S.F. jury clears Chevron of protest shootings

Dec. 2, 2008 San Fransico Chronicle

SAN FRANCISCO-- A federal jury in San Francisco cleared Chevron Corp. of wrongdoing Monday in the shootings of Nigerian villagers who occupied an offshore barge in 1998 to protest the company's hiring and environmental policies.

Two men were killed and two were wounded by security forces summoned by Chevron after three days of negotiations with leaders of about 150 tribesmen from the oil-rich Niger Delta. Villagers and their supporting witnesses said they were unarmed and peaceful, but Chevron's witnesses said the protesters threatened violence, held crew members captive and demanded ransom.

After a four-week trial, the nine-member jury deliberated less than
two days before unanimously rejecting the plaintiffs' claims that
Chevron was responsible for assault, inhumane treatment, torture and
wrongful death. The 19 plaintiffs included the two wounded men,
relatives of one of the slain men, and the family of a fourth man who
was beaten and died later of unrelated causes.

Jurors left without talking to reporters. Their verdict didn't
specify whether they had concluded - as Chevron argued - that the
company was justified in calling for military intervention to protect
its workers. They also could have found that excessive force was used
but that Chevron had no reason to foresee it and therefore wasn't at
fault.

The company called the verdict a vindication.

"The jury upheld our position that our response was reasonable to a
dangerous hostage-taking situation where our employees were in peril,"
Chevron spokesman Don Campbell told reporters. He said the company
sympathizes with Niger Delta residents but doesn't believe they should
use violence to solve their problems.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Bert Voorhees said his clients will appeal the verdict.

"This was a difficult story to tell across several cultural
barriers," he said. But the fact that the case even went to trial,
despite Chevron's attempt to dismiss it, should serve notice that
"corporations like Chevron can be held accountable," he said.

Standing alongside Voorhees, lead plaintiff Larry Bowoto, who still
suffers the after-effects of a gunshot wound to an elbow, said "We are
not hostage takers."

The suit is one of several that have been filed recently against
U.S.-based corporations under the Alien Tort Claim Act, a law passed by
the first Congress in 1789 that allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts
for violations of international human rights.

A similar suit by villagers in Burma against Unocal for allegedly
encouraging brutality by soldiers guarding its pipeline was settled in
2005 for an undisclosed amount of money, but no jury has yet found a
company responsible for human rights violations by a foreign
government.

In the case of Chevron, which has a refinery in Richmond, villagers
occupied a barge tethered to the company's Parabe platform, 9 miles
offshore, in May 1998. They said drilling and dredging were polluting
their wells and killing trees and fish, but Chevron's Nigerian
subsidiary had refused to meet with them.

Plaintiffs' lawyers cited a faxed message from an official of the
subsidiary to the U.S. Embassy on the third day of the protest, saying
the villagers were unarmed and the situation was calm. The soldiers and
a mobile police force widely known as the "kill and go" arrived the
next morning on helicopters leased by Chevron.

But Chevron's witnesses said the protesters had written letters
threatening violence and sea piracy, struck one or more crewmen, and
poured diesel fuel on the barge and threatened to set it on fire -
leaving the company with no option, its lawyers argued, but to call on
the Nigerian government for help.

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@schronicle.com.