Control over Colombia´s lucrative oil reserves has long spurred the country's four decade long civil war and is currently driving U.S. foreign policy for the region. Though indigenous peoples reject war, the fight to control Colombia's natural resources is increasingly putting them directly in the crossfire. For indigenous communities, the militarization that accompanies oil exploitation has brought escalating human rights violations and forced displacement from their ancestral homelands. Evidence indicates that U.S. aid to the Colombian military, particularly for crop fumigation operations, is accelerating the disintegration of indigenous ways of life and fueling a cycle of violence that is killing thousands of innocent civilians every year.

Active campaigns:

• Ecopetrol’s Siriri Oil Project (July 2008)
  Since 1997, Amazon Watch has campaigned alongside the U'wa people as they have struggled against oil drilling on their sacred lands. A peaceful indigenous community of 5,000 people, the U'wa live in the remote Andean cloud forests of northeastern Colombia, straddling the border with Venezuela. The ten-plus year international struggle in defense of their life, land, and culture successfully forced Occidental Petroleum to abandon their territory in 2002. However, the U'wa way of life is once again threatened by the Colombian government's plans to move ahead with the Siriri oil project on U'wa ancestral lands. Oil development continues to fuel political violence in Colombia and has brought the country's ongoing civil war to the U'wa community's doorstep.     go >>
  
  
• Challenging U.S. Military Aid to Colombia (July 2003)
  Recent shifts in U.S. policy have placed Colombia on the agenda of the Bush administration's global counter-terrorism initiative. Amazon Watch is actively opposing more U.S. military aid to Colombia given the human rights crisis facing the region’s indigenous and rural populations. More than $2.5 billion in U.S. military aid has been given to the Colombian Government since 2000, which has led to a dramatic rise in political killings and human rights abuses. Congress voted to send military aid to protect U.S. economic interests in the region, specifically the Caño Limón oil pipeline part owned by the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Amazon Watch is exposing human rights abuses in areas where U.S. oil companies operate and documenting the role of the oil industry in shaping the U.S. policy towards the region.     go >>