| The U’wa, an indigenous
community of approximately 5,000 people, have lived
in the
cloudforests of northeast Colombia for thousands
of years. The U’wa territory is one of the
most delicate and endangered ecosystems on earth.
Over the past decade, the U’wa have been
fighting to protect their land and traditional
culture from the Colombian government and Occidental
Petroleum, a United States based corporation that
acquired
a license in 1992 to drill for oil on U’wa
sacred territory. In the U’wa worldview,
oil is the blood of Mother Earth; to extract it
is matricide. Because
they believe that they are responsible for maintaining
the delicate balance between the physical and material
worlds, the U’wa see the oil drilling project
as a matter of life or death. An U’wa statement
delivered in 1998 states: “We will in no
way sell our Mother Earth, to do so would be to
give up our work of collaborating with the spirits
to protect the heart of the world, which sustains
and gives life to the rest of the universe, it
would be to go against our own origins and those
of all existence.” Having seen the effects
of oil drilling in outlying territories (oil spills,
pollution, deforestation, colonization, and military
violence), the U’wa consider the drilling
project tantamount to cultural and environmental
genocide. Since 1999, the U’wa have protested
the project through civil disobedience and other
forms of peaceful protest such as spiritual fasting
and permanent assembly of Traditional Leaders.
Over the years, U’wa protests have been met
with violent police repression, resulting in several
deaths and dozens of injuries. Through their defense
campaign, the U’wa seek to awaken others
to the dangers of fossil fuel addiction, natural
resource depletion, and environmental destruction
and have garnered support in at least twenty countries
worldwide. |
| Indigenous Tradition |
| Colombia |
| None Listed |
| In the spring of 1992,
Los Angeles based Occidental Petroleum signed a
contract with the government
of Colombia to begin oil exploration on U’wa
territory. The contract violated a 1991 ruling
that required community consent for oil exploration
projects in indigenous territories. Led by Berito
Kuwaru’wa, the U’wa launched an international
campaign in opposition to the drilling project.
In 1996, Kuwaru’wa appealed to corporate
executives in Los Angeles by presenting U’wa
cosmology in song, explaining that the U’wa
territory is sacred and not for sale. Bowing under
pressure from the U’wa, Occidental’s
original partner, Royal Dutch/Shell, pulled out
in 1995. After petitioning the Colombian Constitutional
Court, the U’wa won a nullification of the
license in 1997, but this decision was later overturned
by the Colombian Council of State. A joint study
between Harvard University and the Organization
of the American States recommended the immediate
and indefinite suspension of the project. In 1999,
thirteen percent of Occidental’s shareholders
supported a resolution asking Occidental to perform
a risk assessment of the project. In March of 1999,
a Colombian court issued an injunction to temporarily
halt work at the site but the ruling was later
overturned by the Superior Court of Colombia. Even
though the company determined that drilling would
obtain only three months worth of oil for the United
States, the Colombian Ministry of the Environment
approved a license for the project and drilling
began in November 2000. In February and June of
2001, peaceful U’wa protests at the drilling
site were violently disrupted by Colombian police,
who killed several children and injured dozens
of adults. Since its opposition to the drilling
project began, U’wa resistance to corporate
greed and global fossil fuel consumption has inspired
a solidarity movement in more than twenty countries
worldwide. |
| None Listed |
Amazon Watch
Action
Resource Center
Amazon Alliance for Indigenous
and Traditional Peoples
of the Amazon Basin
Earthjustice Legal Defense
Fund
Indigenous Environmental Network
Project
Underground
Rainforest Action Network |
| None Listed |
None Listed
|
| None Listed |
Association
of Traditional Authorities of Ú’wa
Office Mayor-U'wa Town Hall Center of Communitarian
Development
Street 4 no. 3-35 Cubará
Boyacá, Colombia
Ph: 9.78.892326
Fax: 9.78.892326
Email: uwaadmi@uwacolombia.org |
