Atossa Soltani, founder of Amazon Watch — an NGO that protects the rainforest and fights for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin — recounts the struggle against oil and gas exploitation alongside the Colombian U'wa tribe.
At the end of November 2016, on the eve of the signing of the peace treaty that would end the war that had been raging in Colombia for half a century, I had the honour of visiting the U'wa, a highly spiritual indigenous community living in north-eastern Colombia, near the border with Venezuela.
That was the first time in almost twenty years of working with the U'wa that we at Amazon Watch had managed to enter their territory. Until then, travelling to that place had been impossible because of the armed conflict.
The U'wa consider themselves the guardians of their sacred ancestral land. Under their natural laws, they have successfully defended their land in the Andean cloud forests for centuries. They have resisted the conquistadores, missionaries, settlers and, more recently, the oil industries, guerrillas, and military and paramilitary groups active in the territory. They have survived these aggressions while keeping their language, their culture and much of their ancestral lands intact, holding fast to the strength of their chiefs.
My colleague Andrew Miller and I were there to attend the Summit for the defence of life, territory and natural resources of the U'wa, as part of a delegation of 22 people. Our group included lawyers, indigenous leaders, filmmakers, visual artists, community solar energy providers and researchers from around ten organisations and collectives. We went there to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the U'wa and to the protection of Kera Chikara, their land.
Amazon Watch began working with the U'wa in 1997, after they had declared that they would rather die than allow Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), based in Los Angeles, to drill for oil — a substance the U'wa regard as the blood of the Earth — in their ancestral territory. The U'wa had also released a statement declaring that no oil extraction would be permitted from their territory and recalling their history, specifically an episode that lives on to this day in their songs and ceremonies: in the eighteenth century, a group of U'wa committed mass suicide to escape the slavery imposed by the conquistadores. The statement read as follows:
Respect for what is alive and for what is not alive, for the known and for "the unknown," is part of our law: our mission in the world is to narrate it, sing it and honour this law in order to maintain the balance of the universe…
We know that the Riowa (those who are not part of the U'wa tribe) have put a price on everything that is not alive, even the stones they trade with their own blood, and that they want us to do the same with our sacred land and with the ruiria, the blood of the earth that they call oil…
All the financial offers they have made us in exchange for what is sacred to us, such as the land and its blood, are an insult to our ears and a bribe against what we believe in… On our part, there will be no betrayal of Mother Earth, or of her children, who are our brothers. Nor will we betray the pride of our ancestors, because the land is sacred, as is everything upon it.
If to defend life we must give our own, we will do so.
(Taken from the Open letter to Colombians, 1997)
During our recent stay in U'wa territory we came to appreciate the courage, outlook and determination they have demonstrated for a long time, which have been an inspiration to millions of people around the world.
As soon as we arrived in Chuscal, in U'wa territory, we were warmly welcomed by Daris Cristancho, one of the chiefs, and his twenty-seven-year-old daughter Aura Tegria, a brilliant and tireless lawyer who in recent years has become a central figure in the new process launched in defence of the U'wa.
Meeting Berito Kuwaru'wa, an important figure in the community, was also a highlight of our visit. Berito, an elder and former president of the U'wa, was the first U'wa leader to bring his people's message to the rest of the world.
During the Summit we heard many stories about Berito and his tireless commitment, which led to the recognition of the united U'wa indigenous reserve, and we learnt that it was he who expelled the missionaries who were kidnapping U'wa children — himself included — and forcing them to become Christians. In the 1990s, the U'wa managed to transform the missionaries' building into a community-run bilingual school, which became the symbol of their historic victory.
Berito was also a key figure in the tribe's decade-long battle that forced Occidental Petroleum to abandon the project on U'wa territory. For his visionary leadership, Berito won the Goldman environmental prize in 1998 and today continues to be a guide for the next generation of U'wa, always ready to share his songs, stories and prayers.
At the Summit, Berito passionately expressed his goal of expanding the boundaries of the U'wa Reserve and of creating further indigenous reserves, Kuitua and Pedraza, where several thousand U'wa live, thereby uniting the U'wa nation into a single resguardo (reserve).
Berito, Daris and Aura represent three generations of visionary leaders who join a long line of courageous U'wa chiefs devoted to the cause of their people, many of whom we have had the honour of working and travelling alongside over the past twenty years. From an early age the U'wa receive teachings from the Werjaya (the spiritual elders) and the Kerakas (the healers), and learn what the purpose of their existence is: to preserve the balance of the world.
The Werjaya and the Kerakas constitute the traditional authorities of the U'wa and their role is to know the history of their people, to act as intermediaries of the laws of nature, to communicate with the spirits of the mountains and rivers, and to instruct each generation in the laws and cosmology.
Before undertaking any significant action, the U'wa spend entire days taking part in ceremonies in which they meditate, sing, perform rituals and pray. Part of the U'wa's success is owed to their tenacious resistance, skilful organisation and global campaigns, but these actions are bound up with spiritual beliefs and practices.
For example, in the spring of 2001, when Oxy began drilling and sinking the first well to reach the oil reserves lying beneath U'wa territory, the Werjayas and Kerakas together observed three months of fasting, meditation, prayer and singing and asked the spirits of their ancestors to conceal the oil beneath their land. The strategy worked. Oxy spent 100 million dollars drilling at Gibraltar to access an oil field that the company estimated contained 1.2 billion barrels of oil and was the largest discovered in Colombia in decades. In May 2002, Oxy abandoned the project after announcing that it had found only natural gas and condensates.
The U'wa have inspired many people around the world with their powerful declarations and courageous actions. They have always been at the forefront of debates on indigenous rights and have skilfully forged global alliances with local campesino associations (small-scale farmers), Colombian indigenous groups and global solidarity networks. At one point in their struggle to stop Oxy's drilling, 5,000 farmers joined them to block the access road to the oil site for more than four months, and 20,000 Colombians took part in solidarity actions across the country.
At a time when globalisation is driven by multinationals, the U'wa campaign was one of the first indigenous rights solidarity missions aimed at promoting corporate accountability to succeed. The U'wa were also the first to call for leaving oil in the ground, an appeal that subsequently became an imperative in the fight against climate change around the world, from Yasuní national park in Ecuador to the regions of northern Alberta in Canada.
The U'wa have recently created the Indigenous Guard, a group of more than 400 young people from across the territory, many of them children of leaders and elders. The members of the Indigenous Guard, wearing blue vests and carrying a ceremonial staff, are tasked with protecting U'wa territory from various threats without the use of violence. To take part in the Summit, they arrived from various parts of U'wa territory, often after one or two days of walking across steep terrain.
At the Summit we learned more about the U'wa's struggle to protect Mount Zizuma, the sacred place of origin of all the rivers in their ancestral lands. Last year, following a high-altitude charity football match played on the snow-covered summit of Mount Zizuma, the Indigenous Guard closed access to this area. The area within the boundaries of Cocuy national park, which overlaps with the U'wa reserve, remains closed to this day and is protected by the Indigenous Guard. The mountain is so sacred to the U'wa that only spiritual leaders are permitted, on rare occasions, to climb its slopes to communicate with the spirits of nature. The struggle for the sacred Mount Zizuma represents a key element in the U'wa's exercise of their territorial rights.
Another victory we celebrated at the Summit for Life was the dismantling of the Magallanes oil project in 2015. When Ecopetrol sought to build a new platform and sink an exploratory well in search of gas in another area of the tribe's ancestral territory, along the Cubogón river, without their permission or consent, the U'wa decided to take action. During our last day in U'wa territory, we visited the site and learned more about the actions that led to the project being dismantled.
As we entered U'wa territory we saw enchanted mountains shrouded in mist stretching in every direction, a view of almost 360 degrees. It was impossible to capture them in all their magnificence. Clouds kept rising from the forests and danced between the verdant peaks. Beyond the mountains were further rows of mountains, partly visible and translucent, mysteriously fading into the sky. And beyond those mountains, we were told, lie the high snow-capped peaks of the Cucuy range, which are visible only in the right atmospheric conditions.
The cloud forest mountain ecosystem is part of the headwaters of the Orinoco river basin. And it is not only sacred to the U'wa — it is also one of the most endangered tropical ecosystems on the planet.
The U'wa are tireless environmentalists. By custom and by virtue of their natural laws, they prohibit human access to much of their territory and devote themselves to the protection of animals and spirits. Only the Werjayas may enter it, on rare occasions, for spiritual purposes. This explains why there are mountains blanketed by well-preserved forests as far as the eye can see.
On the first morning we set off at dawn with two leaders, Daris and Aura, along the path leading to a confluence of rivers, to bathe and prepare ourselves for the day. Daris explained how the Werjaya communicate with Sira, the U'wa God, through rivers and waterways. He then led us to the smaller of the two rivers and told us that some of them are used for healing ceremonies because they carry away negative energies. The U'wa do not enter these rivers to bathe. There are other streams, like the one in which we bathed, that are used daily and serve to purify and restore our energies.
Our rivers are not just rivers. Through them we communicate with the deities. They are messengers and the messages flow in both directions. If the rivers are polluted or if they die, we no longer know what the gods want and they will be unable to hear either our requests or our thanks.
(Open letter to Colombians, 1997)
The U'wa reserve extends across 220,000 hectares over five provinces, from the icy summit of the sacred Mount Zizuma (which reaches approximately 5,300 metres above sea level) down to the alpine tundra of the Páramo, where it gives way to biodiversity-rich cloud forests. Their ancestral territory covers at least 400,000 more hectares than the reserve that has been legally recognised for them.
As we entered U'wa territory we saw the enchanted mountains shrouded in mist stretching in every direction, a view of almost 360 degrees. It was impossible to capture them in all their magnificence. Clouds kept rising from the forests and danced between the verdant peaks. Beyond the mountains were further rows of mountains, partly visible and translucent, mysteriously fading into the sky. And beyond those mountains, we were told, lie the high snow-capped peaks of the Cucuy range, which are visible only in the right atmospheric conditions.
The cloud forest mountain ecosystem is part of the headwaters of the Orinoco river basin. And it is not only sacred to the U'wa — it is also one of the most endangered tropical ecosystems on the planet.
The U'wa are tireless environmentalists. By custom and by virtue of their natural laws, they prohibit human access to much of their territory and devote themselves to the protection of animals and spirits. Only the Werjayas may enter it, on rare occasions, for spiritual purposes. This explains why there are mountains blanketed by well-preserved forests as far as the eye can see.
On the first morning, at dawn, we set off with two leaders, Daris and Aura, along the path leading to a confluence of rivers, to bathe and prepare ourselves for the day. Daris explained how the Werjaya communicate with Sira, the U'wa God, through rivers and waterways. He then led us to the smaller of the two rivers and told us that some of them are used for healing ceremonies because they carry away negative energies. The U'wa do not enter these rivers to bathe. There are other streams, like the one in which we bathed, that are used daily and serve to purify and restore energies.
After coming into contact with Spanish conquistadors, slave traders and missionaries, the U'wa lost two thirds of their population to diseases brought from Europe. By the 1980s, only 5,000 remained. More recently the number has grown again, and estimates today put the U'wa population at 10,000, including those living outside the reserve.
The threats hanging over U'wa territory and culture did not disappear when Oxy stopped drilling. After Oxy abandoned the project in 2002 at the Gibraltar complex, which lies within the area known as Siriri-Catleya where oil exploration is authorised, the state-owned company Ecopetrol took over. Ecopetrol also attempted to carry out seismic testing in the heart of the U'wa reserve, but the inhabitants opposed it. Nevertheless, despite strong objections, Ecopetrol drilled two more wells anyway and ultimately found enough gas to launch commercial production.
The Gibraltar complex sits on the site of a sacred spring, on land legally recognised as belonging to the U'wa but illegally seized by Oxy in 2000. In recent years, drilling operations — through which high-quality natural gas liquids (NGLs) are produced — have caused fractures in the ground that have contaminated the nearby Cobaria river. These spills have only hardened the measures taken by the U'wa to halt the project.
To assert what the U'wa call "territorial control", in June–July 2016 the Indigenous Guard organised a series of peaceful actions at Gibraltar Site 3. These actions lasted for more than two months.
At the Summit we learned that the U'wa managed, through a single act of courage, to halt production: they surrounded the facility for 56 days, occupied it and cut off the power supply. A local peasant farmers' association then joined the occupation in solidarity. The U'wa, as always, were unarmed and followed the principles of non-violence to defend their own natural laws. In the final days of the occupation, three helicopters full of the notorious riot police (Esmad) arrived to intimidate and forcibly remove the U'wa. After a tense standoff, the latter entered into dialogue with the national government.
After twelve hours of intense meetings between