Colombia Indians Vow Fight to Death Over Oil
9/22/99
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Title: Colombia Indians Vow Fight to Death Over Oil
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 22, 1999
Byline: Karl Penhaul
BOGOTA - Ancient Indian beliefs and multinational business were on a
collision course as Colombia's U'wa tribe threatened to commit mass
suicide after a U.S. oil firm won drilling rights to disputed
ancestral lands yesterday.
"We are looking at the information to see what action the community
will take. Mass suicide is one option we are considering," Evaristo
Tegria, a spokesman for the U'wa tribe, told Reuters by phone from
Cubara, the main town on the tribe's reservation.
After a seven-year land wrangle, Colombia's Environment Ministry
granted Occidental Petroleum Corp a permit to sink the first test
well in the northeast Samore block, just outside the recently
enlarged U'wa reservation.
The 500,000 acre (209,000 hectare) exploration block is tipped to
harbour up to 2.5 billion barrels of crude, which would help ensure
Colombia's energy needs well into the next millennium.
But the 5,000-member U'wa tribe insist the entire Samore block,
including parts outside the government-approved reservation, was the
territory of its semi-nomadic ancestors.
"The community must consider how best to defend its social, cultural,
territorial and political rights," Tegria added.
According to the U'was long-established spiritual beliefs, drilling
for oil on its tribal lands that span the cloud forests and plains of
northeast Colombia, is tantamount to sucking the lifeblood out of
Mother Earth.
Occidental was originally granted an exploration contract for the
Samore block in 1992 but suspended all work after carrying out just
$12 million of seismic surveying because of U'wa protests.
At the time the U'wa threatened that they would commit mass suicide
to prevent encroachment on their land. This tactic is said to have
been used by many of their ancestors to escape capture at the hands
of Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago.
The U.S. multinational currently operates the 140,000 barrel per day
Cano Limon field in northeast Arauca province.
But based on reserve estimates Samore promises to be one of
Colombia's largest-ever oil finds, possibly as big as the 440,000
barrel per day Cusiana-Cupiagua complex operated by BP Amoco in the
eastern plains.
Oil is Colombia's top export, bringing in some $2.5 billion per year
in foreign reserves. But output is currently stagnated at about
850,000 bpd and the country faces the prospect of having to import
oil again by 2004 if no major new finds are made.
In an apparent effort to defuse U'wa protests and open the way to
Colombia's continued energy self-sufficiency, the government last
month enlarged the U'wa reservation from 98,000 acres (40,000
hectares) to more than 543,000 acres (220,000 hectares).
Conveniently, however, Occidental's proposed Gibraltar 1 test well,
located near the town of Toledo was just a few miles outside the
limits of the new reservation.
Occidental has not issued a formal statement on Tuesday's decision by
the Environment Ministry. But technically, work on sinking the 14,000
foot test well, expected to cost some $30 million, could begin
immediately.
In addition to their own protests, the U'wa have successfully
mobilised an international campaign.
Last month, Steve Kretzmann, a spokesman for the California-based
U'wa Defence Working Group, said the enlarged reservation deal should
not be seen as "a quid pro quo for oil development".
He argued that the oil industry had failed to bring social
development to impoverished regions of Colombia and warned drilling
for crude near U'wa lands could spark political violence and generate
social tensions.
Three U.S. members of the U'wa Defence Working group were murdered by
a Marxist rebel unit while carrying out work with the U'wa community
in February. The Armeed Forces of Colombia fiercely opposed to
multinational oil companies operating in Colombia, blamed the brutal
killings on a renegade field commander.
The working group has, however, vowed to continue supporting the
U'was in their fight to drive Occidental off ancestral lands.
"In Colombia oil is a vision of development for the elites and a way
of paying off international debt. But it does not help communities
develop whether they are spiritually opposed to oil or not,"
Kretzmann said.