Olympia, WA-Some 200 activists occupied Al Gore’s offices for six hours yesterday demanding the vice president take a stand against Occidental Petroleum’s drilling project on the U’wa people’s sacred lands in Colombia. Mr. Gore has deep personal and financial ties to Occidental, including family investments of up to $1 million in the company. At least ten people were arrested and the police were reported to have used pain compliance holds and some brutality. However, as police removed the lock-downed activists and attempted to take them to a police vehicle, dozens of supporters outside blockaded the vehicle and the three activists were set free.
Meanwhile in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday seven activists blockaded Gore’s campaign headquarters, locking down to an oil barrel, while joined by some 75 other protestors, all demanding the vice president take immediate action on the U’wa situation. On Sunday, 150 people demonstrated at Gore’s campaign office in Portland, Oregon, with four people arrested in protest of Gore’s silence on the U’wa crisis.
This most recent wave of protests aimed at Al Gore comes in response to the escalating tension on the ground in Colombia. In recent weeks, U’wa leaders have reported that the Colombian military has planted land mines on U’wa territory to protect Occidental’s planned drilling project. This week, U’wa leaders denounced the military taking an additional intimidation tactic and shooting at U’wa farms from aircraft circling the drilling area.
The U’wa, a traditional tribe of some 5,000 people living in the cloudforests of northeastern Colombia, are adamantly opposed to the planned Occidental oil project on their traditional territory and have waged an eight-year, non-violent campaign to block the drilling and protect the region’s fragile environment. For years the U’wa have warned that if the oil project goes forward the area will become yet another center of violent conflict between the military, paramilitaries and guerilla factions in the country’s three decades old civil war.
“It’s a time of reckoning for Al Gore, the supposed ‘environmental vice president’,” said Lauren Sullivan of Rainforest Action Network. “Either he take a stand against this project which threatens the U’wa people and their environment or expect this conflict to rear its ugly head at every campaign turn.”
In recent weeks U’wa leaders have called on Vice President Al Gore to speak up in their favor and for the protection of their land. Over the last year the vice president has come under increasing public criticism for his long-time, personal and financial connection to Occidental. Concerned citizens have targeted Mr. Gore with protests at more than 50 campaign stops across the country in recent months, calling on him to take a stand for the U’wa.
To date, Mr. Gore-who stands to benefit economically from an oil find on U’wa land – has taken no action to stop the project that is widely expected to result in environmental damage and human rights violations.
For more information on the U’wa people’s campaign and Al Gore please visit:
www.amazonwatch.org www.moles.org www.ran.org
