International Pressure Forces Mobil from Amazon Area
10/3/98
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Title: International Pressure Forces Mobil from Amazon Area
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 10/3/98
LONDON - A British-based group said on Wednesday that international
pressure had forced U.S. oil giant Mobil Corp to stop prospecting in a
remote part of the Peruvian Amazon that is home to isolated Indian
tribes,.
Survival for Tribal Peoples, arguing that Mobil's exploration was
putting the Indians' lives in danger, organised a series of vigils and
protests across Europe to get Mobil to withdraw from a region known as
Block 77.
In a statement, the group's campaigns coordinator, Jonathan Mazower,
said its pressure had paid off.
"This victory shows that international campaigns can and do succeed.
We are delighted that Mobil have finally done the right thing and
withdrawn. Hopefully now the uncontacted Indians will be left to live
on their own land in peace," he said.
A spokeswoman for Mobil confirmed the company had decided to pull out
of Block 77 but said the reason was that it would not be profitable to
extract the oil and gas it had found.
"The decision to leave the block is solely a commercial one and was
not influenced by Survival or by any other non-governmental
organisation's activities," the spokeswoman said.
She said Mobil was alert to environmental concerns in the Amazon and
had taken all the precautions necessary in case it encountered Indians
during its prospecting. In the event, it did not come across any, she
said.
Survival said Block 77 is home to at least three so-called uncontacted
tribes. It said oil exploration in the upper Amazon basin in the 1980s
led to the deaths of as many as 100 Indians from western diseases such
as the common cold against which they had no immunity.
Under both Peruvian and international law, the group said, the Indians
have the right to be left alone.
(C) Reuters Limited 1998.