Newsom, Fong douse China's 'flame attendants'

This is a frame grab from video showing Chinese security personnel surrounded the torchbearers on Van Ness Ave. on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 during the Olympic Torch Relay in San Francisco, Calif. Photo by Jim Irwin / San Francisco Chronicle Ran on: 04-13-2008 Chinese security personnel accompany the runners. less This is a frame grab from video showing Chinese security personnel surrounded the torchbearers on Van Ness Ave. on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 during the Olympic Torch Relay in San Francisco, Calif. Photo by Jim ... more Photo: Jim Irwin Photo: Jim Irwin Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Newsom, Fong douse China's 'flame attendants' 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Before the first Olympic torch demonstrators began lining the Embarcadero on Wednesday, there was a last-minute, high-tension showdown between San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsomand Chinese officials that could have killed the torch relay even before it started.

At issue was the Chinese government's insistence that 12 paramilitary "flame attendants" be allowed to accompany the runners through the streets of San Francisco.

The diplomatic back-and-forth over the Chinese torch detail began months ago with what appeared to be a benign request from Beijing to have attendants on hand to manage the Olympic flame and torches.

City officials were told the attendants were needed to carry the keys to turn the torches on and off as the flame was passed from runner to runner.

"We thought they were talking about some youth or civic volunteer group - then we found out they were actually ninja-style paramilitary police," said one City Hall source who was in on the talks, but asked not to be named because of the diplomatic sensitivity over the dustup.

San Francisco wanted to allow just two attendants on the run but settled for six.

"After setting clear ground rules about what they would and wouldn't do, we decided we would live with it," Police Chief Heather Fong said.

Then came the disrupted torch run through Istanbul and a photo of at least one of the attendants in a blue-and-white jogging outfit not just protecting the torch, but going after someone in the crowd.

After the London torch run also was plagued by protesters, Fong called her counterparts in Britain to get the lowdown on just how the attendants worked. She was not happy with what she heard.

According to London police, the Chinese attendants did not appear to speak English, so it was impossible for the cops to talk to them.

Instead, the attendants, who all wore earpieces, took their orders from Zhang Ming, a Chinese Olympic official who accompanied the run in a car. She would order changes in the speed of the relay or bring it to a halt, even when London police wanted to move.

The mayor and Fong decided to draw the line back to two attendants.

But once the torch delegation touched down at San Francisco International, the Chinese cited the disruptions at the relay's earlier stops and renewed their request for the full 12 attendants.

Fong and Newsom stood fast.

The result was a long, tense meeting the night before the run with the Chinese ambassador to the United States, the vice chairman of the Beijing Olympic Committee (who apparently outranked the ambassador), and Newsom, Fong and their staffs.

After hours of back and forth, and assurances that the lost manpower would be made up by State Department and other law-enforcement officers, the Chinese relented and the remaining attendants stayed on the bus.

Chances are people wouldn't have noticed the attendants had not Majora Carter, one of the torchbearers, pulled a Tibetan flag out during her run.

One of the attendants quickly pulled her out of the run and handed her off to the San Francisco cops, who in turn pushed her into the crowd of spectators lining the route.

Prize fight: No sooner did the curtain drop on San Francisco's Olympic torch run controversy than the city became the backdrop for another global flareup, this time involving homegrown Chevron Corp. and the eco-politics of oil drilling in the Amazon.

It's all being ignited by San Francisco's Goldman Foundation's announcement today that the organization is awarding one of its prestigious environmental prizes this year to Pablo Fajardo and his associate Luis Yanza.

Fajardo is a former Ecuadoran farm laborer who rose to take over as a lead attorney in a nearly 2-decade-old fight to force Chevron-acquired Texaco Inc. to pay billions of dollars to clean up 1,700 square miles of rain forest polluted by years of drilling and the dumping of oily wastewater. Yanza is a fellow community leader in the cause.

Once San Ramon's Chevron got wind of the Goldman Foundation selections, the oil giant began gearing up for a full-scale media counterattack charging that the charity founded by philanthropist and former San Francisco Protocol Director Richard Goldman had been "sadly misled" in honoring the Ecuadoran pair. Chevron says most of the pollution has happened under Ecuador's own government-run oil company, which took over drilling in 1990.

Chevron enlisted high-priced San Francisco PR crisis manager Sam Singer to push its assertion that the company is the victim of trumped-up charges and greedy lawyers. On Friday, it sent a letter to Goldman accusing Fajardo and his supporters of being "dishonest and duplicitous in their campaign" against Chevron.

On Tuesday, Chevron plans to roll out a full-page ad in The Chronicle - the start of a nationwide campaign that will also feature ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

While much of the legal fight drags on in Ecuador, Chevron has prevailed in U.S. courts.

In November, a federal judge in San Francisco tossed the remaining health claims from the case against Chevron, citing a two-year statute of limitations. The court even went so far as to levy sanctions and fines against Fajardo's fellow lawyers in the case for presenting fabricated cancer claims.

None of which seems to have kept Fajardo from becoming a cause celebre. He and his movement have drawn attention from the likes of Bianca Jagger, and Fajardo was even the subject of a glossy profile last year in Vanity Fair. And now the announcement that he and Yanza will split a $150,000 Goldman Environmental Prize.

For his part, Goldman says honoring the pair has nothing to do directly with the merits of the lawsuit.

"These fellows are being honored because they are trying to protect the land where their ancestors lived and they live," Goldman told us Friday.

As for Chevron's contention that it's been scapegoated in the process, Goldman said, "If you had a bunch of stockholders out there, what would you say?"

EXTRA! Catch our Web page at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.