The movie “Crude” was again used to promote the anti-Chevron cause last week when a Congressman and the U.S. trial lawyer appeared at a Washington, D.C. showing alongside the film’s director, Joe Berlinger.  Their comments in the Q&A demonstrated again that the litigation against Chevron for its predecessor Texaco’s operations in Ecuador is a matter of politics and public relations — not law –  designed to force the company into a settlement.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) levied several serious charges against Chevron, accusations commonly made by the anti-corporate activists but still startling when delivered by an elected member of Congress. In his five minutes of remarks (audio here), McGovern urged the crowd “to ramp up the pressure.”

And one final thing, and that is, here in Washington, we need to raise this issue more in Congress. We’re trying. I chair a human rights commission. We had a hearing on this, and trying to raise the issue of environmental contamination as a human rights issue. These people, their human rights are being abused by being forced to live in that area. And we can do something about this. We need to make this a priority.

Shortly after…when I came back — this was in December — I sent then President-elect Obama a letter [here] explaining my trip and asking him to raise this issue, and to coordinate with all the relevant departments and with the Ecuadorian government a way to help these people. We can’t continue to fight this thing out. This is not about lawyers, this is about these people that you see in this film. It’s about my friend Luis and all the people he’s been fighting for.

Donziger, the New York City trial lawyer who has masterminded the case, made it clear what he considers Chevron’s real target — its reputation:

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think it’s just a money question for them, I think it’s a reputational question. There’s opportunity costs when you have this hanging over your head and you search for new sources of supply around the world. So, you know, we’ll see how this all shakes out. They could try to drag this out as long as they possibly can. But we have a plan legally to go get their money, assuming we win the case and get a judgment, to go get that judgment in force as quickly as possible. (Audio clip)

As the old saying goes, when the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. And when both are against you, pound the table.

And get a movie made about your cause.

And hire a lobbyist while you’re at it. Only someone who believes the issue is going to be resolved politically, not legally, hires lobbyists as have Donziger, the Amazon Defense Coalition, and Kohn, Swift and Graf, the Philadelphia law firm paying the bills.

For the audio of the entire Q&A, click here. It’s about 28 minutes. Also speaking are Mitch Anderson, Amazon Watch; Luis Yanza, an Ecuadorian activist; Joe Berlinger, director of “Crude.” Berlinger said Washington’s E Street Cinema was the only venue showing the film and he urged the crowd to support the film, saying, “If it does not do well this week, it will be gone.”
 

The documentary-style film about the litigation against Chevron for past oil operations in Ecuador, “Crude,” has been rolled out around the country in recent weeks, accompanied by much touting by the anti-corporate activists and uncritical reviewers. The Los Angeles Times, for example, profiled the film’s director, Joe Berlinger, and the film under the headline, “‘Crude’ tactics in Ecuador.”

“Crude” ostensibly relates the story around a lawsuit filed by U.S. trial lawyers against Chevron for pollution caused during the operations in Ecuador by Texaco decades ago. (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.) And “Crude” is a well-made, even compelling movie. Too bad it’s only loosely related to the truth.

Berlinger’s product is a classic anti-business hit job, biased and selective in its telling of facts and spreader of myths and half-truths. But in the media coverage and reviews, the public rarely learns that much of what the movie portrays is bunk — or at least vigorously disputed by Chevron. The Times’ reviewer, Gary Goldstein, doesn’t bother to solicit a response from Chevron.

Berlinger claims to be an objective filmmaker, just bringing a good story to light. In remarks after the June premiere of “Crude” at the SilverDocs film festival in Silver Spring, Md., (Berlinger said):

I think one of the strengths of the film is that it is a fairly objective film, it shows kind of the warts and all of both sides.

Yet moments later he says:

For me the lawsuit is obviously the structural glue of the film. I made this film because of how we as white people have treated indigenous people over the years in both North and South America, and around the world. I think what multinational corporations have done in our name is just the late 20th Century and early 21st Century continuation of this terrible treatment of indigenous people. That’s really why I’m in.

It’s an objective film about the destruction of peaceful people by evil Western exploiters, he said, objectively.  (The photo above is from the SilverDocs’ presentation with Berlinger, right, and Steven Donziger, the trial lawyer who is leading the litigation against Chevron, financed by the Philadelphia law firm of Kohn, Swift & Graft.)

Falsehoods upon falsehoods are at the core of the legal shakedown against Chevron by U.S. trial lawyers, environmental activists and the Ecuadorian government, aided by an uncritical media. We see another round of unquestioningly repeated falsehoods in the recent coverage of “Crude,” the anti-Chevron movie now being released around the country.

Here, from today’s The Los Angeles Times, the review by Kenneth Turan, who simply accepts the movie’s claims as true.

The outrage in question is the subject of a class-action suit filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador against Chevron, the world’s fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants

That’s a lot of propaganda packed into a single paragraph, starting with the word “outrage.” And …

Class-action suit? No. That’s wrong. There are no class-action suits in Ecuador. Class action litigation is, alas, an American legal malady.

Filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador? No. That’s wrong. The suit was filed on behalf of 48 plaintiffs and all the damages would go to the Amazon Defense Coalition, with U.S. contingency trial lawyers getting their cut. (Although the Ecuadorian government now claims it would get 90 percent.)

18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater were dumped? Only in the most tendentious interpretation of the term “toxic wastewater.” In fact, it was “production water,” i.e., the water produced in the drilling of wells, everywhere in the world. It was handled according to the prevailing environmental standards at the time — and Texaco (Chevron’s predecessor) — was released from environmental claims by the Ecuadorian government after completing its remediation work on well sites. Meanwhile, Ecuadorian law still allows the discharge of produced water.

Think about it: 18 billion gallons of toxic waste? It’s a preposterous claim on its face, yet it’s a familiar charge in the attacks against Chevron, one that is simply repeated as true by documentarians and reporters alike.

More…

• We review “Crude” here.
• And for Chevron’s perspective — and a useful supply of facts — see this summary.
• As we’ve noted repeatedly, Chevron paid our way for a quick trip to Ecuador in June to see first-hand the oil region and to discuss the claims against it.

The movie “Crude” uses documentary film techniques to launch a one-sided, fact-challenged but well-crafted attack against Chevron for environmental damage supposedly caused by the operations of Texaco in Ecuador. (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.) The directors have been showing the movie to friendly audiences around the film-festival circuit, including last week at the American Film Institute’s “SilverDocs“* festival in Silver Spring, Md.

Perhaps despite themselves, the moviemakers reveal an awful lot about the nature of the litigation scheme.

The photo shows U.S. trial lawyer Steven Donziger, the moving force behind the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia (AKA Amazon Defense Coalition), being introduced to Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador. As the post immediately below describes, Correa is a radical, anti-American politician in the mode of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

In the movie Donziger and his Ecuadorian colleague, Pablo Fajardo, fly to Philadelphia to solicit more financial support for their litigation from Joe Kohn, a partner in Kohn, Swift and Graf. Kohn cheerfully explains to the camera that the lawsuit is, indeed, intended to be a money-making venture. (Photo below: Kohn, left, chats with Donziger in the Philadelphia law offices.)

And here’s the House lobbyist registration form from 2008, in which über-lobbyist Ben Barnes signs his firm up to lobby for Kohn, Swift and Graft on issues related to Ecuador and the environment. Which would be…

The campaign against Chevron rests on a foundation of falsehoods, misrepresentation and emotional appeals.

But when you have the Ecuadorian government, self-styled documentarians, big-time lobbyists, not to mention Sting’s wife Trudie, all on your side, who needs the facts?

More on the film and the alliance against a U.S.-based energy company soon.

* The SilverDocs prizes were announced today. “Crude” did not win any awards.

Disclosure: I recently traveled to Ecuador on Chevron’s dime to get a first-hand view of the territory over which the lawsuit makes numerous claims. Chevron is a member of the NAM. But I’ve been posting on this lawsuit since September 2008.