SIGN-ON LETTER to the Colombian Minister of the Environment about pending license for oil drilling on the U'wa people's traditional territory

Dear Colleagues,

This is an urgent request for your organization to sign-on to this letter to the Colombian Minister of the Environment who is considering an oil exploration permit for Occidental Petroleum to drill on the U'wa people's traditional territory. The U'wa are adamantly opposed to this project, so much so that they have vowed to commit collective suicide if the project goes forward. The U'wa are in support of this letter.

We are concerned that this permit could be approved quickly if international pressure is not brought to bear on the Minister.

PLEASE RESPOND BY 5 PM PACIFIC TIME THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. Send email responses to < BeyondOil@ran.org >. Please include your name, title, and organizational affiliation.

For additional information on the U'wa's campaign to protect their cloudforest homeland please check our web sites ( www.arcweb.org, www.amazonwatch.org, www.moles.org, www.ran.org ) or contact us directly.

Thank you for your support of the U'wa and their environment.

Amazon Watch, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, Project Underground, Rainforest Action Network (for the U'WA DEFENSE WORKING GROUP)

The U'wa Defense Working Group members include: Action Resource Center oo Amazon Watch oo Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund oo Earthways Foundation oo International Law Project for Human Environmental and Economic Defense oo Project Underground oo Rainforest Action Network oo Sol Communications and others.

September 6, 1999

Honorable Juan Mayr Maldonado
Minister
Ministry of the Environment Bogota
Colombia

Dear Honorable Minister Mayr:

As xx non-governmental organizations from xx countries, we wish to express our appreciation for your recent role in legalizing the U'wa people's Unified Reserve (UR) in northeastern Colombia. After a six-year wait for government action on the U'wa's petition for a larger reservation, your leadership was critical in making the proposal a reality.

While the legalization of the UR is a tremendous step forward for the U'wa, they remain deeply concerned about the environmental license currently pending with your Ministry for oil drilling by Occidental Petroleum just outside the UR in the Gibraltar area of the Samoré oil block. As you are aware, the U'wa are adamantly opposed to any oil activities at this site as it falls within their traditional territory and it poses a serious threat to their physical and cultural survival, regardless of whether it is situated inside or outside the boundaries of the UR. We urge you to deny this environmental license for the following reasons:

1. The U'wa are opposed to the proposed drill site

As the U'wa have reaffirmed in their August 24, 1999 statement, "The U'wa people's position (is) to not allow oil activities inside or outside the newly legalized territory. That is to say, we will not allow oil activities in our traditional territory." The Gibraltar area under consideration for an environmental license clearly falls within the U'wa traditional territory, according to the first comprehensive mapping of the area only recently carried out by the Javeriana University in collaboration with local and national governmental agencies, the U'wa and others. In addition, the Gibraltar 1 drillsite is, according to your own estimates, "only a few kilometers" from the border of the Unified Reserve. Granting a license for drilling on the U'wa's traditional territory - particularly so close to their legally recognized land - constitutes a grave disregard for their deep spiritual and cultural ties to their land.

2. Oil drilling at Gibraltar will result in considerable environmental damage and social conflict.

In Colombia, where oil facilities are a magnet for militarization and attacks by guerrilla factions, the environmental and social impacts of oil projects are catastrophic for local communities. Oxy's Caño Limón pipeline has been bombed more than 600 times over the last 13 years, with a new attack occurring on average once a week. Recently, as the war in Colombia has intensified, areas near Gibraltar have experienced an increase in guerrilla, military and paramilitary activity.

This climate of violence will greatly increase the environmental and social toll of any oil activities at Gibraltar. We are deeply concerned that the environmental impact assessment for the Gibraltar area fails to take this into account. Drilling at this site can be expected to result in increased violence due to the ongoing armed conflict in the region. In light of the upheaval and violence that oil exploitation has brought to other parts of Colombia, we can foresee a significant increase in violence against the peaceful U'wa and other local peoples. An honest evaluation of this project's environmental and social impacts at Gibraltar must include these negative effects which can be expected to increase as a direct result of political and social turmoil in the region.

Additionally, while this environmental license is for exploratory drilling only, its approval opens the door to full-scale project development at Gibraltar; therefore, the project's full impact should be weighed in evaluating the application for this particular license. Even without the likelihood of violence, the exploitation of oil reserves is certain to harm the U'wa culture and the pristine environment they depend upon and have preserved for centuries. Experience throughout South America has clearly shown that despite company promises of strong protections, oil projects have consistently undermined indigenous peoples' cultural integrity and brought severe environmental degradation. Specifically, the opening of oil access roads into sensitive areas has served to fuel colonization and unsustainable natural resource exploitation, resulting in widespread deforestation and incursion into indigenous lands, among other damaging impacts. Simultaneously, oil extraction severely contaminates water supplies, the air and the soil.

As one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world with expansive areas of tropical forests, Colombia has much to gain from reorienting current development plans towards strategies which foster ecological conservation rather than destruction. Many economic options exist, including projects in the sustainable harvest of non-timber forest products and the emerging possibilities for protecting carbon sinks. In the case of the U'wa territory, full-scale development in the Gibraltar area will potentially affect forests in the Sarare area. Through their respect for and stewardship of the land, the U'wa have helped to preserve this unique area. This is one of the few remaining Andean cloudforests and has been identified by the Von Humboldt Institute as a strategic priority for conservation. Colombia is also well positioned to take a regional leadership role in developing sustainable, renewable energy sources, rather than sacrificing ecologically and culturally sensitive areas to new petroleum exploitation.

In light of the foreseeable impacts on the U'wa, the region's environment, and Colombia's valuable natural heritage, as well as the other economic and energy options available to the country, it is essential that the full impact and opportunity costs of exploitation at Gibraltar be analyzed before granting the license for exploration. These impacts must include effects on the environment and U'wa culture, and take into account the possibility that an escalation of violence will exacerbate such damage.

At the very least, we implore you not to issue this license until a more peaceful atmosphere prevails in the region. Granting that license now is certain to lead to more bloodshed.

3. Granting this license now will escalate the conflict with the U'wa rather than solve it.

We encourage you to find a solution to this conflict which is based on meaningful dialogue with the U'wa and which recognizes their rights to protect their traditional territory and the welfare of their people. Rather than approving this drilling license in the face of U'wa opposition, we strongly urge meaningful negotiations with the U'wa, and suggest using an international commission for mediation whose members should be chosen through consensus between your ministry and the U'wa Traditional Authority. The Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has endorsed the use of independent mediators.

4. The national and international environmental and human rights community anticipates your continued leadership in the U'wa case.

As an internationally recognized champion of the environment, your leadership in resolving this conflict in a just and peaceful manner will be the subject of worldwide attention. The environmental and human rights community honored you for your commitment to protecting the environment and indigenous rights by awarding you the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1993. That award also implied confidence in your ability to promote these fundamental goals in the future. It would be tragically ironic if you were now to jeopardize the lives and livelihoods of the U'wa, your fellow Goldman Prize recipients, by approving the Gibraltar license and putting into motion a process that will almost certainly cause irreparable harm to the U'wa people, culture and territory.

We are aware of the series of recent Colombian decrees which potentially relax the requirements for environmental impact assessment and indigenous consultation and consent in the case of development projects. While we question whether these decrees satisfy the requirements of the Colombian constitution to protect the environment and the culture of indigenous peoples, we are more concerned about the actual effect of these decrees. The procedures established by these decrees will remove from careful democratic scrutiny decisions certain to have enormous ramifications for the fragile and valuable Colombian environment. They also remove important protections for indigenous peoples like the U'wa whose lives and cultures are placed at serious risk by resource exploitation and other investment schemes that take place in their territories.

We appreciate the significant pressures you face to approve this license. However, we ask that you please consider the enormity of the decision that is now in your hands. Please proceed with the full awareness that the international community is carefully monitoring the U'wa case in anticipation that it may serve as a new paradigm for protection of the environment and indigenous rights. Your resolution of this delicate and critical situation will either be a critical step in establishing such a paradigm or will be forever seen as enabling one of the worst in a long line of human and ecological tragedies. Your leadership in this important case is anxiously awaited.

Thank you for your concern and action on behalf of the U'wa people and their traditional territory. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Atossa Soltani
Director - Amazon Watch

Martin Wagner
Director International Program - Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund

Steve Kretzmann
Director Oil Campaign - Project Underground

Shannon Wright
Director Beyond Oil Campaign - Rainforest Action Network

SIGN ON LETTER TO FREE RODOLFO MONTIEL FROM JAIL

Mexican Campesino-Ecologist Leader that Stopped U.S. Logging Giant Boise Cascade is Tortured, Imprisoned by Soldiers

On May 2, 1999, Rodolfo Montiel Flores, the Mexican campesino who last year successfully led public opposition against destructive logging operations by one of the world's largest timber corporations, Boise Cascade, in the coastal state of Guerrero, was arrested by federal soldiers on charges of running guns and drugs. According to investigators from Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, he was badly beaten and is now in solitary confinement in the prison of Coyuca de Catalán, Guerrero. Leaders of local campesino, environmental, and human rights groups say that, not only is Rodolfo Montiel innocent, but his being denied adequate medical treatment, food, and water is a violation of his basic human rights and he should be freed immediately.

Guerrero's forests have been identified by the World Resources Institute as one of North America's last "frontier forests," that is, one of the world's few remaining large tracts of relatively undisturbed forest. Mexico ranks fifth in the world for species diversity, according to the United Nations.

Mexican soldiers entered the small village of Pizotla around 10 o'clock Sunday morning, May 2, shooting upon unarmed people. One campesino, Salomé Sánchez Ortiz, was shot dead. Rodolfo Montiel, along with Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, were taken into custody and beaten. Military officials characterized the two as "members of an ecologist-guerrilla organization."

Rodolfo has been accused of such illegal activities ever since he helped found the Organization of Campesinos and Ecologists of the Sierra de Petatlán. Poor farmers and ecologists united to protect Guerrero's forests from logging by the Guerrero-based subsidiary of Boise Cascade (of Boise, Idaho) that contracted with leaders of communal land holdings, or ejidos, to supply logs for export. When destructive logging practices in the hills diminished water to farmers below, community opposition brought the cutting to a halt.

Key beneficiaries of Boise Cascade's operations have previously threatened Rodolfo Montiel by personally showing up at community meetings armed, acting aggressively toward him, and demanding that logging restart. Three months after logging was suspended, Boise Cascade's manager of human resources in Guerrero, Bernardo Fernandez, was quoted in local papers as saying, "there is no official decision about the closure of the operations." Immediately after Rodolfo's arrest, some of Boise Cascade's local contractors began logging again. Local community pressure has, for now, stopped them. More than one year after suspending operations, Boise Cascade's continuing role in Guerrero is
still unclear. What is clear is that one of the leading critics of their Guerrero operations is in prison.

It is not clear why Rodolfo was arrested at this time. Forest protection groups who are successfully campaigning against Boise Cacade's proposed investment in Chile believe that the company may be going back to access other potential sources of wood. The Cascada Chile project would log some of the world's few remaining native coastal temperate rainforest to feed the world's largest chip mill. Several environmental lawsuits and a one million dollar government fine for destroying archaeological remains has complicated, delayed, and increased the costs for Boise Cascade's plans in Chile.

Boise Cascade signed deals for exclusive rights with with then-governor Rubén Figueroa Alcocer to log Guerrero's forests shortly after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. Figueroa was later forced out of office after national television broadcasted a video exposing his covering up the "Aguas Blancas" massacre, where state police ambushed dozens of peasants (killing seventeen and wounding twenty others) who were protesting other logging in the region.

Boise Cascade's behavior in Mexico is not unlike the story of Shell Oil in Nigeria, where a powerful global corporation depends on local corruption to extract resources for export, often at the expense of local communities, the environment and human rights. Shell was the target of international outcry for not intervening to stop the Nigerian government's execution of one of Shell's biggest critics, Ken Saro-Wiwa. As potentially the greatest beneficiary from Rodolfo Montiel's arrest, Boise Cascade risks being put in the same light as Shell by not intervening on his behalf.

Please join the national and international campaign for the freedom and respect of the civil and human rights of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and the other defenders of the forest jailed with him. Demand their immediate release from prison. See below details of "what you can do."

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1) SIGN ON TO THE FOLLOWING LETTER BY RESPONDING TO:
Pat Rasmussen (prasmussen@igc.apc.org)

2) Send donations for the legal defense and basic needs (such as food and water in prison) of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and others to:

Rodolfo Montiel Defense Fund
American Lands Alliance
726-7th St. SE
Washington, DC 20003

SIGN ON LETTER TO BOISE CASCADE AND MEXICAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS:

Dear Sirs,

We are aware of the arrest and violent treatment of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and other defenders of the forest in Mexico's state of Guerrero. We deplore this violation of their civil and human rights and call upon you to work for their immediate release and to guarantee their safety.

We further recognize that Rodolfo Montiel Flores, Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, and others jailed or killed in May of 1999 had protested against the logging contracted by U.S. logging giant Boise Cascade.

We call upon Boise Cascade Corporation to immediately intervene on his behalf, to secure his release from prison, and to ensure his personal safety, as well as those of his family and community. Anything less will be regarded as evidence of continued collusion with corrupt officials in Guerrero.

We, of the international community, support the right of local communities to protect their forest resources from degradation.

We support the efforts of the campesinos of Guerrero to resist the degradation of their forest for the financial benefit of transnational corporations like Boise Cascade.

We call on you to obtain the immediate release from prison of Rodolfo Montiel Flores, Teodoro Cabrera Garcia and others.

We call on the Mexican President of the Human Rights Commission to urgently intervene and to defend the international and constitutional human rights of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and other related campesinos within this case.

We call on the Mexican General Prosecutor to intervene and clarify with law the false accusation of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and other campesinos related in this case, deny the accusation and punish the murderers of dead campesinos.

We call on the Federal Environmental Defender and Prosecutor to stop the illegal process of destruction of the forests, the violation of Mexican Environmental Law, and punish the eventual complicity of PROFEPA's Guerrero State officials.

We call on the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Fisheries to apply all its legal authority and take all mesures to stop the violations of Mexican Environmental Law, and the eventual complicity of other SEMARNAP officials.

Sincerely,

Victor Menotti, International Forum on Globalization, San Francisco, USA
Jim Jontz, American Lands Alliance, Washington, DC, USA (other sign ons)

For more information or sources of the above information contact:

Pat Rasmussen <prasmussen@igc.apc.org
American Lands Alliance
726-7th St. SE
Washington, DC 20003