Volume 3, issue #20 - 24-07-1998

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Occidental cancels drilling plans on U'wa territory

May 29, 1998 Occidental Petroleum Corp. has cancelled plans to drill for oil on lands deemed sacred by the U'wa Indian tribe, whose leaders had threatened mass suicide if the drilling went ahead.
But the 8,000-member Indian nation isn't celebrating yet. "We can't be certain the rights of this people are being safeguarded," said a statement from the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia, an umbrella group representing the U'wa.
Occidental's plans had been in limbo since February 1997, when Colombia's highest court ruled it could not drill in U'wa territory.
The U'wa consider oil "the blood of mother earth" and say drilling will destroy their culture. Supporters of the tribe mounted an international campaign to stop Los Angeles-based Occidental, taking out full-page ads in U.S. newspapers and gaining backing from human rights activists concerned about a possible mass suicide.
Company spokesman Robert Stewart confirmed that Occidental was relinquishing rights to the 800 square mile oil field. He said the government has offered Occidental smaller sites in the same Samore region. But he declined to specify where or give other details of the talks.
U'wa representatives said, however, that it was not yet clear the new sites lay outside tribal lands.
The Colombian government stood to receive up to 85 % of the profits from exploitation of the disputed field.
The deal offered Occidental was part of a broader government effort to reactivate exploration stalled by disputes involving Occidental and other foreign companies. Oil has surpassed coffee as Colombia's chief legal export. But state oil officials recently warned that unless exploration rebounds, Colombia will become a net oil importer by the year 2004. At this moment Columbia produces an average of 840,000 bpd.