LOS ANGELES - A noisy group of about 20 sign-waving demonstrators marched outside the annual meeting of Occidental Petroleum Corp. last week to protest the prospect the company could drill for oil in a war-torn region of Colombia they say belongs to the U'wa Indian tribe.
The picketers, organized by the group Amazon Watch, marched outside the meeting at the Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, beating drums and waving signs with messages of "Stop the Oxycution of the U'wa People" and "Oxy Out of U'wa Land." Amazon watch organizer Kevin Koenig said the group is opposed to Occidental's attempts to find oil on Colombian land that they say belongs to the U'wa people and a proposed U.S. aid package to Colombia that would be used in part to protect the oil pipeline from rebel insurgents.
Earlier this week, the United States indicted a Colombian rebel group and six of its members for the 1999 kidnap and murder of three U.S. human rights workers who were giving environmental and educational assistance to the U'wa.
"U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Occidental's decision to have its oil operation in the middle of a civil war zone," Koenig said.
He acknowledged that Occidental is no longer drilling on or near U'wa land but said Amazon Watch has heard that the company would like begin new exploration in the same area soon.
"It's highly suspect from them that they have abandoned that area," he said. "They still have designs on getting at what they originally estimated was 1.4 billion barrels of oil on U'wa territory.'
Occidental spokesman Lawrence Meriage pointed out that the company's attempt to find oil near U'wa land ended nearly a year ago, when it failed to find sufficient reserves to justify further development. As a result, he said, Occidental returned the land to the Colombian government.
Occidental continues to pump oil in the country under a previous operation, but that is nowhere near the U'wa land, Meriage said.
"They've hijacked this group of indigenous people, glommed it onto something that serves their own interest, and it's rather shameful the way they've been parading this around," Meriage said. "It's part of their prior agenda to shut down oil operations everywhere because (they believe) this is bad for the planet if we have oil or hydrocarbons in general."
Amazon Watch has been a regular organizer of protests outside the Occidental annual meetings since the late 1990s.
In 1999, one U'wa member traveled to the meeting, explaining that drilling destroys nature's life blood. He said 5,000 tribal members were threatening to kill themselves by jumping off a cliff if Occidental drilled on their ancestral territory.
In 2000, Occidental Chairman Ray Irani fought back by suing Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network for harassment after the groups picketed outside his home.:
