PERU: ACHUAR INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY SUES OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM FOR DECADES OF CONTAMINATION.
Members of Peru's Achuar indigenous community filed a lawsuit against US-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. in US court in May, alleging the company contaminated soil and rivers in the area for more than 30 years. Community leaders and their legal advisors traveled to Los Angeles, where the company is headquartered, to announce the suit and describe the ailments community members have suffered.
The Achuar community, which lives in the Rio Corrientes valley in the northeastern department of Loreto, about 1,300 km northeast of Lima, say they have observed the devastation of their lands as a result of Occidental's oil drilling from 1971 to 2000, when its block 1AB was sold to the Argentine company Pluspetrol.
The plaintiffs said they had not included Pluspetrol in the lawsuit because residents of the region reached an agreement in October 2006 with the company to clean several areas in the sector.
Occidental, also known as Oxy, allegedly disposed of its oil wastewaters in the community's water sources, and the community, along with animals in the surrounding area, consumed the liquid rife with heavy metals. The suit was filed against Occidental Peruana Inc., a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum.
The suit, presented with the backing of the environmental organization EarthRights International and represented by the law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, includes nine offenses specified in the US legal codes, including egregious harm, wrongful death, negligence, battery, trespass, fraud and misrepresentation, public and private nuisance, and violation of business and professional codes. The Superior Court of California must decide whether the case can go forward.
"This action has been presented because, during the 30 years it operated in Peru, Oxy caused pain and death to our people, it brought illnesses that we never had, and it has destroyed all of our lands," said Andres Sandi, president of the Federacion de Comunidades Nativas del Rio Corrientes. He said that, after the company pulled out of the area in 1999, Argentina's Pluspetrol caused additional grave damage to indigenous peoples.
The oil company announced its exit from Peru in late 2006, citing a combination of business reasons and community issues. The Ecuadoran government also moved against Occidental in 2006, penalizing it for illegally transferring a petroleum field to another company without government approval (see NotiSur, 2006-06-02). Oxy has been in litigation with...
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