Once again, the U’wa people reject the enslaving attitude of Occidental Petroleum, which continues to disregard the sovereignty and legitimacy of the U’wa, a millennial people, by allowing agents of the multinational Occidental Colombia Inc. to trample our Ancestral Territory.
For our people, it is ominous and abusive that the men of Occidental, along with the Colombian government, program actions that injure and violate the cultural and territorial principles of the U’wa and of the campesinos who are our brothers who come with impartiality to support our just cause, therefore:
The U’wa people continue with our strong position against exploitation of our resources in our ancestral and sacred territory. We continue denouncing before the world the inhuman acts that the multinational Occidental of Colombia Inc., and the Pastrana government render upon our people.
We do not accept for any reason the expropriation of our territory, which is duly titled in the name of the collective property of the U’wa people. Soon the company will carry out an expropriation which engineer Pedro Valderrama claims has been duly legalized by a decision from a judge from Toledo Norte de Santander where the company could utilize 12 hectares. We believe the expropriation of 4 hectares of land titled under collective deed and duly registered to the U’wa people is imminent. This land also makes up part of our ancestral territory.
This is how Occidental has shown its interests to the media, by hiding the abuses and violations that are plotted with the Colombian government to satisfy the necessities of the multinational companies and, as a consequence, violating human rights, and exterminating human and natural resources, and millennial cultures that still exist in this territory.
SO THAT LIFE CONTINUES, WE CONSERVE THE WATER, SOIL, AND TREES
Kuibira Rikara Delegate of the Traditional Authority
Sirakubo Tegria Delegate of the Traditional Authority