U'Wa Culture in Columbia Threatened by Occidental Oil
11/18/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: U'wa Culture in Columbia Threatened by Occidental Oil
Source: Rainforest Action Netowrk
www.ran.org
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 18, 1999
Byline: Patrick Reinsborough
Greetings friends and supporters of the U'wa,
I need say little to add to the most recent U'wa communiqu, since
their words are far more powerful than mine. They have called for
supporters to join them in their occupation of the drill site as well
as to take action around the world to draw attention to this
situation. As Occidental Petroleum, backed up by the Colombian
military prepares to move into the drill site all of us around the
world must stand in solidarity with them.
Please take your solidarity to the streets. Organize a vigil,
demonstration or direct action at the nearest Colombian
consulate/embassy. Highlight America's role in financing the
Colombian military. Reprint and circulate the communiqu, below. Make
your local press cover this issue by writing letters, articles and
organizing solidarity actions. Harrass Al Gore when he makes campaign
apperances about why he is accepting campaign contributions from
Occidental. Getlocal associations, groups, unions or faith groups to
pass a resolution in support of the U'wa. Incorporate the U'wa
issue into your demonstrations against the WTO and corporate
globalization on Nov 30 they are an incredible example of resistance
from the frontlines of the global economy!
Rainforest Action Network can provide hard copies of materials (they
can also be downloaded from our website at www.ran.org). Additional
information can be found at www.amazonwatch.org and www.moles.org.
We are completing research on Occidental's shareholders and expect to
have some additional financial targets that we can all put pressure
on very soon.
One of the biggest investors in Occidental is Fidelity Investments.
They have outlets in financial districts in many major cities in the
U.S, Canada, Europe and Japan (usually ground floor, plenty of
windows, high traffic locations). Take a look around your local
financial district and see if you can find them. We will keep you
posted on what we discover and potential actions we could demand
Fidelity take on behalf of the U'wa. Let us know what you are
planning in your area.
COMMUNIQU TO THE INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC
Approximately 200 members of the U'wa indigenous tribe of
northeastern Colombia assembled in a permanent settlement on part of
our ancestral lands yesterday, November 16. This area, which has been
colonized by farmers, is the site where the multinational company
Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) wants to drill the oil well "Gibraltar 1,"
an action which threatens life and our ancient culture.
With this permanent presence and with the support of the local
farmers of Sarare, we are claiming our ancestral and constitutional
rights to life and to our traditional territory. We demand that the
Colombian government and Oxy leave us in peace and that once and for
all they cancel the oil project in this area. We U'wa people are
willing to give our lives to defend Mother Earth from this project
which will annihilate our culture, destroy nature, and upset the
world's equilibrium. Caring for the Earth and the welfare of our
children and of future generations is not only the responsibility of
the U'wa people but of the entire national and international society.
We reject the violence perpetrated by the armed actors in the region.
We also urge indigenous peoples worldwide, national and international
non-governmental organizations, and the general public to work in
solidarity with us, rejecting this project planned by the Colombian
government and Oxy. We urgently request that you support us with your
physical presence in our territory. In addition, we ask people
around the world who value the Earth and indigenous peoples to speak
out against the multinational oil company Oxy through protests,
letters and other actions of solidarity.
Bogota, Colombia -- 200 U'wa Indians, including women, children and
tribal elders marched on the site of Occidental Petroleum's planned
oil well Gibraltar 1, establishing a permanent settlement to block
the drilling slated to begin in the coming weeks. Hundreds of
additional U'wa are expected to continue arriving to the settlement
in upcoming days. Tribal leaders declared that this permanent
settlement is a necessary to block the drilling after legal battles
and direct appeals to the company and government have failed to date.
Oxy's entire oil block falls within the U'wa's ancestral territory.
The U'wa, a traditional tribe of some 5,000 people living in the
cloudforests of northeastern Colombia have repeatedly declared their
absolute opposition to Oxy's oil project. The U'wa cannot allow
drilling on their ancestral lands as they believe that oil is the
blood of the Earth. The oil project is widely expected to escalate
conflicts in the region among the armed factions, resulting in
violence against the U'wa, as seen in other oil areas of Colombia.
Despite this, in September the Colombian Minister of the Environment
approve a drilling license for the first exploratory well.
"We are willing to have the government bomb us, but we will not
abandon these ancestral lands because we must stop Oxy from drilling
for oil, which is the blood of our Mother Earth," U'wa international
spokesperon Berito Kuwaru'wa, declared from the U'wa settlement at
Gibraltar.
Today, in the Colombian capital of Bogota, 25 U'wa representatives
including Tribal Council president Roberto Perez marched on the
Ministry of the Environment, calling for Colombian and international
support at this critical moment in their campaign. In the communiqu,
that follows, the U'wa make an urgent appeal to their supporters to
join them in solidarity at the settlement during this non-violent
stand to defend their culture, land and lives.
For more information on the U'wa and their campaign please see:
www.ran.org, www.amazonwatch.org, www.moles.org
The U'wa Defense Working Group includes: Amazon Watch, Action
Resource Center, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, EarthWays
Foundation, International Law Project for Human Environmental &
Economic Defense, Project Underground, Rainforest Action Network, Sol
Communications, U'wa Defense Project
note - the article suggests that there may be as may as 2.5 billion
barrels of oil underneath U'wa land. As Project Underground (authors
of the definitive "Blood of our Mother" report on the U'wa situation)
have pointed out this number represents a gross inflation of the
original 1.5 billion barrels that was estimated to be in the Samore
block.
BOGOTA, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Militant Colombian Indians have seized an
area they claim as ancestral homelands to prevent a U.S.
multinational from drilling
for oil and pledged Wednesday to "defend Mother Earth to the death".
Some 200 U'wa Indians occupied late Tuesday the Gibraltar-1 test site
in the
Samore block in northeast Colombia.
The 500,000 acre (209,000 hectare) exploration area is tipped to
harbor up to 2.5 billion barrels of crude and could ensure the
country's energy needs well into the next century.
Occidental Petroleum Corp won approval in late September to
begin drilling for crude there after a seven-year legal wrangle over
indigenous land rights blocked work.
But in a strongly-worded communique issued Wednesday, Roberto Perez,
head of the 5,000-strong U'wa community, called for Occidental and
the government to shelve the plan for good.
"We demand that the government and Occidental leave us in peace and
cancel the project for oil drilling in this zone," Perez said.
"The U'wa people are committed to give their lives to defend Mother
Earth from this project which would destroy our culture, nature and
world balance," he added.
Perez did not spell out what measures the U'wa were prepared to take
but the community has, in the past, threatened to commit mass suicide
if the oil industry encroached on what it considered ancestral lands.
Occidental's planned Gibraltar-1 test site lies just outside the
government-recognized Indian reservation but inside an area that the
U'wa claim as traditional tribal homelands.
In August, the government enlarged the U'was' official reservation
almost fivefold to 543,000 acres (220,000 hectares). But the U'was,
whose semi-nomadic ancestors roamed across the cloud forests and
plains of at least three provinces in northeast and central Colombia,
demand rights to a much larger territory.
Shannon Wright, spokeswoman for the U.S.-based Rainforest Action
Network, said Wednesday that more U'wa Indians could pour into the
area around Gibraltar-1.
International activists, grouped under the banner of the California-
based U'wa Defense Working group, are also planning to join the
protest.
Earlier this year, three American indigenous activists were brutally
murdered by leftist rebels as they worked with the U'was to help
prevent Occidental encroaching on Indian lands.
"The U'wa are at a critical juncture. Everything is calm right now
but given that oil areas are the center of violent conflict there is
significant concern that the U'wa could be caught in the crossfire
(as a result of their protest)," Shannon told Reuters.
An Occidental spokesman said the company was still evaluating the
impact of the U'wa land occupation and declined to speculate on the
possible consequences of the protest.
He said the U.S. multinational, which operates the 130,000 barrel-
per-day Cano Limon field in northeast Arauca province, planned to
sink the first test drill in Samore "sometime next year".
The first exploration well is expected to be some 14,000 feet deep
and cost some $30 million.