Currently, the Beyond Oil Campaign is focusing primarily on Occidental Petroleum's project on the ancestral land of the U'wa people, an indigenous people of 5,000 in the cloudforests of eastern Colombia."~the rainforest action network
The U'wa of the Colombian cloud forest are in a life-and-death struggle to protect their traditional culture and sacred homeland from an oil project slated to begin on their land at anytime. The U'wa are adamantly opposed to the drilling and warn that the project will lead to an increase in violence as seen in other oil regions of Colombia. Despite this, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and the Colombian government continue forward with plans to drill.
Indeed on January 25 of this year, the U'wa were evicted from their lands surrounding the drillsite by the Colombian military in coordination with Occidental Petroleum. Roughly two weeks later, the police moved in, broke up a blockade, and three U'wa children were killed.
RAN is focusing its efforts on two targets: Fidelity Investments, one of Oxy's largest shareholders, and Vice President Al Gore, also an Oxy shareholder with strong family ties to Occidental Petroleum. The U'wa have made a call for international support; now is the time for us to answer.
