U'wa overcome Oxy: how a small ecuadorian indigenous group and global solidarity movement defeated an oil giant, and the struggles ahead.(Victories!)

From: Multinational Monitor | Date: January 1, 2004| Author: Soltani, Atossa; Koenig, Kevin | Copyright information

IN THE SPRING OF 2001, high in the Andean cloudforests of northeastern Colombia, a collection of indigenous U'wa werjayas (elders) and karekas (medicine people) secluded themselves for a three-month period, fasting, meditating, singing and praying. Their aim was to "hide" what had been estimated as over a billion barrels of high-grade Colombian crude from the diamond drill bits of Los Angeles based-Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). The country's largest discovery in decades was allegedly...

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