Colombia: Two Hundred Indigenous U'wa Occupy Gas Plant in Colombia

Jun 14, 2016 | Charlie Satow, Intercontinental Cry
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Two hundred Indigenous U'wa men, women, and children have occupied Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol's Gibraltar I gas plant south of the Colombia-Venezuela border in Norte de Santander department, to demand that the government honour an agreement dating back to May 1, 2014. After waiting two years for the government to follow through on the agreement, which includes full recognition of the U'wa's ancestral territory and the clean-up of reserves affected by oil spills, the U'wa occupied the gas plant on May 31, 2016. The U'wa declared the lands were “invaded by Oxidental Colombia (sic.) and today by ECOPETROL”.