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Colombian
Tribe Topples Mighty Oil Giant
(Gabrielle Banks, AlterNet, May 6, 2002)
Occidental Petroleum announced that it was relinquishing control
of Siriri, the oil block in Colombia on the ancestral land of
the U'wa people. . . . "It just shows that drilling
for oil in ancestral territories of indigenous communities in
a tropical rainforest region is an unviable and untenable business
plan," said Michael Brune of the Rainforest Action
Network. . . . when the U'wa realized Occidental intended to
proceed with the drilling, the tribe prayed for the oil to "move."
Maybe the dry well was simply proof that the universe is the
best arbiter in matters of such consequence. . . . However you
spin it, this was a colossal victory for the U'wa, a tribe of
just 5,000 souls, whose scrappy, grassroots struggle against
Occidental began nearly a decade ago. The U'wa said the oil
operation threatened the basic welfare of civilians who would
be caught in the cross-fire of Colombia's civil war. . . . The
battle over power and resources -- perpetrated by the Colombian
military, leftist FARC guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries
and drug traffickers -- has ravaged any semblance of normalcy
for Colombians. People are kidnapped and murdered in what amounts
to a perpetual, surreal chess match. (Staking its own territorial
claim in the war, the Bush Administration is pushing the U.S.
Congress to authorize $98 million in military aid to defend
another Occidental venture, the Caño-Limon pipeline,
a private enterprise which runs through U'wa land.) . . . In
one of the best-covered protests, demonstrators outside
the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles denounced
Al Gore's insensitivity to the U'wa people. At the time, Gore
was a major stockholder in Occidental and the U'wa had threatened
a mass suicide if the company went forward with its plan to
drill. . . . We may never know why Occidental pulled
its operations out of the Siriri block, but this rare, non-violent
triumph of the few offers a powerful lesson to the mighty armed
masses at war in Colombia (and in many places throughout the
world). No matter how daunting the opponent, true victory can
never be attained through bloodshed.
U.S.
Expects a Wider War on Two Fronts in Colombia
(Christopher Marquis, t r u t h o u t, April 28, 2002)
The United States is already preparing for a widening war
in Colombia, where the government has been battling two leftist
insurgencies with ties to drug trafficking and a right-wing
paramilitary organization widely accused of human rights abuses
tolerated by the Colombian military. . . . The Bush
administration has asked Congress to let Colombians use American-trained
soldiers and equipment against the guerrillas, arguing that
it is not feasible to limit American assistance to the fight
against drugs. . . . The United States has provided
$1.7 billion in support of the anti- narcotics and development
plan and the administration's successor plan, the Andean Regional
Initiative. Most of the assistance has been in military aid
and training. The administration has so far provided 8 helicopters
to the national police and 35 to the Colombian armed forces
and trained a counter narcotics battalion that officials say
is the most effective fighting unit in Colombia. . . . The
administration is currently asking Congress to finance another
battalion and provide $98 million to equip Colombian forces
to protect the Cano Limón oil pipeline. Rebel
attacks on the pipeline shut it down for 240 days last year,
costing the government $500 million in lost revenue, officials
said.
Activists
Protest Expanding Aid to Colombia (Jim Lobe, OneWorld.net,
February 27, 2002)
The civil war in Colombia, which dates back to the 1960s,
has pitted the FARC and a second, smaller rebel group, against
the Colombian armed forces, as well as right-wing paramilitary
armies which are backed by powerful business interests and
some military officers, according to international human rights
groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
(HRW). . . . In addition, even before the collapse of the
peace process last week, the administration had asked Congress
to approve some US $250 million more in military aid, including
US $98 million to train and supply new army brigades to protect
an oil pipeline owned by the US corporation Occidental. .
. . The groups, which also include about a dozen church relief
organizations, asked Powell to ensure "that no US military
equipment or U.S.-funded battalions are used in the operation
to retake the DMZ.
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