OIL WAR

Ecuadoreans sue US oil firm over Amazon pollution

Ecuadorean Indians wearing feathered headdresses and red face-paint marched outside a jungle courthouse on Tuesday at the start of a case accusing U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco of polluting the Amazon.
'Before Texaco, we were free. We drank from the river, bathed in the river and everything was peaceful because it wasn't polluted,' 67-year-old Secoya Indian Esteban Lusitande said in broken Spanish.
'Now there's nothing. We can't even swim.'