Corporate responsibility, Bush style

"Dave O'Reilly understands the definition of corporate responsibility, and I appreciate the leadership of Dave and ChevronTexaco. Their job is not only to make a return for their shareholders, their job is to show compassion as well. And I appreciate your leadership, Dave." George W. Bush July 12, 2003 From Environmental News Service: SAN RAMON, California, April 27, 2005 (ENS) - ChevronTexaco CEO David O'Reilly today reported record oil profits to stockholders at the company's annual general meeting and then abruptly shut off the microphone and adjourned the meeting in the middle of a presentation. He cut off a speech by Atossa Soltani, the executive director of Amazon Watch, a nonprofit group that works with Ecuadorian communities who claim their lands and health were damaged by Texaco oil operations. This was at ChevronTexaco stock holder meeting where all three proposals on environmental issues put to stockholders were defeated. One of those was to have the Board of Directors prepare a report on new initiatives by management to address the specific health and environmental concerns of communities affected by unremediated waste and other sources of oil-related contamination in the area where Texaco operated in Ecuador. The UK Independent reports: Rita Maldonado is a woman acutely aware that every day she is slowly poisoning herself to death. She lives on a tiny farm in the Ecuadorian jungle with her husband and her elderly mother, where the only water source is an outdoor well that has long since been contaminated by oil and oil by-products. The family uses the water to cook, to wash and to drink, not because they want to, but because there is no alternative. Since moving about a year ago to the community of Virgen de la Merced on the western edge of the Amazonian rainforest, Rita has been suffering acute skin problems - irritation, redness and regular eruptions of boils and abscesses. She walks uncertainly, has difficulty breathing and is severely limited in how much she can do to help raise the animals and perform the daily chores. Her mother goes through the painful ritual of washing clothes on a bare plank of wood in the garden, and hanging them up to dry on the strips of corrugated iron that serve as a washing line. She, too, suffers from skin problems. Rita's husband, meanwhile, pushes two pieces of corrugated iron to one side to reveal the well. It neither looks nor smells remotely clean. If the experience of their neighbors is any guide, the outlook is chilling. Half a dozen studies have demonstrated that they are exposed to an unusual degree of toxicity, bringing with it an elevated risk of cancer - of the stomach, rectum, kidney or skin in men, of the uterus and the lymph nodes in women. Corporate responsibility starts and ends with the stockholders and those on the very top of the corporate ladder. They care nothing about the people or the environment. Read more: The rainforest Chernobyl