-Caveat Lector-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RIGHTS: US Lawyer Blasted for Misrepresenting Colombian Tribe
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 22:31:31 -0600 (CST)
From: IGC News Desk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 02-Nov-0* ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT-RIGHTS: US Lawyer Blasted for Misrepresenting
Colombian Tribe
By Danielle Knight
WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (IPS) - A US attorney who warns that voting for
the US Green Party candidate Ralph Nader will hurt a tribe in
Colombia, is coming under fire by activists who say the lawyer is
misrepresenting the indigenous group.
In an opinion piece submitted to large US college newspapers in
states where presidential candidates Al Gore and Governor George
W. Bush are running neck and neck, Spencer Adler, a Washington-based
lawyer, wrote that voting for Nader instead of Vice President Gore
would not benefit the U'wa tribe.
Adler, who said in the article that he was the original attorney
who took up the tribe's case against Occidental, argues that Nader's
campaign will only take votes away from Gore and help elect Republican
candidate Bush. Gore, has been hounded by environmentalists who
are blasting the Democratic candidate's ties to a US oil company
that is planning on drilling for oil on land claimed by the U'wa.
''You'll be sacrificing the tribe's best interests for Ralph
Nader's,'' says Adler's letter. ''And the U'wa won't owe you their
thanks. You'll owe them your apology.''
Adler's piece was widely circulated by the Democratic National
Committee and distributed electronically by the Sierra Club, an
environmental group here that has endorsed Gore.
Environmental activists working close with the tribe immediately
condemned the article as misleading, saying that the true attorney
for the U'wa is in fact Martin Wagner, who works with Earthjustice,
an environmental law group in California.
''The Democratic National Committee, by widely circulating this
false and misleading statement, has deliberately used the U'wa
people for their own political gain,'' says Steve Kretzmann, an
activist with Amazon Watch.
The 5,000-strong U'wa tribe, which lives in the tropical rainforest
of the Andes near the Venezuelan border, has threatened mass suicide
if Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum proceeds with its oil
operations on land claimed by the tribe.
In a later statement, Adler clarified his relationship with the
U'wa, saying that he does not represent the tribe. He told IPS that
he did at one time represent the tribe against Occidental and he
helped draft a shareholder resolution to protect the tribe.
''The primary lawyer for the U'wa from the very beginning - well
before I'd even heard of the case - is Martin Wagner,'' said Adler's
later statement. The attorney added that he would give a 5,000
dollar cheque to Amazon Watch's campaign to help the tribe.
When asked what his relationship to the Democratic National Committee
was, he replied: '' I'm just a private attorney, speaking as an
individual.''
Kretzmann acknowledged that Adler worked with activists to help
draft the shareholder resolution. ''But at best, Adler has been a
peripheral ally,'' he told IPS.
Kretzmann is part of the U'wa Defense Working Group which formed
after three US citizens working with the tribe were killed in
Colombia by a rebel guerrilla organisation. In a statement released
Wednesday, the working group underlined that it is non-partisan
and does not endorse any political candidate.
For more than two years, however, several organisations that are
part of the working group, like Rainforest Action Network and Amazon
Watch, have been conducting a campaign to bring the tribe's plight
to the attention of Gore.
''The Vice President's failure to respond in any substantive way
is a direct threat to the survival of the U'wa people,'' says
Shannon Wright of the Rainforest Action Network.
Gore's father spent 28 years as an Occidental employee and the
former CEO of the company, Armand Hammer, was a close family friend.
According to the Vice President's latest personal financial disclosure
form, Gore also holds up to 1 million dollars of the company's
stock.
The Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan group that tracks
money's influence on politics, said ''there is probably no company
in America today that is as close personally and financially to
the Vice President as Occidental Petroleum''.
Gore said that he has directed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
to raise the U'wa land dispute with Colombian President Andres
Pastrana. But activists say that Gore should immediately endorse
a suspension of drilling on land claimed by the tribe.
In late September, more than 90 trucks transporting oil drilling
machinery went onto land which the U'wa say is ''ancestral territory''.
The tribe says about 3,000 military personnel were escorting the
machinery. Drilling is expected to start in coming weeks.
While the government argues that the oil project is located outside
the demarcated indigenous reserve, the U'wa say all land within
what was known as the Samore Block - even that not encompassed by
the designated reserve - is its sacred ancestral territory.
In early October, the main U'wa organisations, including the U'wa
Tribal Council and the U'wa Traditional Authorities sent a letter
to Vice President Gore urging him to take action to stop the oil
exploitation.
''We don't want to have to hold you responsible for the destruction
of our culture,'' it said. (END/IPS/EN/HD/dk/da/00)
Origin: Rome/ENVIRONMENT-RIGHTS/ ----
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