Ecuador: Peasant activist assassinated

Ecuadorian campesino and environmental leader Angel Shingre 
was murdered on November 4. Shingre was a member and leader of 
numerous peasant and environmental groups in the region.

He became involved in the environmental movement because he was 
directly involved in the ecological damage inflicted by the US 
oil company Texaco (now ChevronTexaco).

At the time of his death, Shingre served as co-ordinator of the 
Office of Environmental Law in Orellana province, where he was 
advising communities engaged in a lawsuit against ChevronTexaco. 
Shingre had reportedly received threats from people linked to the 
oil industry. Local community leaders and activists have demanded 
a full investigation of the murder.

A civil trial against Chevron Texaco began in October on behalf 
of 30,000 Ecuadorans who say the company damaged their health and 
way of life by poisoning their environment.

The plaintiffs, represented by former Ecuadoran Supreme Court 
Justice Alberto Wray and supported by a US legal team, want 
ChevronTexaco to pay for cleanup and medical monitoring costs.

"We have water studies that show that people are drinking 
contaminated water caused by the oil — that they are drinking 
contaminants that are known to cause cancer", said US lawyer 
Steve Donziger.

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People's Weekly World