Texaco

Homepage CIA Propaganda CIA Payroll Jaime Roldos S.I.L. Texaco In 1964, Texaco began prospecting for oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon. According to Judith Kimerling, between 1972 and 1992 Texaco intentionally dumped over 19 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon. Texaco is also responsible for 16.8 million gallons of crude oil spilling into the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. This has caused serious health problems for the indigenous people living near the oil spills, including increased cancer rates. In some streams, there was a concentration of hydrocarbon 280 times as high as the permitted levels in the European Community. Texaco has refused to acknowledge its responsibility for the environmental problems it caused along the Ecuadorian Amazon. Texaco also claims that it is not liable for any pollution because of a ‘clean up' agreement with the Ecuadorian Government. [|Amnesty International]([|http://www.amnestyusa.org/By_Country/Ecuador/page.do?id=1011146&n1=3&n2=30&n3=896)]

According to John Perkins, Ecuador was forced to sell its rain forests to oil companies in order to pay foreign debt. This was the goal of the Economic Hitman programs in Ecuador. The EHMs initially took notice of Ecuador because of the oil beneath its Amazon region. After helping Ecuador "modernize", they put the country in more debt than it could (likely more than it will ever be able to) pay back. In order to attempt to pay off the debt, Ecuador has been forced to allow multinational corporations to exploit its natural resources. (Perkins, John. __Confessions of an Economic Hit Man__. Berrett-Koehler, 2004.)