Citizens of the world gathered in Bolivia for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change. Photo: The City Project

Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, called for the summit soon after the United Nations’ Climate Summit in Copenhagen last December, when it became clear that a binding treaty with decisive action was not forthcoming.

Many believe that the major carbon polluters of the world prevented a strong agreement and that the voices of both civil society and nations of the global south were sidelined or silenced.

They determined that a process outside the United Nations framework was needed.

Billed as an ‘alternate climate conference,’ the WPCCC has brought together delegates from more than 50 world governments, including the presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Venezuela; government officials from Europe, Asia, and Africa; and members of indigenous communities, grassroots environmental organizations, and concerned citizens with a mission to focus on practical solutions for communities affected by climate change.

According to Joshua Kahn Russell, grassroots action manager at Rainforest Action Network, the Cochabamba conference “represent[s] communities most directly affected by climate change. They will be outlining a people’s platform, looking at the practical things they can implement now. Cochabamba is going to be historic.”

Nearly 200 self-organized events were registered by different networks on every aspect of climate change policy. You can see the program here.

For the big picture, keep your eye on the following:

OneClimate has been streaming live as well as hosting an interactive exchange.

Climate Bloggers:

Global Justice Ecology Project’s Climate Connections Blog

JusticenEcology’s Posterous (Diana Pei Wu and Kari Fulton, et al)

Evelyn Rangel-Medina of Ella Baker Center

Check the Weather (Kari Fulton)

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

World People’s Conference on Climate Change

Carwil James’ Blog, Carwil Without Borders

Bolivia Rising Blog

Twitterati:

@boliviaun, @oneclimate, @climatejustice1, @ggjalliance, @evy_medicina, @wpccc, @dianapeiwu, @cmpcc, @cmpcc_bo

Hashtags to follow: #cochabamba, #wpccc, #cmpcc, #climatejustice, #climate

Community Connection:

Learn more about Global Environmental Issues by visiting our focus page on the topic.

But it also marked the launch of a historic march from New Orleans to Detroit by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) to resurrect Dr. King’s dream of ending poverty in the United States.

The March to Fulfill the Dream seeks to highlight the critical issues facing tens of millions of poor people in the United States, including lack of affordable housing, health care, and living-wage jobs.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is a national coalition of over 125 grassroots anti-poverty groups; it’s also the largest led directly by the poor. But whereas the original Poor People’s Campaign traveled east to D.C., the March to Fulfill the Dream is heading north to Detroit.

Why Detroit?

Detroit is the site of the upcoming U.S. Social Forum, which 10,000 people from all over the nation are expected to attend. The city was chosen both because it has become a symbol as ground zero of the recession and because some of the leading examples of a creative new economy are emerging there.

Detroit is the face of some of the toughest economic statistics in the country—high unemployment, foreclosures, a gutted industrial base—an extreme case of what millions of people are facing across the United States.

New Orleans, in which the campaign will host actions for its first few days, faces similar issues, which were exacerbated after Hurricane Katrina.

Viola Washington, a New Orleans residents and Katrina survivor, said, “Dr. King’s dream is as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. More people than ever before are living in poverty surrounded by an unprecedented concentration of wealth and abundance. We are organizing to finally realize the dream of racial equality and economic justice in the United States.” Washington is with the New Orleans Welfare Rights Organization, a PPEHRC member group.

Along the way, the caravan will stop in two dozen cities where they will join local demonstrations and teach-ins. The campaign hopes to unite poor people’s groups and their allies from across the country to build a diverse and nonviolent anti-poverty movement.

A few cities on the itinerary are significant for the role they played during the civil rights movement. Marks, Mississippi was where Dr. King launched the original Poor People’s Campaign in 1967. Other cities with a link to civil rights history include Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, and of course, Memphis, Tennessee, where Dr. King was supporting striking sanitation workers when he was killed.

Why are ‘rights’ in the title of the campaign?

The PPEHR Campaign takes its inspiration not only from Dr.King, but from the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has at its core a set of social and economic rights (including housing, health care, and jobs) in addition to civil and political rights.

“The dispossessed of this nation — the poor, both white and Negro– live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967

For information on the march, visit March to Fulfill the Dream.

The U.S. Social Forum is June 22-26.

Community Connection:

Detroit may have made an appearance on the list of America’s worst neighborhoods, but Matador writer Katie Hammel shares several reasons why her hometown deserves some love in Detroit Is for Lovers.

The Mad as Hell Docs’ RV, Photo courtesy of the author. Feature photo: Progress Ohio

The question was posed to a panel of doctors in a high school auditorium in Sequim, Washington.

Answers varied, but all had the common thread that the current health care system is broken, inefficient, and corrupt and that the best solution is universal single-payer health care.

The town-hall style meeting was a sort of dress rehearsal for a small group of physicians from Oregon that call themselves the “Mad as Hell Doctors.” Early Tuesday morning the doctors embarked on a nation-wide tour in their custom-painted 1986 Winnebago nicknamed Winnie. Later that day they held a rally and public forum in Seattle, along with some good old-fashioned street theater.

Over the next three weeks the Mad as Hell Doctors will hold press conferences and rallies in over 20 cities across the U.S.

Their destination is Washington, D.C. and their mission is to bring the message of single-payer universal health care to leaders in Washington. Along the way they hope to put the idea of the single-payer back onto the table and into the public discourse. They will arrive on September 30, then hold a demonstration on October 1 on the steps of the Capitol. They hope to get a meeting with President Obama, to whom they wrote letters in advance.

Paul Hochfield is the doctor leading the delegation. He is an emergency room doctor who believes that the insurance and big pharmaceutical companies have undue influence on the health care discussion. “What I’m mad about is not health care,” he says. “What I’m mad about is the way our political process is being manipulated by the industry.”

Dr. Robert Seward, an internal medicine physician from Portland, is mad that Americans are going bankrupt just trying to pay their medical bills. The United States is the only industrialized nation where medical bankruptcy occurs with any frequency. According to the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, over 60% of all bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were driven in part by medical expenses.

“This study provides further evidence that the US health care system is broken,” according to James E. Dalen, M.D., M.P.H., University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson. “Medical bankruptcy is almost a unique American phenomenon, which does not occur in countries that have national health insurance. These long-time advocates of a single payer system give us another compelling reason to work toward this goal as a nation.”

The Mad As Hell doctors’ argument is simple: the for-profit health system is inefficient, costly, sub-standard, and immoral. Single-payer is more efficient and has been shown to work in other countries. Their RV is emblazoned with their logo and along the top the words that summarize their position, “Remove Profit, Control Costs, Ensure Everyone, Single Payer Now!”

Their website states: “We believe there is only one way to control costs, one way to remove profiteering from the system, one way to reclaim the care of our patients, and one way to be sure everyone is covered: we must replace our current pay-or-die system and with a comprehensive, publicly financed, privately delivered, Single Payer system that puts people first.”

The doctors claim that a single-payer system would “save $500 billion a year by eliminating private administrative costs. These savings are then used to close the current insurance gap and cover everyone.”

What do they think of current proposals being put forth in Congress? They say they are a patchwork of inadequate proposals that are at best temporary solutions. At worst, they do little to go to they root of the problem yet still leave millions Americans without health care.

One of the PR figures behind the Mad As Hell Doctors Tour is Gary Jelinek, who was Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign manager. “It just struck me that the best-positioned people to talk about health care reform would be doctors,” Jelinek said. “They’re between the patients and the insurance companies.”

Several national organizations, including Physicians for a National Health Program, Health Care Now, and Single Payer Action are putting their support behind the tour. The doctors hope to be joined by a “Care-A-Van” of hundreds or even thousands of passionate supporters bringing their own vehicles by the time they roll into D.C.

To help raise awareness and to get people involved, the doctors will be blogging from the road and posting video updates to their website, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (@MadDrs) pages. They call it “an unprecedented hybrid of reality television and political activism.”

It is sometimes hard to believe that there are other positions besides the passionate “Yes public option!” and “No public option!” chants that have defined our national health care ‘debate’ this season. These days it is rare to hear a pitch for single-payer universal health care in the mainstream media, let alone a discussion of its merits or defects. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people working hard to keep single-payer on the table and in the light of day. The Mad As Hell doctors have seem to have organized a creative and visible way to bring something fresh to the passionate political discourse on our national health care system.

Community Connection:

If a health care bill doesn’t pass and you’re one of the many Americans without insurance, be sure to check out our article on the Top 12 Places People Go for Cheap Health Care.

All photos courtesy of Peace Action West.

There are a lot of words Westerners associate with Iran, but citizen diplomacy is probably not among them. Your typical news report on anything dealing with Iran might mention nuclear ambitions, sanctions, or Ahmadinejad’s latest display of rhetoric.

But these phrases have little connection to the experiences of Rebecca Griffin, who recently returned from Iran, where she carried messages of peace from American citizens. Griffin is political director of Peace Action West, and I sat down with her to hear about her experiences first hand.

Griffin with an Iranian woman who asked, “Weren’t you scared to come here because of the media?”

In a climate where 35% of Americans named Iran as the number one threat to America, citizen diplomacy might be far from many people’s minds. Rebecca Griffin thinks that just means pundits and fear-mongering media are doing their job well. She believes that is even more reason to engage in diplomacy.

Griffin’s organization, Peace Action West, recently launched a campaign called Citizen Diplomat, which put out an appeal:

“Politicians and pundits in both the United States and Iran build support for an approach to the world based on force and aggression by dehumanizing the ‘enemy’ and exploiting people’s worst fears. But regular people like you and me can take their power away by putting a human face on the US and Iran and showing that ordinary people in both countries support each other and want to build a strong, respectful and peaceful relationship. By demonstrating that Americans and Iranians are more alike than we are different. Share your personal hopes for peace with Iran in a recorded message, and I will make sure Iranians see them. It is much harder to advocate for sanctions when you know a child who will go hungry, or bombings when you know families who could be killed. Thank you for sharing your positive hopes and vision for friendship with Iran.”

That appeal went viral online and Americans from all parts of the country sent in written statements and recorded audio and video of themselves addressing Iranians with messages of peace and good will.

”The responses were very positive and encouraging on all sides,” Griffin said.

Griffin gave CDs of the various messages to people and groups she met in Iran. She found Iranians she met to be very welcoming. For some, she was the first American they had ever met in person.

Griffin interviews Ashkan using a Flip camera.

Griffin said she was motivated because “there is a new window of opportunity” and a new mood in the country. Add to that new media technologies that make it easier to communicate globally.

Her goals were to show Iranians that the average American wants peace, to show both Americans and Iranians another side of each other, and to mobilize citizens to pressure politicians to back away from confrontation and engage in diplomacy.

While in Iran, Rebecca met with American Studies students at Tehran University and with members of a group called Miles for Peace, a group of Iranian citizens who bicycled through Europe carrying their own brand of citizen diplomacy.

Griffin with members of Miles for Peace

They traveled for 70 days through 18 cities and met with European mayors and citizens. Griffin noted that both she and members of Miles For Peace found it uplifting that ordinary citizens of both nations were educating and advocating for peace and mutual respect.

I asked her about President Obama, who just returned from his own tour of the region. “Obama’s speech is significant,” Griffin says, “especially when [compared] with any previous administration.”

Obama highlighted diplomacy without preconditions and a new path forward, as well as Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy, while warning about a nuclear arms race in the region.

Griffin said that it is a step in the right direction with regard to healing relationships with Muslim countries. “But,” she continues, “the people of the region want to see action, not only talk. They are waiting to see.”

There is a lot of mistrust between the two nations. Iranians remember our activities in the region, as Griffin was continuously reminded. For example, while many Americans are probably unaware of the CIA’s (and the British) role in the 1953 coup that overthrew elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq, this information is part of standard history lessons for Iranians.

School girls in Iran.

Iranians also remember the United States’ role in the Iran-Iraq war, a bloody 8-year conflict that injured over a million people and is not far from the minds of even young people, who were just children at the time. The United States played each country off one another, but heavily aided Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, giving him the green light to attack over Iran’s border. The United States not only gave billions of dollars in aid, but also intelligence, weapons, chemicals, technology, agricultural credits, and special forces training.

“All of this still feels very present to them,” Griffin told me.

She also told me a story of a taxi-cab driver who told her group he wants peaceful relations with the United States, and even wants different political leadership. But he added that he would pick up a gun to defend his country, who he called “mother,” if threatened or attacked by the United States.

Griffin said this belies the claim that if we just pressure Iran enough through sanctions, its citizens will turn against its government. The United States has often used the strategy of sanctions as punishment against countries, from Cuba to Iraq, in an attempt to make conditions worse for both the government and the people until—so the theory goes—the people will rise up to force a change of regime or change of behavior on the part of its political leaders.

The path to trust and a healthier relationship between the United States and Iran is an uphill one. There are many obstacles to normalizing relations with Iran. Alongside Ahmadinejad’s and Supreme Leader Khameini’s provocative statements and the fact that U.S. bases, troops, and naval warships are surrounding Iran, Congress is sending the wrong message, sometimes at odds with Obama’s.

At the same time, Obama is making diplomatic gestures and trying to change the tone, Congress is talking about harsher sanctions and drafting bills to punish companies that sell to Iran, actions Griffin sees as counter-productive. Peace Action West and its members are pressuring their representatives to support diplomacy and take advantage of an opportunity to move away from confrontation.

When I asked her how she responds to those who would say she should leave diplomacy to the diplomats, Griffin says, “Of course there has to be high-level diplomacy. But speaking as citizens is a lot less loaded of an interaction. When you speak person-to-person,” she notes, “you realize how similar you are.”

It may not be the solution, but it is part of the solution.

Whatever Obama’s administration does with regard to Iran, Griffin stressed the need to get past the one-sided narrow version of each other that each country has, mostly gained through the mainstream media and the government. Especially in the age of blogging, alternative media, and global travel, Griffin counsels citizens of both nations to “learn more about each other and to facilitate communication.”

If only the pundits and politicians would get out of the way.

To find out more about Rebecca Griffin’s trip and how to get involved, visit Peace Action West’s Citizen Diplomacy.

Community Connection:

To learn more about current Iranian politics, read about the ways in which women in the region are influencing political and social space.

Photo: British MP George Galloway speaks to the media as he arrives in Gaza. ISM Palestine Feature photo: gloucester2gaza

That is George Galloway’s goal–to organize a 500 vehicle convoy with as many people to deliver $10 million dollars in aid and medical supplies for the people of Gaza through the Egyptian border.

Ambitious? Yes. Realistic? Absolutely.

George Galloway, controversial member of the UK Parliament and founder of the Viva Palestina campaign, is on a whirlwind tour of major U.S. cities to raise awareness about the situation in Gaza.

Viva Palestina: A Lifeline from the United States to Gaza, is the second round of a remarkable feat that Galloway and hundreds of concerned global citizens pulled off this spring.

Photo: ISM Palestine

Starting from Britain, volunteers drove a mile-long convoy of over 100 vehicles through Belgium, France, and Spain, ferried across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco, then drove westward across the North African desert. A month later, and over 9,000 miles traveled across nine countries, Viva Palestina arrived in Gaza with 12 ambulances, a fire engine, buses, a boat, and hundreds of trucks full of medicine, food, blankets, clothes, tools, and gifts for children.

This is the material from which epic movies are made.

George Galloway is a leftist MP, elected several times in the British Parliament. The outspoken Galloway is no stranger to taking positions contrary to prevailing political winds. He opposed the Iraq sanctions in the 1990s and campaigned to prevent the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He is optimistic and determined about his new campaign. “There’s a new atmosphere in the US over Palestine,” he says; “the phenomenal response to this tour demonstrates that.”

At a speaking event hosted by MECA (Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance) in Berkeley, California on May 20, Galloway told the audience about the stumbling blocks along the way, including the arrest of nine volunteers detained under British Anti-Terrorism laws even before the caravan got underway.

Photo: Viva Palestina convoy arrives in Gaza. ISM Palestine

Crossing the borders of North African nations was no simple task either. Galloway was struck by how little support there was–even among Arab governments–for the people in Gaza. Egypt– partly because the U.S. gives it billions of dollars in military aid every year– was not very enthusiastic about the trip. But it was through their border at Rafah that the convoy finally reached Gaza.

Libya was the one Arab country that genuinely supported the effort, giving the campaign free fuel and accommodations. The border between Libya and Algeria was opened for the first time in 15 years, allowing the caravan to go through. Galloway told the audience that Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi asked him how many vehicles they had in the convoy.

Galloway answered, “110.”

Gaddafi responded, “Now you have 220.”

In contrast to their political leaders, the citizens of each country displayed solidarity. Galloway described how people went miles out of their way to bring the convoy supplies to carry to the people of Gaza.

Since Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) took control of Gaza in 2007, it has been subject to an international blockade, Israeli restrictions, and a ban on exports, causing a humanitarian crisis for the 1.5 million people who live on that isolated strip of land 25 miles long and six miles wide.

Despite a cease-fire in June 2008, Israel did little to reduce its military blockade. In the context of worsening conditions, the cease-fire began to seriously unravel on November 4, when Israel made an incursion into Gaza and killed six Palestinians, followed by an air strike, calling it a preemptive measure to remove a threat. Hamas fired rockets into Israeli territory. On December 27, 2008, Israel began aerial bombardment on Gaza in response, followed by a ground invasion.

It was the intensification of collective punishment for the people of Gaza. As Karen Koning AbuZayd of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees reported in January, “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and– some would say–encouragement of the international community.”

Organizations ranging from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and UNICEF to the International Committee of the Red Cross have expressed alarm over the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Tony Blair said in March that Israel must lift the blockade immediately. “I don’t think anybody can come here and not be appalled by what is happening,” Blair declared.

George Galloway and hundreds of others certainly were appalled and are doing something about it. The U.S. convoy is set to depart on July 4, U.S. Independence Day. Co-leading the U.S. campaign is Ron Kovic, long-time peace activist, Vietnam War veteran, and star of the Oliver Stone film, “Born on the Fourth of July,” in which he was portrayed by Tom Cruise. After that, the next convoy is set to depart October 4, traveling via Europe and Asia (about 3,500 miles over 18 days).

The plan: volunteers will fly to Egypt, buy the vehicles and medical supplies in Cairo, and then head for the Egyptian border with Gaza. If things go as planned, the people of Gaza will receive much needed humanitarian aid and international solidarity from the people of the United States.

Talk about travel with a purpose.

For more background information on the situation, visit GazaSiege or ElectronicIntifada. For more information about the humanitarian convoy, visit Viva Palestina.

Photo: David Gilbert, Amazon Watch

How many activists does it take to shut down the main entrance to the headquarters of the 2nd largest U.S. oil corporation?

Six.

Well, six, plus dozens of supporters and organizers of an international campaign called The True Cost of Chevron.

The purpose was to draw attention to Chevron’s environmental and human rights abuses from Richmond, California– the location of one of its largest refineries– to Ecuador, where a judge is set to decide this fall on the long-standing lawsuit that seeks damages of $27 billion for toxic environmental pollution in the Amazon rainforest and its communities.

The setting was Chevron’s annual shareholders’ meeting in affluent San Ramon, California, about 30 miles from its second largest refinery in Richmond. It was too close for me not to miss.

Photo by author

Blocking the entrance was not the goal of the demonstration. Rather, it set the stage for two events that marked the day: First, proxy shareholders came from the many countries around the world where Chevron operates to share the stories and concerns of their respective communities with the Board and Chevron CEO David J. O’Reilly (the 15th highest paid U.S. oil CEO).

Second, the announcement and discussion of “An Alternative Annual Report” entitled “The True Cost of Chevron” that is in striking contrast to Chevron’s own 2008 Annual Shareholder Report, which highlights its remarkable financial success, boasting nearly $24 billion in profits last year. “What Chevron’s annual report does not tell its shareholders is the true cost paid for those financial returns, or the global movement gaining voice and strength against Chevron’s abuses,” reads the alternative report.

Organized by a broad coalition of organizations, including Amazon Watch, Global Exchange, Justice in Nigeria Now, CorpWatch, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, and Crude Accountability, the Alternative Report chronicles abuses in Nigeria, the Philippines, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Burma, Canada, and the USA.

It covers everything from Chevron’s successful lobbying of high-level political connections to air pollution, toxic spills, industrial accidents, discriminatory labor practices, human rights abuses, and environmental and health devastation. Its demands to Chevron are clear and simple: clean up your mess, clean up your act, stop aligning yourself with dictatorships and militaries, pay your fair share, and be transparent.

I was among several dozen activists who accompanied the proxy shareholders to the security gate, where they were sent off with good cheer and warm solidarity. Soon after the shareholders went in, six local activists from Unconventional Action if the Bay Area and Rising Tide locked down the main entrance lane by locking their arms in PVC tubes painted yellow with the words “Chevron kills.”

Photo by author

They were soon joined by myself and dozens of others lined up behind them, claiming a space for speakers to explain why we were there. Chevron security forces and San Ramon police did not attempt to remove us. Perhaps they decided not to take action in order not to draw more negative media attention than Chevron is already getting.

The coalition of organizers also produced a clever subvertisement campaign called “Chevwrong” that mirrored and mocked Chevron’s latest “Human Energy” ad campaign. Images of representatives of communities around the world are shown with a quote, such as “I will try not to breathe polluted air” along with a factoid highlighting a particular abuse in a specific region.

The week prior to the meeting, the San Francisco Bay Area saw the appearance of these images wheat-pasted on billboards and poles around town. CBS Outdoor had refused to sell ad space on its billboards. When contacted, the CBS spokesperson said that it was against policy to have attack ads that were negative in character.

Alongside this was a form of subvertisement theater organized in large part by long-time activist David Solnit, author of Army of None. The alternative campaign is meant to speak the truth about the real effects of Chevron’s actions behind the fancy rhetoric of Chevron’s greenwashing campaign. Instead, Chevron’s “Human Energy” becomes “Inhumane Energy” and the subvertisement images read, “I will expose greenwashing,” and “I will expose toxic pollution.” Activists held the ads up to frame their faces behind the subversive words and chanted in unison, “I will expose–green washing! Will you join me? Yes, I will!”

Photo by author

While the shareholder meeting was taking place, speakers from Amazon Watch, National Lawyers Guild, and individuals like Antonia Juhasz–lead organizer and editor of the Alternative Report–and Rebecca Solnit, author of the much-praised Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, highlighted the grievances against Chevron and the need to keep putting pressure on the big oil giants. One member of Iraq Veterans Against the War told about how he was reassigned from his communications/intelligence duties in Iraq to protect oil pipelines.

At about 10:30, the shareholders came out and shared what occurred in the meeting. It was reported that Chevron’s CEO David O’Reilly told them that the campaign’s Alternative Report, which he claimed he had seen, along with their grievances “are an insult to Chevron employees, and should be thrown in the trash.”

Speakers ranged from the Mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin, who reported that “Chevron’s response is emblematic of its approach to local communities—a systemic disregard and mockery of the communities in which it operates,” to Christine Cordero of Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, who said:

“While our communities suffer from Chevron’s toxic emissions, catastrophic spills, leakages, and explosions, David O’Reilly speaks of his hurt feelings. This is about the health of communities and, ultimately, the long term of health of O’Reilly’s corporation if he continues to choose to do nothing and ignore the costs of Chevron’s operations in the Philippines.”

Paul Donowitz of EarthRights International added that “Chevron chose to turn a deaf ear to the communities who bear the crippling consequences of its operations. Chevron’s complicity in human rights abuses in Burma, the billions in project revenues flowing to the brutal Burmese military junta who use these profits to oppress their own people are more evidence that this is a company that cares for only one thing – its bottom line.” A dozen or so people from the Burmese community, including a robed monk, were there to oppose Chevron’s actions in their country.

After the speakers finished their reports, the rally was concluded with the chant “We’ll be back! We’ll be back!”—echoing Ecuador representative Mr. Criollo’s promise that “we’ll keep fighting until the end.”