BP still causing pain and suffering

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

For more than a year, People for Peace, led by Art Rocker, has spent hours working to get underserved people who’ve been injured by the British Petroleum (BP) Gulf Oil Spill paid what is owed them. These are not people who are asking for millions of dollars. Most of them are poor people who live from paycheck to paycheck. The claimants have waited and waited. Some have lost hope. Just this past week I was informed that someone committed suicide while waiting. Many are suffering from illnesses caused by a toxic environment left over from the spill.

The claimants have been promised action on their claims by Kenneth Feinberg, Administrator for the British Petroleum (BP) $20 billion dollar set up to help those who were injured by the spill. One would think the poorest of people would be paid first, but that is not what has happened so far. Feinberg has paid the politically well-connected and left the underserved in the lurch.

Dick Gregory, Art Rocker, Jimmie Gardner (Prichard, Alabama, representative) and I have traveled to BP in London, England, in an effort to get claimants paid. We have traveled all along the coast in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida where the greatest damage was done. We know that cities and states have received money for clean-up and other purposes — but not the underserved.

Our team decided it was time to begin picketing Kenneth Feinberg’s office in luxury towers in Washington, DC. He has not suffered a day because he’s being paid more than $1 million a month, apparently to stall and avoid paying poor people. We have filled every request his office has made in an effort to speed up the process of paying claimants. We have run out of patience. Friday, September 2, we began picketing Mr. Feinberg’s office. We want the world to know this mega-company is not meeting its obligation to the poor. Those of us working on behalf of the poor have purchased BP stock to ensure that we have a seat at the table when stockholders meet. Until then, we are calling upon all who understand the pain and suffering of the underserved claimants to not purchase BP gasoline and any products sold by BP. We are asking others to join our effort by using other gasoline.

Over a year after the biggest oil spill in U.S. history ravaged the Gulf Coast region, Feinberg has yet to uphold his promise to respond to claimants. Gregory, Rocker and Williams are demanding to know when Feinberg plans to resolve more than 10,000 plus claims by poor and underserved citizens through a proposed settlement for a minimum of $488 million.

Gregory, known for breaking down color barriers during the 1960s, has been a champion of civil and human rights in America and abroad for decades. Rocker is the founder of Operation People for Peace, whose goal is to ensure that small business owners, minorities and the poor are compensated for the damage inflicted by the oil disaster.

Eleven people died in this tragic oil spill, and 1.6 million jobs were lost; yet, BP refuses to do the right thing by mostly minorities who continue to be suffering.

Overall we’ve met with Feinberg and BP officials more than a dozen times, leaving with nothing but empty promises. We plan to return to London, England, to echo the fact that BP should not be a lead sponsor for the 2012 Olympics while refusing to pay the claims of people who are experiencing great pain and suffering.

This article was originally published in the September 12, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper