Los Angeles, CA – Roberto Perez, President of the U’wa people of Colombia will arrive today in Los Angeles for his National Tour (April 17-28) to speak out against Plan Colombia and the corporate interest behind the so-called “drug war.” The U’wa people, a peaceful tribe of 5,000 who live in the cloud forests of northeastern Colombia, have captured headlines around the world for their crusade to halt Occidental Petroleum’s (OXY) exploratory oil drilling operations on land the tribe considers sacred.
Mr. Perez will speak to audiences in Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Providence, Stratford (CT), and New York (see schedule) ranging from corporate investors to anti-globalization activists, labor unions, and universities on how U.S. oil interests are served by the military aid package.
Just two days after Plan Colombia was passed by US congress, the U’wa homeland became heavily militarized and their peaceful blockade against OXY was violently disrupted. Today, several thousand armed soldiers guard the area surrounding the drill site. Meanwhile guerrilla bombings of Oxy’s pipeline has dramatically escalated – over sixty attacks so far this year – in retaliation to U.S. military aid. Fearing that this violence will further spread to the heart of their territory, the U’wa say that they will continue their uncompromising resistance.
The U’wa chief will speak at the annual shareholder meetings of Occidental Petroleum in Los Angeles and Textron Technologies, the Huey Helicopter manufacturer in Rhode Island. In addition, Mr. Perez will take center stage at demonstrations and vigils at Bernstein/Alliance Capital, OXY’s largest investor (New York) and at Sikorsky Aircraft, manufacturer of Black Hawk. These companies have been among the most aggressive lobbyists for the U.S. military aid package.
In Boston, Mr. Perez will join Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a forum on Free Trade Area of the Americas and Plan Colombia, where he will speak out against the perils of globalization and the emerging Colombia oil war.
Each day countless innocent civilians are being displaced, terrorized, and assassinated throughout Colombia by armed groups, many with ties to paramilitaries and the Colombian Military. This military is being backed by powerful US interests: oil companies, weapons and helicopter manufacturers.
The tour was organized to foster growing awareness that fighting the guerrillas is only part of the objective of Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia is also about securing access to the country’s oil reserves through protecting current oil production as well as “securing” the frontiers in order to tap the unexplored reserves – an objective that the U.S. Government is not publicly admitting.
