MESSAGE BOARD: Indigenous peoples

September 22, 1999
Web posted at: 2:04 a.m. EDT (0604 GMT)

In this story: Threat of mass suicide Balancing need for energy Spiritual beliefs, fear of violence RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The Colombian government has granted a U.S. petroleum giant a license to explore for oil next to Indian lands, rejecting a remote tribe's assertion that the result would be "cultural and environmental genocide."

Environment Minister Juan Mayr announced the decision to allow Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. to conduct exploratory drilling just outside a 543,000-acre reserve inhabited by the tiny U'wa Indian nation.

Calling the cultural threat and the environmental impact minimal, the government said Tuesday it granted the license to promote economic development and prevent Colombia from becoming an oil importer.

A tribal spokesman said Tuesday the U'wa were considering a drastic response to the government's action.

"We are looking at the information to see what action the community will take. Mass suicide is one option we are considering," Evaristo Tegria said in Cubara, the main town on the of 8,000-member tribe's reservation.

"This spells cultural and environmental genocide."

The decision is the latest twist in a seven-year battle by the semi-nomadic U'wa to prevent drilling on their ancestral lands. The U'wa, who fish and farm in the hilly forested territory near Colombia's border with Venezuela, first received international notice in 1997 when they threatened to commit mass suicide if the government allowed exploitation of the land. Their cause gained support from environmental groups ranging from the Sierra Club to Greenpeace to the Rainforest Action Network.

The permit that Occidental received Tuesday would allow it to sink the first test well in the northeast Samore block, just outside the U'wa reservation. If sizable petroleum deposits are found in the area, the company will have to reapply for a license to take the oil out of the ground.

The 500,000 acre exploration block is tipped to harbor up to 2.5 billion barrels of crude, which would help ensure Colombia's energy needs well into the next millennium.

Oil is Colombia's top export, bringing in some $2.5 billion per year in foreign reserves. But output is currently stagnated at about 850,000 barrels per day and the country faces the prospect of having to import oil again by 2004 if no major new finds are made.

But the U'wa insist the entire Samore block, including parts outside the government- approved reservation, was the territory of its semi-nomadic ancestors.

According to the U'wa's long-established spiritual beliefs, drilling for oil on its tribal lands that span the cloud forests and plains of northeast Colombia, is tantamount to sucking the lifeblood out of Mother Earth.

A major oil project so close to U'wa lands also would attract the same kind of violence and environmental destruction that plagues oil-producing regions throughout Colombia, Tegria said.

Rebels hiding in the jungle have kidnapped oil executives and have carried out 55 dynamite attacks on pipelines this year, sending oil gushing into the jungles. Thousands of soldiers have been detailed to guard the installations.

An Occidental executive said Tuesday his industry was being unfairly blamed for strife endemic to a country where guerrillas have a nationwide presence.

"To say that oil is a magnet for violence is to ignore the reality of Colombia, where in many areas you have violence and no oil development, " said the company official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Mayr said the government could ensure the U'wa are shielded from any violence associated with the oil industry's coming.

That's almost impossible to guarantee, said David Rothschild, director of the Amazon Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based environmental group that has backed the U'wa cause. "The Colombian government has shown no ability to keep violence out of these areas. So the promises are hollow."

Three American activists working with the U'wa were kidnapped near the reserve and killed in March by a unit of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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