Oil Company To Enter Uncontacted Tribe's Land

[Judi Lynn]

Oil Company To Enter Uncontacted Tribe's Land
Saturday, 21 March 2009, 3:28 pm
20 March 2009

Peru: Colombian Oil Company To Enter Uncontacted Tribes’ Land

Colombia’s state oil company will enter territory inhabited by some of the world’s last uncontacted Indians in Peru under an agreement reached this week.

The company, Ecopetrol, has signed a deal with Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, which has a contract to explore in two regions of the Peruvian Amazon – both inhabited by uncontacted tribes.

‘Through its affiliate in Perú, Ecopetrol entered into two agreements with Petrobras Energía del Perú, S.A. to acquire shared (sic) in two exploration and production blocks in Perú,’ reads a statement from Ecopetrol published on Tuesday. ‘In the first block (Lot 110), Ecopetrol will have a 50% share. In the second (Lot 117), the company's holding will be 25%.’

Lot 110 covers almost all of a reserve supposedly set aside for uncontacted Murunahua Indians who are exceedingly vulnerable to any contact with outsiders because of their lack of immunity to disease. Some Murunahua have already been contacted by illegal loggers – an estimated 50% of them were wiped out as a result.

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0903/S00407.htm

[Peace Patriot]

1. This is unconscionable. Uncontacted tribes are global "canaries in the coal mine."

As the last bits of wild forest are destroyed, and these tribes are sacrificed to "civilized" greed and stupidity, the planet on which we are all utterly dependent is dying. The World Wildlife Fund gives us 50 years, at present levels of pollution and consumption--50 years to the death of the planet! The death of the planet! Gone. Fini. Kaput. No more. And us with it.

The last uncontacted tribes have a right to life, a right to their way of life, and a right to the habitat that sustains them. But they are so much more. As they are extinguished, so are we--in a suicidal binge of over-consumption that we cannot seem to control.

The politics of this situation are difficult. I imagine that this Brazilian agreement with Colombia to explore oil in the Peruvian Amazon is connected to, a) Lula da Silva's desire to draw fascist Colombia into the orbit of the new common market, UNASUR, to reduce Colombia's potential as a menace to the peace of the continent; b) the corrupt "free tradists" running Peru who are into short term greed and profit for the few, so they are no obstacle to any sort of rape of Peru's resources or indigenous tribes; and c) Lulu's "rule by decree" last year, protecting several uncontacted tribes in Brazil's Amazon.

There is not one true leftist government involved in this deal--thus, no voice for the indigenous can be heard. Lulu--though close friends and allies with Chavez and other leftist leaders--is a center-leftist, constantly walking a tightrope between corporatism and his better instincts. And, although he has turned out to be a true-blue friend and ally of the leftists, he is also president of Brazil--a huge country with many needs and pressures--and is not above working the leftist/U.S. conflict to Brazil's advantage--or, rather, to Brazil's short term advantage, as with the biofuels deal with the Bushwhacks (highly criticized by environmentalist, food security and peasant farmer advocacy groups). Colombia's government is hopelessly fascist, corrupt and militarist. Union leaders, political leftists, human rights workers and others are "fair game" to Colombia's leaders and their death squads. They would think nothing of a wholesale wipeout of an uncontacted indigenous tribe. They are so bad, I can see them making it a 'turkey shoot' and charging big money to people like Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin to shoot the people of these tribes from helicopters, like Cheney does hobbled quail and Palin does wild wolves. And Peru's leaders would do, literally, anything for money.

In short, Brazil has made a compact with "the devil"--or, I should say, Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras, has made a compact with "the devil." Lulu may oppose it. I don't know for sure. And I don't know how much power Lulu has on state oil company decisions. If he does oppose it, he hasn't stopped it thus far, and I simply don't know if he wants to, or has the power to. He has protected some uncontacted tribes, on the one hand, and this is going forward, on the other. I do know this: Though Brazil just found boffo new oil reserves off the Atlantic coast, Lulu likely wants more, because, among his ambitions is for Brazil to replace the U.S. as the dominant force in South America. This is not necessarily bad. At the WTO in Cancun, in 2002, it resulted in Brazil leading a walkout of 20 third world countries to protest unfair trade rules and lack of democracy in global trade decisions. Brazil can be a powerful force for good, and with Lulu allied with Chavez and the left, they have radically altered the political landscape in the western hemisphere against U.S. corporate domination, and in favor of the vast poor majority. It is just that it is an excruciating, tragic and...inherent, unavoidable...irony that the left has to depend on planet-wrecking fossil fuel to bootstrap the poor.

Lulu is also a peacemaker, like Chavez, and they have been working in tandem to draw Colombia into economic deals, so as to help neutralize the impact of the $6 BILLION in military aid that the Bushwacks gave to Colombia and the Bushwhacky operatives in Colombia (such as Defense Minister Santos) who are involved in war, coup and assassination plans. Chavez has obviously been trying to boost civilian authority in Colombia, as opposed to the military (possibly in fear of a Colombian military dictatorship). I think Lulu shares this goal. But the planet is the loser, as to oil development. Maybe, long term, that won't be true. Peace, prosperity, the rise of the left as the dominant force in our hemisphere, may all lead to better environmental policy. But we don't have much "long term" to speak of. 50 years!