“The Right to Decide: U’wa Bring Case to Court After 25 Years” – 20 April 2023

…On April 25 and 26, a legal journey initiated over 25 years ago by Colombia’s U’wa Indigenous people will culminate in a hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As the U’wa have defended their territory from oil companies, mining projects, and unwanted eco-tourism efforts on their sacred sites, they have complemented legal strategies with community mobilization, campaigning, and important protection of their territories through spiritual work…

Though Indigenous peoples from Colombia have brought cases before the Inter-American human rights system writ large, this is the first time the government will have to address issues of Indigenous peoples’ rights before the Inter-American Court. Overall, the vision is to advance legal precedent in favor of Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent, which is important for the exercise of many other rights… Key issues that will be argued include differing visions of “development,” the U’wa right to control the natural resources within not only their titled resguardo (Indigenous reservation) but also within their ancestral territories, and the tensions around control of the Cocuy National Park, which contains the snow-capped mountain peak of Zizuma, one of the most sacred sites for the U’wa. These are also issues being faced by other Indigenous peoples in Colombia and beyond, and the rulings of the Inter-American Court will be watched closely for their applicability to many other situations across the region.

And the threats facing the U’wa remain latent. Though Colombia’s current government has pledged to not open new oil drilling projects, they are working to re-activate existing projects like those within U’wa territory. For the first time in several years, hundreds of U’wa community members recently rallied outside the Gibraltar gas plant to reiterate their opposition to either existing or expanded oil and gas extraction on their lands… Back around 1992, when the oil company Occidental Petroleum, alongside Ecopetrol and the Colombian government entered our ancestral territories, we began an exercise of territorial defense... A concrete case – we are under constant pressure of the Colombian oil company, Ecopetrol… Whereas in the early 2000’s, Occidental theoretically left our territory, in reality it continued in our territory in Arauca where it maintained concessions. We say in that moment Ecopetrol continued developing exploratory and exploitation activities in our territory… In 2006 the U’wa published a hard-hitting political posture toward the State and the world. It was that we wouldn’t accept any extractive processes within our territories, both for the resguardo (reservation) and our ancestral lands.