Fighting Chevron in Washington DC

Drew Garvie & Peter Miller

In late April, we, along with three other members of the Young Communist League of Canada, had the honour of attending a historic event in Washington DC. We were part of a caravan of buses leaving from Ontario to attend a rally and conference in solidarity with indigenous peoples in Ecuador fighting the oil giant Chevron.

The place and time of the solidarity events were chosen by Chevron. The corporation has been trying to avoid paying for one of the worst environmental disasters in history, that it created by dumping billions of gallons of toxic sludge in the Ecuadorean Amazon. In 2011, it was ordered to pay $9.5 billion dollars to clean up the mess. Chevron has yet to pay up. There is an ongoing case in Canada where the indigenous plaintiffs could receive justice through assets in Canada. What brought us to Washington, the heart of the leading imperialist power, was the result one of Chevron’s latest dirty tricks it is using to avoid cleaning up its mess. It has decided to take Ecuador to court through the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Venezuelan Ambassador visits Six Nations

Edward Lovo

I witnessed an historic exchange between the peoples of Six Nations and the Venezuelan ambassador to Canada Wilmer Barrientos. We were warmly welcomed into the longhouse, which few outsiders have set foot in. There was some controversy about this as someone had earlier made the quip who will we invite next—the Israeli ambassador? Thankfully, we had enough of their trust. To keep their trust it was enough to exclude media, the RCMP, OPP, and CSIS, and we had the vote of confidence of a trusted community member

As one of the Six Nations spokespersons explained a profound pain of oppression breeds mistrust of outsiders. The speaker then acknowledged that the ambassador paid a visit to the Six Nations before approaching Ottawa, an unprecedented first in recognition of their land. The speaker shared some history of Six Nations with the ambassador, explaining to him the Two Row Wampum which few Canadians are familiar with.