Bogota, Colombia – Yesterday, 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 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 approved 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,” declared U’wa international spokesperson Berito Kuwaru’wa, from the U’wa settlement at Gibraltar.
In the communiqué 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.
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.
For more information on the U’wa and their campaign please see: www.ran.org, www.amazonwatch.org, www.moles.org.
A statement from the U’wa people follows this release.
Association of U’wa Traditional Authorities
November 17, 1999
Cubará, Colombia
COMMUNIQUÉ 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 their 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.
Signed,
Roberto Perez, President of Tribal Council
U’wa Traditional Authorities
