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The Independent DECEMBER 15, 2013 - by Brian Eno & others

LETTERS: CHEVRON

We deplore the on-going attempts of Chevron to avoid paying compensation to the communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon severely affected by the oil giant's dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste there over decades.

Between 1964 and 1990, the oil company Texaco - which merged with Chevron in 2001 - caused one of the world's greatest environmental disasters. The oil in the waste product dumped in the Ecuadorian Amazon over this period is estimated to be thirty times the amount spilt in the Exxon Valdez disaster.

By contaminating the rivers used for drinking, bathing and fishing, this created a social disaster for the poor farmers and indigenous people living there.

After decades of campaigning, in 2011, an independent Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay billions in compensation and remediation. But this corporate giant refuses to pay. Reports indicate that Chevron is spending hundreds of millions of dollars - more than it has paid on any clean-up - on hundreds of lawyers and on political lobbying to deny its responsibilities.

It's time Chevron compensated the Amazon communities for the vast damage it caused.

Ken Livingstone; Natalie Bennett, Leader, Green Party of England and Wales; John Hilary, Executive Director, War On Want; Nick Dearden, Director, World Development Movement; Brian Eno, musician; John Pilger; Bruce Kent; and thirty-five others.