Chevron profits shadowed by human rights complaints

By Amanda Beck

SAN RAMON, Calif., May 28 (Reuters) - Despite higher profits on record oil prices, the board of directors at Chevron Corp (CVX.N), the No. 2 U.S. petroleum producer, was lambasted at the company's annual meeting on Wednesday.

Shareholders and activists urged company officials to take responsibility for the environmental and human costs of oil production.

They harangued the board on a range of human rights abuses in such countries as Ecuador, Nigeria and Myanmar.

"You are here comfortably, while other people are dying ... Imagine if you were one of them," said Naw Musi, 30, a Myanmar refugee affiliated with Earth Rights International, a human rights group.

Chevron has a lucrative partnership with the Myanmar government but has not used its influence to demand the junta introduce human rights reforms or force the government to admit aid workers since the country's recent devastating cyclone, Musi said. The cyclone has left 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

Speakers from other countries where Chevron has operations also fired a barrage of human rights complaints. Before the meeting, many had stood outside the company headquarters in San Ramon, California, near San Francisco. Some 50 other protesters dressed in hazardous materials suits held signs that read, "Clean Up Chevron."

Chevron Chairman David O'Reilly sought to be conciliatory with several speakers from Ecuador, who urged company to remediate areas of the Amazon basin where it dumped toxic water that they claim is linked to thousands of cancer cases.

The company is facing a lawsuit potentially worth up to $16 billion in damages that is pending in an Ecuadorean court.

"Before the oil company arrived, our people lived without any contamination," said Emergildo Criollo, 48, who traveled from Ecuador to speak at the meeting with members of Amazon Watch, an environmental group. "Today, the streams are contaminated with oil that flows into the rivers."

O'Reilly admitted that there was an environmental problem in Ecuador but said, "Chevron is the wrong target here."

The company has spent $40 million to clean contaminated areas and has been absolved of further responsibility by the Ecuadorean government, he said.

The company showed a video that claimed Petroecuador, the state-run oil company, is responsible for current problems.

Perhaps the most emotional exchange involved company actions that Nigerian residents say led to bloodshed in 1998.

"Chevron has used violence as a way of doing business," said Larry Bowoto, a Nigerian community leader and a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Chevron now pending in a U.S. court. "I was shot several times, and my arm is permanently damaged."

Residents claimed a protest over polluted drinking water disintegrated into violence when Nigerian security forces hired by Chevron fired on them.