The U’wa people inform the National and International Community about the current state of our TERRITORIAL, CULTURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND SOCIAL process against the OIL EXPLORATION PROJECT IN THE AREA OF THE GIBRALTAR WELL UNDERTAKEN BY OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM MULTINATIONAL OF COLOMBIA INC., AND WITH APPROVAL FROM THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT.
Since November 1999, the U’wa have mobilized CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE to protest the institutional and judicial violations that the Colombian government has sponsored since the SAMORE oil Block was granted to OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM MULTINATIONAL COMPANY OF COLOMBIA INC. in 1995.
In 2000, we continued with our protests. With the decided and definitive support of the social sectors of Arauca, Cubará; Boyacá, Toledo; North Santander; and the national and international communities, we have been able to achieve global awareness of the problem. In the face of our legitimate and legal demands, the Colombian government – with the use of the military and police – achieved its goal of allowing the entry of machinery and operators.
It has been approximately twelve months since the company began the oil perforation stage. There is no date when the results, either positive or negative, of the potential expected hydrocarbons will be known. What exists at this time is: Decomposition of the social fabric, as manifested by the Sarare Board Association of Samoré, made up of 33 Communal Action Boards; Environmental Contaminations (water and noise pollution, etc.); Indigenous members beaten, arrested, attacked physically and morally; Violation of our sacred rights over the Earth, culture, sovereignty, a healthy environment, identity and difference, etc. All of the above is justified by the neo-liberal and pro-development politics of President Pastrana. In each visit to foreign countries, he sells our history, higher laws, and sacred territories, to irresponsibly become a part of Economic Globalization.
Moreover, we would like to inform you that we the U’wa, a culture that doesn’t sell its millennial historical principles, have continued our process of defense. Today our communities are abiding by the higher laws, for this reason we find ourselves in a spiritual fast to strengthen ourselves as a culture, as a community, as a people. We inform all our friends in Colombia and the World that we have initiated judicial actions against the Colombian government and Occidental of Colombia Inc. They must pay for their acts of brutality against the U’wa culture. Our Traditional Authorities also find themselves in permanent assembly against the science of the white world through spiritual fasting, meditation, seclusion, maintaining the harmony with Our Mother Earth, etc. Soon we will be sharing the results.
We, the U’wa, continue to defend the absolute ownership of our lands in Santa Rita, Bellavista, Vega Rica, Santa Rosa, properties that were acquired in accordance with and ordered by the laws of the white man.
The Colombian government, the head of Minister of the Environment, Juan Mayr Maldonado, and the President of the Republic of Colombia, Andrés Pastrana Arango, continue to lie to the international and national community when he informs them that no difficulties exist with the U’wa community. In reality, we do have environmental problems, problems of recuperating the territory of our Reserve, health, and educational problems, and other projects that directly affect our territory.
We energetically reject the way in which the Colombian government facilitates the entry of multinationals into indigenous territory – by using the judicial and administrative institutions, and state security in order to take away our sacred rights, to vanish us from what is ours. At present time, the National government irresponsibly and without consultation granted an Environmental License for the Capachos Project on indigenous land, located in the Tame municipality in the state of Arauca, which is operated by the Spanish transnational company REPSOL EXPLORACIÓN COLOMBIA S. A.
Finally, we would like to say that we are in the process of cultural and territorial defense. We have national and international claims in which we have demonstrated the flagrant violation of our human rights by the Colombian government and its authorities and at the same time we solicit the reestablishment of our rights. We request that our national and international friends (Environmental and Human Rights NGO’s, students, teachers and academics, workers, unionists, young people, seniors, Indigenous communities and organizations of the world, etc.) continue to support us in this difficult process, where capital and the power of money wants to consume us to the point of destruction, but we the U’wa will give our lives defending our mother earth. Cultures with principles cannot be bought. We, the U’wa, zealously defend the higher laws.
