Green Action in Colombia: The Struggle of the Indigenous U'wa People against Oil Exploitation and for Life.

• Author: Marzo, Giuseppe De
• Position: Thinking Politically - Brief Article

The U'wa are a community of 7000 indigenous people living in the forests of the Colombian Andes. Their culture is based on the belief that the earth that has nurtured them for centuries is sacred and is the Mother and that they exist to protect Her. Now the U'wa and their sacred land have to face the menace of an American oil multinational, Occidental, which began drilling in November 2000.

The U'wa are so determined in their opposition to the exploitative plans that they have threatened to commit mass suicide if the project is not stopped. They are convinced that it's better to die than to assist the destruction of their Mother Earth. They have a strong spiritual opposition to the drilling, as they believe that oil is the blood of Mother Earth. Part of the U'wa community committed mass suicide 500 years ago as an extreme action of love towards life.

The Colombian government and the Occidental Petroleum company of Los Angeles are carrying on the exploitation in the traditional territory of the U'wa. They seem to be careless of the suffering of the U'wa, killing children, women and destroying everything they find in their path.

As Italian ecologists we decided to join the struggle of our U'wa brothers after the death of the three American companions who were supporting the U'wa in their fight. We have visited Colombia 5 times so far, with 5 commissions. From this privileged point of view we were able to verify the effects produced by neoliberal economic policies on those countries which have been deprived of democracy, human rights and their own dignity for more than 50 years. Impunity, violence, overwhelming blind power, the arrogance of the system: this is what happens in every country of the "third world" starved by the hyenas of the fat, rich "first world."

Colombia is the country, which more than any other symbolizes how life on this planet is becoming more and more inhuman. The list is endless: 100 Colombians die every day; 350,000 "desplazados" (people literally thrown off their lands) per year; indigenous people eliminated by the activities of multinationals. More than that, there is a total lack of democracy; interference in their internal affairs by a third country (USA); civil war; destruction of the beauty of nature and of biodiversity; unemployment and more. To cap it all, there is the military project of astonishing destruction and exploitation known as "Plan Colombia," the last way to claim the ownership of what cannot be...