Ecuador’s leftist President, Rafael Correa, international BFF of Iran and Syria, is going guano over the big hits taken on the infamous multibillion-dollar legal shakedown (by some Ecuadorean locals in cahoots with the Amazon Defense Front) of Chevron.
As I have reported (again and again and again) on this environmental lawsuit, Correa’s regime — armed with contrived reports, bought experts, phantom victims, tampered witnesses, biased judges, media lapdogs, international funders, and Washington lobbyists — has sought to squeeze the oil giant over bogus claims of poorly remediated, long-abandoned drilling sites. If Correa thought Chevron would fold and pay tribute, he thought wrong: The legal fight it has put up against the extortion is carrying the day in a variety of venues, including The Hague and the federal court in New York (where a RICO case against the original plaintiffs’ controversial counsel, Steven Donzinger, starts October 15).
