Los Angeles — Al Gore says he’s the environmental candidate. He wrote a best-selling book on it, and it’s a central part of his presidential campaign.
“I will not let you down,” stated Gore when he spoke at the League of Conservation Voters in New York on Feb. 24. “I will fight with everything I’ve got to protect the environment here in New York, all through our country, and around the world.”
But all along the campaign trail, Gore is greeted by demonstrators who say he has betrayed the environmental cause when it comes to protecting native peoples.
The story begins in a remote region of Colombia, where the U’wa people have threatened to commit mass suicide if U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum goes forward with plans to drill for oil on what the tribe claims are its traditional lands.
The U’wa oppose the drilling because they fear it will violate the rain forest, which they consider sacred.
Making It a Personal Issue
Last month, a violent confrontation between villagers and police led to at least one death. What has all this got to do with Al Gore? Money.
“There’s probably no company in America today,” says Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, “that is as close personally and financially to the vice president than occidental petroleum.”
After Gore’s late father left the U.S. Senate, he was named to the board of Occidental Petroleum. Financial records show the vice president is the executor of his father’s estate, which holds as much as $500,000 worth of Occidental stock.
That means Gore could ultimately benefit from the company’s operations in Colombia. Plus, Occidental is a major Democratic Party donor, giving nearly $500,000 in soft money since 1992. To environmental activists, the vice president’s duty is clear.
“If he wants to be an environmental champion,” says Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch, “he needs to make a statement on this issue. And he needs to take personal…responsibility for his family fortune.”
Conflicting Political and Legal Pressures
It sounds simple: a multinational oil company, a threatened native people, a powerful politician. But there are other factors at work here that have put the vice president in a dilemma.
First, as executor of his father’s estate, Gore has legal responsibilities that could prevent him from simply dumping the Occidental stock.
And the Clinton administration is supporting the Colombian government in its battle with guerillas and drug dealers, who control 40 percent of the country.
Many foreign policy experts say developing the oil business as an alternative to drugs is crucial to Colombia’s survival.
“If they would stop oil exploration,” says Lowell Fleischer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “which seems to be the goal of some of these indigenous leaders, I think that would just lead to more problems.”
Vice President Gore refused several requests to speak with ABCNEWS about the U’wa and his family’s holdings with Occidental.
But as the demonstrators dog him — and Occidental begins drilling in Colombia — Gore’s public silence on the issue leaves him open to the charge that for all his speechmaking on the environment, he won’t put his money where his mouth is.
