WRM ACTION ALERTS
JANUARY 2000

Sample letter:
Action for the U'wa people in Colombia
 

Edward C. Johnson III
Chairman and CEO Fidelity Investments
Fidelity Investments
82 Devonshire Street
Boston, MA 02109-3605

February 3rd, 2000

Dear Mr. Johnson,

We are writing to you on behalf of the World Rainforest Movement. We want to express our concern regarding Fidelity's investments in Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). Oxy’s efforts to drill for oil on the traditional homelands of Colombia’s U’wa people is setting the stage for an ecological and human rights disaster.

The U'wa people, an indigenous tribe of about 5000 people, are completely opposed to efforts to drill on their ancestral territory. Oil drilling would violate the U'wa's most important religious beliefs and present a grave threat to their culture and the environment.

Since mid-November hundreds of U'wa, including women, children and tribal elders, have been peacefully occupying Occidental’s first proposed drill site. The U’wa message is clear. In their words: "We would rather die, protecting everything that we hold sacred, than lose everything that makes us U'wa."

Within the last few weeks the situation has escalated dramatically. Thousands of Colombian military personnel invaded the area in order to allow Oxy to begin preliminary operations. The situation is urgent.

Your company is one of the largest shareholders of Occidental stock, and as such has unrivaled power to influence Occidental's decisions. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this human and ecological tragedy before it takes place.

Show your customers that Fidelity will not invest in the destruction of indigenous cultures by publicly urging Occidental to cancel all drilling on U'wa land. This would not only be a clear and admirable display of Fidelity's commitment to human rights and environmental protection, but is also the financially prudent decision.

To date Oxy has pursued this project at the risk of jeopardizing its own reputation and thereby abdicating its fiduciary responsibilities to its own shareholders. According to the Oil and Gas Journal (11/29/99):

" If the U'wa were to carry out their grim threats, the result would certainly garner the kind of worldwide shock and approbation that the Exxon Valdez oil spill did in 1989 - with comparable repercussions lingering for years. If the protest campaign continues to gather momentum, another scenario looms, akin to the controversy surrounding Royal Dutch/Shell's efforts to dump the idled Brent Spar in the deepwater Atlantic Ocean; the wildfire protest that swept much of Europe led Shell not only to scuttle the dumping plan but to reassess its fundamental corporate mission."

Fidelity need not be a partner in this crime. Instead your company can take rapid and definitive action to support human rights and the environment by demanding that Occidental cancel all plans to drill on U’wa land. Bear in mind that we will hold you and your company accountable for the safety of the U’wa people.

We thank you for your time and look forward to Fidelity’s help to insure a peaceful resolution of the U’wa struggle. We hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely;



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World Rainforest Movement
Maldonado 1858 - 11200 Montevideo - Uruguay
tel:  598 2 403 2989 / fax: 598 2 408 0762
wrm@wrm.org.uy