39th District) recently made mention of the Chevron / Ecuador issue in testimony to the Trade Subcommittee hearing on trade preference systems.

Rep. Linda Sánchez: Chevron's Lobbying Efforts Look Like Extortion
“As we re-examine our preference systems, I urge the Committee to explore options for holding nations accountable for protecting the rights of working families,” said Rep. Linda Sánchez. “We must examine our trade preferences with a focus on shared prosperity. We should encourage development with dignity. We should shape preferences programs to promote labor rights and a clean environment, which will help build economic opportunity both here and abroad.”
. . .
Rep. Sánchez also discussed Ecuador, a nation in which our trade policies may be leaving working families behind. The Chevron Corporation, in the midst of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit brought on by indigenous Indian peasants, has been accused of dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil wastes into the region’s rivers and streams, causing extraordinary environmental and human damage. Chevron has been pushing - first the Bush Administration - and now President Obama’s, to take an extraordinary step by yanking special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country’s government doesn’t quash the case.

Texaco, now Chevron, began its oil operations roughly 40 years ago in a once pristine region of the Amazon rainforest. Today, this region, the size of Rhode Island, struggles to deal with an environmental and humanitarian crisis. More than 1,400 residents have died from cancer, birth defects are prevalent, and the region suffers from water contamination, rainforest deforestation, and ecosystem degradation. The inhabitants of the region still drink and bathe in polluted water.

“There are innumerable stories I could share from the 230,000 people who live along the oil fields in northern Ecuador,” Sánchez testified. “Too many children have cancer and, as a result, too many parents have to experience the ultimate heartbreak - the death of a child.

“Instead of allowing this case to come to a conclusion, embarking on clean-up efforts, or even seeking mediation, Chevron has engaged in a lobbying effort that looks like little more than extortion. Apparently, if it can’t get the outcome it wants from the Ecuadorian court system, Chevron will use the U.S. government to deny trade benefits until Ecuador cries uncle.

“This turns the goal of trade preferences on its head! Trade preferences should be used as a hand up to provide needed help to the families of developing nations, not a paddle to punish governments who refuse to succumb to the demands of multi-billion dollar corporations.

http://www.lindasanchez.house.gov/news.cfm/article/583

There was more of interest on Chevron and Ecuador earlier this month from Kerry Kennedy (Founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights) in a Huffington Post article entitled Chevron and Cultural Genocide in Ecuador, following her visit to Ecuador:

Traces of paradise are still visible. From the air, the rainforest region in northern Ecuador--known as the Oriente--appears as silvery mist and swaths of verdant green.

But beneath the cloud cover and canopy, the jungle is a tangle of oil slicks, festering sludge, and rusted pipeline. Smokestacks sprout from the ground, spewing throat-burning fumes into the air. Wastewater from unlined pits seeps into the groundwater and flows into the rivers and streams.

This nightmarish landscape is the legacy of Texaco. Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which was acquired by Chevron in 2001) drilled roughly 350 wells across 2,700 square miles of Amazon rainforest. It extracted some $30 billion in profits while deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic soup, known as production water--a mixture of oil, sulpheric acid, and other carcinogens--into the streams and rivers where people collect drinking water, fish, bathe, and swim.

In the process, Texaco constructed over 900 oil sludge pits, many the size of Olympic swimming pools. Unlike swimming pools, these pits were unlined punctures in the earth. With no concrete to protect the surrounding soil, poison seeped into the ground water.

. . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kerry-kennedy/chevron-and-cultural-geno_b_346257.html


While Chevron lobbyists are saying things like "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this--companies that have made big investments around the world." (see later in the Kerry Kennedy article), I think Kiva's partnership with them is possibly going to be controversial when it's more widely known about.  Kiva's natural "constituency" if you like is by and large, I feel, quite closely aligned with the human rights agendas of people like Linda Sánchez and Kerry Kennedy, and there's plenty to be horrified by in Chevron-Texaco's inhumane dealings in Ecuador.

Kiva's board and senior management might have formulated some way of defending the Chevron partnership, or there might be internal disagreements, who knows.  Until Kiva makes an announcement, we can only speculate. They might feel it doesn't actually need defending, and if that's the case I'd kind of agree with them.  Once the money leaves Chevron's bank account and is in Kiva's it doesn't really matter where it came from, and it becomes just a substantial chunk of money to further Kiva's operations.  I hope it's as much as I think it might be (half a million, the same as Donors Choose scored..).  And in the process, maybe the attendant publicity will help focus attention on the wrong Chevron has done and continues to do in Ecuador.

Peter

[Eli]

Hmmm, maybe we should all go see or rent the movie 'CRUDE', maybe that would help shed some light?

Here is the first paragraph of an article about the issue/movie from an August 26th 2009 article cut and pasted from:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/142227/%27crude%27:_the_film_chevron_doesn%27t_want_you_to_see/

"American oil giant Chevron is now the 5th largest company on the planet. But I doubt Chevron executives have had much time to savor their 'Masters of the Universe' status lately. Instead, I imagine them working overtime with their internal public relations team and mercenary army of PR spinmasters, lobbyists, and sponsored bloggers they've brought on to fight what looks more and more like a losing battle. What's got them burning the midnight oil?

Two weeks from today, a powerful new documentary film is opening in New York, and then playing in select theaters across the country. Called CRUDE, the film tells a shocking story that Chevron does not want the world to know."

So maybe this Kiva partnership is a part of the 'internal public relations team and mercenary army of PR spinmasters, lobbyists, and sponsored bloggers they've brought on to fight what looks more and more like a losing battle' by Chevron and that is why Kiva is dragging their feet?

The article goes on to say "CRUDE chronicles the epic legal battle to hold Chevron accountable for its systematic contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon -- an environmental tragedy experts call the "Amazon Chernobyl," and believe is the worst case of oil-related contamination on Earth. While drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990, Texaco, now Chevron, deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor. The company operated using substandard practices that were obsolete in order to increase its profit margin by $3 per barrel of crude. Of course, the local people and ecosystems paid the price instead, but they're fighting back.

Centering on a landmark lawsuit filed by the indigenous people and campesinos who continue to suffer a severe public health crisis caused by Chevron's contamination, CRUDE is a high-stakes David vs. Goliath legal drama with 30,000 Amazon rainforest dwellers facing down the San Ramon, California-based oil behemoth."

I'd say that is reason enough for Kiva to be embarrassed enough to drag their feet about their partnership with Chevron, but who knows what else might be lurking about . . .

It goes on to mention about Amazon Watch's Clean Up Ecuador Campaign that is featured in the film which is a "leading grassroots efforts to promote the theatrical release, enlisting human rights and environmental allies across the U.S. in an outreach and word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Numerous organizations have pledged support and committed to concrete efforts to build the profile of this must-see film, including Rainforest Action Network, Oxfam USA, WITNESS, EarthRights International, Human Rights Watch, and Global Green, to name just a few.

CRUDE is not a simplistic piece of agit-prop. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger shows all sides of this monumental case and the stories and people behind it. Chevron is given plenty of opportunity to share its perspective. Unfortunately for them, in the end, truth does appear to pick a side and it's not Chevron's."

The article is a two page article, with the most fascinating part on page two about a local man doing good, Pablo Fajardo.

The trailer is also available at that link for all to view.

I think I'm going to see if I can rent the DVD of CRUDE to watch for myself, if I can stomach it.