Colombia

In 1992, Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) and Royal Dutch Shell acquired oil exploration rights to U’wa ancestral land in partnership with the Colombian government. Shell pulled out of the operation due to pressure from the international community concerning prior human rights violation in Nigeria. Oxy has continued with plans in Colombia however, without holding a single meeting with the U’wa-a violation of both international law and the Colombian constitution.

According to Al Gedicks, in his book, Resource Rebels, “Today the U’wa see their very existence threatened by Oxy and the Colombian government who ‘are insisting on ignoring our territorial rights over land we have occupied for thousands of years. We are the owners of the territory on which they aim to exploit petroleum, without recognizing the constitutional rights of community lands for our ethnic group, which are inalienable, non-negotiable, and irremovable, protected by public laws over collective property.’” (The U’wa in Gedicks 2001) In 1999, the Colombian government attempted to appease the U’wa by legally recognizing a portion of the tribe’s traditional lands. However, the grant recognized a meager 14% of the U’wa’s ancestral lands, excluding Oxy’s drill site conveniently. On September 14, 2000, a development fundamentally challenged the legality of Oxy’s project. The U’wa presented the Colombian government with archival evidence of colonial titles dating as far back as 1661, which legally recognize U’wa title to both soil and subsurface mineral rights on Oxy’s present day drill site. (www.amazonwatch.org 2001) With this historical documentation, the U’wa plan to challenge Oxy’s drilling rights once more in Colombian courts.

Additional Complexities

The above description of the U’wa may seem to be a matter of government favoring corporations over the indigenous population. While this is true, there’s far more to it. Guerilla forces, paramilitary groups, state-sponsored military atrocities, and a Drug War all exacerbate a multitude of confusing and complicated interactions. The guerillas want to nationalize the oil operations, that is, they want the money from oil to stay in Colombia, not be taken by a multinational oil company like Occidental. The most frequent method used to stop the oil extraction has been bombing. According to Amazon Watch, “In the past twelve years, the pipeline has been attacked over 700 times by guerilla groups, spilling more than 2 million barrels of crude oil into the forest and rivers. These oil spills amount to eight times the crude spilled by the Exxon Valdez.” While the guerillas are in opposition to Occidental, they have not respected the U’wa culture, or the land upon which its survival depends.

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