Los Angeles, CA —The week of planned demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention opened today with a mass rally and march where three thousand people protested Al Gore’s sell out to Big Oil. Speakers and march participants denounced Gore’s connections to Occidental Petroleum, which plans to drill for oil on the U’wa people’s sacred homeland in Colombia. Gore’s ties to Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum are being highlighted this week as a clear example of corporate influence over the Democratic Party and the political process.
Activists staged a spirited and colorful rally featuring a large puppet parade including one of Berito Kuwar’Uwa (the U’wa leader who won the Goldman Environmental award) and the “Oxymoron” with a small Al Gore tucked into its pocket. The rally featured Senator Tom Hayden, Cary Elwes, John Sellers (Ruckus Society), Randy Hayes (Rainforest Action Newtork) and a short performance by Bonnie Raitt, John Trudell, and John Densmore. Ten activists who had formed an independent affinity group were arrested after staging a non-violent sit-in around a mock oil derrick erected in the intersection of Sixth and Flower streets, outside Al Gore’s Campaign Headquarters.
Although the organizers had promoted the participation of U’wa leaders, members of the tribe were denied visas by the US embassy in Bogota. U’wa leaders have journeyed to the United States often over the last several years – this is the first time any have ever been denied entry.
Gore has deep ties to Occidental Petroleum: holdings of up to one million dollars in Oxy stock, annual payments from Occidental for over 15 years of $20,000 and the fact that Al Gore Sr. was on the board of Oxy for twenty-eight years. In addition, a Gore initiative resulted in the sale of the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve to Occidental. The unprecedented closed bidding process was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history, one that tripled Occidental’s U.S. oil reserves overnight. Oxy executives are also frequent contributors to the Democrats.
The U’wa, a peaceful tribe of 5,000 in the Colombian cloudforest, are adamantly opposed to Oxy’s project and have repeatedly stated that they are willing to die to stop the drilling. For the U’wa, oil is the blood of mother earth, and to extract it would be to threaten the spiritual balance of the world, the environment and their physical safety from Colombia’s civil war. The US recently approved $1.3 billion to the Colombian government under the guise of a “drug war.”
“The military aid package to Colombia is a dangerous step toward a Vietnam-style quagmire in the Amazon,” said California State Senator Tom Hayden, one of the speakers. “The lobbying interests behind the package speak a troubling truth: that it has more to do with arms manufacturers and Occidental Petroleum than sound drug policy.”
The rally was hosted by John Sellers, Director of the Ruckus Society, who was recently held in Philadelphia on one million dollars bail. Another prominent speaker was Terri Swearingen, a Goldman Environmental Award Winner who has been fighting the world’s largest hazardous waste incinerator that Gore promised to close eight years ago on the campaign trail.
“It’s a question of integrity,” said Steve Kretzmann of Amazon Watch. “The Democrats tell us that people will get to know who Al Gore is this week in Los Angeles. What he does on this issue will tell the U’wa, and all of us, where his allegiances really lie.”
For more information on the week’s events, Al Gore’s ties to Big Oil and the U’wa people’s campaign please see:
www.d2kla.org * www.amazonwatch.org * www.arcweb.org * www.moles.org * www.ran.org
