Censat Agua Viva

Summary:
The U'wa, who live in the tropical forests of Colombia, are fighting for life or death to protect their traditional culture and their holy habitat against a petroleum project that is treathening to start in their territory at any given time

Extended content:

The U’wa flatly oppose any drilling and caution about the possibility of increased violence, as has been seen in other regions affected by petroleum projects. In spite of this, Occidental Petroleum, company with headquarters in Los Angeles, together with the Colombian government, are going ahead with the drilling. The U’wa have called out to the international community for support; now it is time for us to respond to it.

Their opposition to the petroleum project is such that they have sworn to commit suicide in case Occidental Petroleum and the Colombian government continue with this project in their ancestral lands. The U’wa, a traditional people of about 5.000, prefer death by their own hand, to the slow death of their environment and culture due to petroleum exploitation. A central principle in their culture and spirituality is the belief that the land that has sustained them for centuries is holy. They fervently believe that allowing petroleum exploitation in these holy lands would change the balance of the world. In words of the U’wa themselves:“Oil is the blood of Mother Earth . . . For us, taking the oil is worse than killing your own mother. If the Earth is killes, noone will survive”.

The current drilling plans threaten the sovereignty of the U’wa and their territory. The rain forests of the U’wa, in the Mountain range of Cocuy, close to the border with Venezuela, are one of the most delicate ones, and presently in danger. It concerns an area which richness in plant and animal life is unique to the region. To keep surviving, the U’wa depend of the balance and ecological richness of the jungle. In other zonas of the Amazon basin where oil companies have operated, their activities have been followed by cultural decadence, pollution due to toxic elements, the invasion of land and massive deforestation.    

The first license for oil exploration that Occidental obtained dates back to 1992 and was for 2.000 million barrels, which equates to three months of oilconsumption in the U.S. Since then, the U'wa have expressed their open opposition to oil projects and started a series of actions with intent to stop the project. These included claims against the government of Colombia, petitions to the Organization of American States asking their intervention, direct accusations to directors of Occidental and complaints to the shareholders of the company.

At this moment, the Ministery of Environment is studying a request for a license to drill, which constitutes the last obstacle that the company needs to overcome to start the project. Due to the increasing violence in the region and the pressure exercised by the company on the government to get the approval, the urgency of the struggle of the U’wa has reached extreme points. 

“We are searching for an explication for this ‘progress’, that goes in contrary of life, We demand that this type of progress is stopped, that the exploitation of oil is halted in the hart of Earth, that this intentional bloodletting of Earth is stopped...” says a fragment of the Declaration of the U’wa people, of august 1999.