Los Angeles, CA – In another sign of escalating pressure on Vice-President Gore to sever his ties to Big Oil, several prominent actors and musicians have urged the presumptive Democratic nominee to immediately take action as to defend the U’wa people of 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. Occidental’s Colombian oil project threatens the very existence of the indigenous U’wa people.
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.
In the letter, Susan Sarandon, Bonnie Raitt, Alicia Silverstone, Cary Elwes, Pierce Brosnan, Keely Shaye-Smith and Martin Sheen drew attention to Gore’s moral responsibility on the issue by noting that the Vice President has: “enjoyed the sponsorship of Occidental Petroleum throughout [his] political career”. They urged Gore to immediately take action that resulted in “an abatement of tensions on the ground in Colombia – not simply a letter of concern”.
Gore has deep ties to Occidental Petroleum, including holdings of up to a 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.
“Many of us have supported your candidacy, and were drawn to you by a sense of shared concern for the Earth,” the letter stated. “What you do on this issue now will be of critical importance and a question of integrity”.
View a copy of the letter.
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