Since oil delivers more than 50% of the country's total revenue, Texaco seems to believe Equador is simply its "piggybank," meant as a money maker for Texaco, and any of those silly poor people who have to live there can just put a sock in it, and thank their blessings,whatever they are!
A mother takes her baby to be examined by a medical worker in Coca, a town in the Ecuadoran Amazon. The baby appears to be suffering from dermatosis -- a common skin condition that local medical workers believe results from prolonged exposure to contaminated water. Because there is no running water in the region, most people bathe in rivers and creeks, almost all of which are contaminated by runoff from the toxic waste pits.Steven Donziger
Humberto Piaguaje, leader of the Secoya tribe, after the court hearing on February 1, 1999.
One of the estimated 300 toxic waste pits built by Texaco in the Ecuadoran Amazon. The stream of water leading into the pit contains life-threatending levels of carcinogens such as Benzene, Toluene, and Polyciclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. These pits are unlined, allowing their contents to contaminate the area's water supply and disrupt the fragile ecosystem.This image is typical of the current state of many of the unlined waste pits left in Ecuador by Texaco. When these pits fill up, their toxic contents either overflow into the surrounding rainforest or oil workers use a suction hose to put the toxic-laden sludge into trucks. The trucks then spread the sludge over the dirt roads in the region in an ostensible effort to keep the dust down. In reality, this practice disperses the toxics over a wider area. Many residents are forced to walk over the layer of sludge barefoot. Others have had their farms damaged by runoff from the roads.
http://www.texacorainforest.com/link/Who are these shabby people, anyway, and why don't they have decent houses and great cars? Have they honed their "swings?" Sheesh!
In
Bush's world, people don't matter if they're not serving the same god: Pure, Cold, Dead-at-the-Core Materialism.