On March 21 and April 01, 2001, we had a meeting in Saravena (Arauca) with the social organizations of Arauca and of Cubará represented in: the Asociación Departamental de Usuarios Campesinos-ADUC (Departmental Association of User Farmers), the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT (Workers’ Unitary Headquarters) – Arauca Sub-directive, U’WA Presidents Association (Asociación de Cabildos Mayores U’wa-ASOUWA), the Communal Action Board Federation and the Youth and Students Regional Association (Asociación Juvenil y Estudiantil Regional-ASOJER), the Workers Trade Union (La Unión Sindical Obrera-USO), and CENSAT AGUA VIVA; at the Energy, Petroleum and Sustainability workshop.
We summon the necessity to:
Debate about the national politics on energy, petroleum development, its environmental, social and cultural impact;
Gain knowledge and share strategies on monitoring, resistance, and following up on petroleum activities;
Define strategies to demand the national government to find a political solution, and not a military one, to solve the social and environmental problem that petroleum exploitation poses; and to OXY, that it must acknowledge its environmental debt to the region and the country;
After sharing experiences, reflecting on the environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts that petroleum activities have historically created in various regions of the country, particularly in Caño Limón – Arauca, and the devastation that OXY started in the so called Samoré Block, U’wa ancestral territory; and planning proposals that will resolve these problems, we decided to:
Reaffirm the validity of the U’wa people’s struggle to defend their culture, land and environment;
Support and back the actions that the U’wa people decide upon in defending their cultural and ancestral rights;
Demand Occidental Multinational and the Colombian government to immediately suspend all petroleum activity in the sacred U’wa territory;
Correct/belie the erroneous information that certain regional and national communication mediums are spreading about the supposed abandonment by the U’wa people of its millenial cause, and demand that this information be rectified;
Summon the social, national and international organizations to continue backing the U’wa.
We, the social organizations of Arauca and Boyacá, continue to reaffirm that the U’wa struggle is our struggle, because it represents the struggle for life, sovereignty, culture, and the environment.
Saravena, April 01, 2001
Asociación Departamental de Usuarios Campesinos ADUC,
Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT – Subdirectiva Arauca,
Asociación de Cabildos Mayores Uwa, ASOUWA,
Federación de Juntas de Acción Comunal
Asociación Juvenil y Estudiantil Regional ASOJER,
Unión Sindical Obrera, USO
CENSAT AGUA VIVA
