And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Oil at center of Colombian
killings
Dead Americans were helping Indians resist drilling
http://www.msnbc.com/news/247210.asp#BODY
REUTERS
BOGOTA, March 8 � The three Americans
kidnapped in Colombia and later killed
were at the center of a long-running
dispute between a U.S. multinational, an
Indian tribe and Marxist rebels over stakes
that include billions of dollars in oil.
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TERENCE FREITAS, 24, of Oakland,
California, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, an American
Indian resident of New York, and Laheenae Gay,
39, of Hawaii, were abducted in northeast Arauca
province on Feb. 25. Their bullet-riddled corpses
were found last Thursday, just across a river in
neighboring Venezuela.
The trio had been helping U�wa Indians in
their campaign to stop Occidental Petroleum
Corp. from drilling on ancestral lands, tipped to
harbor one of Colombia�s largest ever oil finds.
Venezuelan authorities had initially thought
the Americans were killed in Colombia and their
bodies later dumped across the border. But on
Monday they said evidence found at the site,
including bullets and shells, indicated that the
three were killed in Venezuela.
Colombian and U.S. officials have blamed
the kidnap-murders on the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the hemisphere�s
oldest and largest rebel group. The FARC has
denied any involvement, and vowed to investigate
the killings.
From left: Ingrid
Washinawatok, Lahe'ena'e
Gay, and Terence Freitas
Colombia�s three main rebel groups have a
lengthy track record of kidnapping civilians,
including foreigners.
But some family members and friends of the
victims are not convinced that guerrillas were
responsible.
Freitas had been tailed by suspected
right-wing paramilitary gunmen, interrogated by
police and even received death threats on
previous trips to U�wa territory, his friend Leslie
Wirpsa said in a telephone interview from New
York.
Both the U�wa and their international
supporters pose a headache for big business and
the Colombian state as they strive to secure the
future of the top export earner � oil.
OIL AND TERRITORY
The U�wa community has threatened in the
past to commit mass suicide if Occidental went
ahead with oil exploration on their lands in the
mountains of northeastern Colombia.
Legal moves by the 5,000-strong U�wa,
backed by an international group headed by
Freitas, prompted Occidental to put the project on
hold after investing $12 million since 1992.
The so-called Samore block, covering more
than 500,000 acres � about five times the size of
the U�was� official reservation � is thought to
have potential reserves of between 1.5 billion and
2.5 billion barrels of crude.
A significant find there would have
guaranteed Colombia�s oil self-sufficiency far into
the next century. As it is, production is set to
stagnate at 850,000 barrels per day this year and
Colombia may become a net oil importer again by
2005.
Albeit for different reasons, the FARC,
broadly coincide with the U�was in their
opposition to multinational involvement in
Colombia�s oil industry.
When the U�wa refused to sign a deal
allowing Occidental to go ahead with exploration
in Samore, the multinational accused the National
Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia�s second
largest guerrilla group, of manipulating the
Indians.
Occidental has borne the brunt of an upsurge
in Marxist rebel attacks on facilities at its nearby
Cano Limon field and the pipeline that serves the
complex has been bombed hundreds of times.
But a number of reports have accused the
multinationals and government security forces of
violating human rights in their efforts to defend oil
installations.
The U�wa Indians initially blamed the FARC
for the abduction and deaths of the Americans,
insisting that there was no right-wing paramilitary
activity in the area.
But U�wa leader Roberto Cobaria, who was
with the American trio when they were seized,
came close to being killed himself in July 1996.
Hooded gunmen dragged him from his bed on the
Indian reservation and demanded that he sign an
agreement allowing Occidental to operate on
Indian land before beating him and dumping him
into a river.
An April 1998 report by Washington-based
Human Rights Watch said British Petroleum and
Occidental had �not taken adequate measures to
address serious human rights violations allegedly
committed by forces protecting their facilities.�
Occidental has, however, been swift to reject
FARC insinuations that it may have stood to
benefit from the deaths of the three American
campaigners.
�We energetically reject those type of
claims,� said Juan Carlos Ucros, chief legal
adviser for Occidental�s Colombian operations.
� 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters
content is expressly prohibited without the prior
written consent of Reuters.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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