Occidental Petroleum abandons oil development on U'wa land.

[Environmental News Service] At its annual shareholders meeting on May 3, 2002, Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) announced that the company will return to the Colombian government its controversial oil block located adjacent to the traditional territory of the U'wa people.

The U'wa and their American environmental supporters rejoiced at this result which follows a nine-year campaign to halt the oil project in the Colombian cloud forest. Known for years as the Samore block, the land at issue is located in a guerrilla-controlled area of northeast Colombia, and is estimated to hold up to 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil.

U'wa spokesperson Ebaristo Tegria said, "This is the news we have been waiting for. Sira, the God of the U'wa has accompanied us here in Colombia and our friends around the world who have supported us in this struggle. Now Sira is responding to us. This is the result of the work of the U'wa and our friends around the world."

Atossa Soltani, director of the advocacy group Amazon Watch, said, "Oxy's departure from the oil block will be a great victory for the U'wa. Oxy now needs to commit to staying out of all U'wa ancestral lands permanently."

Last July, Occidental Petroleum announced that its first exploratory well on U'wa land turned up dry. The company cited economic reasons for relinquishing the block.

Soltani said that the company's continuing public relations nightmare around the U'wa issue weighed heavily on the decision.

The U'wa have repeatedly denounced Occidental's oil operation, saying it threatens their tribe and will raise the death toll of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of Colombia's civil war. At one point the approximately 5,000 U'wa threatened to commit suicide en masse unless the oil company stopped its operation on their territory.

U'wa leaders have conducted protest tours across the United States several times over the past five years and have visited Congress to raise support for their cause.

On March 31, 2000 a Colombian court ordered the oil company to stop all construction work on the oil drilling site. A Bogota judge supported the U'wa tribe's claim that the Samore block while located just outside their official reservation is part of the ancestral lands of their forefathers. The injunction was later lifted, and drilling was allowed to proceed.

In June 2000 Colombian riot police broke up a road blockade by U'wa people who were trying to prevent trucks from reaching the construction site where...