Occidental fails to find oil in Colombia.

• Author: Saoshiro, Uta
• Position: Environmental Intelligence - Occidental Petroleum - Brief Article

In July 2001, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum announced that it had failed to find oil at the Gibraltar 1 drilling site in the U'wa indigenous peoples' traditional lands in Colombia. This announcement comes as a major victory for the U'wa, who had been holding a three-month spiritual retreat in fasting and meditation to "hide the oil" from Occidental (Oxy).

This small, indigenous tribe has been peacefully protesting Oxy since 1995, when it filed a suit against the company for not consulting with its people before obtaining government permission to begin preliminary oil exploration. The U'wa believe oil is the "blood of Mother Earth," and later threatened to commit mass suicide if Oxy drilled on their immediate tribal lands. The Colombian government tried to broker a compromise by expanding the tribe's official territory from 268 square miles to 850 square miles. Although Oxy has taken its operations just outside of the officially demarcated U'wa territory, the drilling site encroaches on land the tribe considers to be under its sacred dominion.

The U'wa are concerned about the environmental and social impacts oil development will have on the tribe. The oil industry has been the focus of violent guerrilla attacks in Colombia, and the U'wa do not want to be caught in the crossfire. The nearby Cano Limon Pipeline, which is run by Ecopetrol and Oxy, has been attacked more than 600 times. At least 2.1 million barrels of oil have been spilled, badly polluting rivers and lakes in the surrounding area. Oxy had to temporarily halt operations earlier this year, as the pipeline has been attacked more than 110 times since January.

Operations at the drilling site were suspended in March 2000 by a Bogota circuit court order ruling on a U'wa petition, but the Superior Court overturned this ruling the...