I am working as a pasante (intern) with CRS Ecuador, learning as much as I can about human mobility (immigration, emigration, Internally Displaced Persons) and the effects it has on individuals, families, communities and the country. This week we traveled to Lago Agrio, an area within the Zone Frontera, near the border of Colombia, to assess some of the education programs that are taking place in the schools.
A place of border crossing in Colombia, the town of Lago is popular with drug traffickers, prostitutes and...oil companies. The jungle around Lago is breathtaking- green and lush, with all sorts of flowers dripping through the foilage. The town itself is in disarray. There are massive potholes- in the street and in the sidewalks- the buildings are crumbling, the people seem empty.
Oil companies- particulary Texaco and Chevron, have pumped billions of liters of oil from this area. According to the people, the damage they left behind is unbelievable. There are open-air pits of crude oil smoldering in the hot jungle, some as large as a football field, and these companies have contamenated the water supply and tampered with the fragile ecosystem.
As noted in the town, they have contributed little to the infrastructure of the town and pumped the oil off to foriegn lands, to fuel foriegn cars and feed foriegn appetites.
Want more information than I can give you from my short, short time there? Read up on the class action suit filed against chevron: www.chevrontoxico.com or www.texacorainforest.com.
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