ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, 21 September 1999
 

Colombia Allows Oil Exploration

By Jared Kotler BOGOTA -- The Colombian government granted Occidental Petroleum a license to explore for oil next to Indian lands Tuesday -- a step a tribe says could spell death for its people and culture. Calling the cultural threat and the environmental impact minimal, the government said it granted the license to promote Colombia's economic development. Environment Minister Juan Mayr announced the decision to allow the Los Angeles-based company to conduct exploratory drilling just outside a 543,000-acre reserve inhabited by the tiny U'wa Indian nation of 8,000 members.

The semi-nomadic U'wa fish and farm in the hilly forested territory near Colombia's border with Venezuela. Last month, the government expanded the tribe's reservation nearly four-fold. Mayr denied the U'wa were given the land to make them favorably disposed toward the oil exploration permit. ``No way. They are totally different issues,'' the minister told a news conference. The Indian group, which in 1997 threatened mass suicide to prevent oil drilling on its lands, isn't ready to back down. 

``The U'wa people are rejecting and condemning this decision,'' spokesman Ebaristo Tegria told The Associated Press by telephone from tribal offices in Cubara, just outside the reserve. ``This spells cultural and environmental genocide.'' A major oil project so close to U'wa lands 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.

The official said the company was not prepared to announce when the exploratory drilling will begin. Occidental Petroleum has tried since 1992 to obtain permission to drill for oil in the so-called Samore bloc, believing it could contain as many as 2.5 billion barrels of crude. After first applying to explore directly on U'wa lands, the company backed down last year amid heavy international criticism by activists riveted by the U'wa suicide threats. The group considers oil the sacred ``blood of mother earth.'' In October, the company resubmitted its application, this time to drill two to three miles outside the U'wa territory.

The permit skirts constitutional requirements that grant Indians to power to manage their resources. 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. Oil is Colombia's top source of foreign exchange, but government officials say a drop-off in business investment could make the country a net oil importer by 2002. Mayr claimed 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.''