Oil drilling/ Haiti Needs To Learn the lessons

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Reply to Msg 5556

Haiti needs to learn from Latin America and the petroleum disaster and their fight with the US Oil giants.

For instance, In Ecuador for over three decades oil companies have been linked to environmental and human rights concerns.

Ecuador is one of Latin America's largest oil producer, producing approximately 523,000 barrels a day. It seems oil production has not helped the economy or the people like the government had hoped.

Oil was supposed to be the country's savior.

When the American oil company ChevronTexaco, began extracting the oil in 1974, the oil production attracted billions of dollars in foreign loans.

Guess What?

Now Ecuador is still a prominent oil exporter but is ridden with more than $15 billion in foreign debt. Oil has not brought prosperity to the people of Ecuador, but it has brought sickness, gross environmental disasters and poverty.

Because as oil development increased, so did the external debt, because while lots of oil was being produced within the country, much of that revenue left Ecuador, leaving little money for infrastructure, social services and poverty alleviation.

The "God" TexacoChevron left 627 open toxic waste pits and other facilities which leaked toxins into the water and land in surrounding communities, affecting more than 30,000 people in Ecuador.

In 2003, over 30,000 residents from the Succumbios province in the Amazon region filed a lawsuit against the U.S. oil giant.

The trial is on-going,

Claude, January 7 2008, 4:07 PM

Topic: About Oil drilling in Haiti

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