government we go and talk to the congresspersons, we explain our point of view, and
many times, they accept it (Interview with a representative from the Colombian
Petroleum Association
June 20 and August 26, 2002).
The representative admitted that the oil sector had taken even more direct legal actions in the
case of. He said, for example that oil company lobbyists organized the appeal of Decree 1397 in
court, before the Council of State, to reduce its operative scope. The appeal aimed to overturn
the obligation that any project in indigenous territories had to pass through a “table of
concertation.” He also said Decree 1320 was the “response” to conversations between the
government and the oil sector in the aftermath of the issuing of 1397 and exigencies from the
indigenous peoples for the existence of this “table of concertation:”
There was a person in the interior ministry who was all in favor of the indigenous
peoples and against the industry. That’s the person that created the muddle, really, with
the U’wa and Samoré. So it was necessary to tell Ecopetrol, and the president at the
time, it was Samper, that the government needed to make a decision [regarding
consultation] because there was not consensus in the ministries….The decree was
designed by Ecopetrol.) But we told Ecopetrol, you are the state, you are our partner,
you sign contracts with us. So we need to fix this problem. Our only obligation is to
invest, not lidiar with indigenous communities, or those kinds of things. That is the
government’s responsibility. It needed to issue a document to solve and regulate that
kind of thing…..So we helped ECOPETROL, but really, it was ECOPETROL’s
responsibility to cope and deal with the issue. It was the only thing causing us grief.
(Interview with a representative from the Colombian Petroleum Association
June 20 and
August 26, 2002).
Trans-spatial Responses: Challenging Decree 1320
The response of the U’wa and other indigenous communities to the legal shift was to
strengthen activities across multiple spatial scales. As space for maneuver within state
institutions constricted, site-specific and transnational activities expanded. Regarding Decree
1320, given that no further appeal of it was possible within domestic tribunals given the ruling of
the Council of State, the ONIC, working through the country’s major labor federation, the
Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, began to prepare a complaint to file before the International
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Convention