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Nearly 200 human rights and environmental activists joined leaders of Colombia's U'wa people in a march through Los Angeles on April 28 to protest Occidental Petroleum's (Oxy) planned drilling on the tribe's rainforest homeland. The demonstrators massed in front of the oil company's headquarters at Wilshire and Westwood Boulevard's with signs and giant banners demanding Oxy cancel its proposed project immediately. The U'wa, a traditional community of 5,000 indigenous people who live in the Colombian forests, have vowed to commit mass suicide if Occidental Petroleum drills on their sacred ancestral homeland.
Twenty of the demonstrators marched out onto Wilshire Boulevard chanting, "Oxy out of U'wa land." When they blocked traffic in front of the company's main entrance, all were arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department. Kelly Quirke of Rainforest Action Network (RAN) who was arrested commented, "If the U'wa are willing to kill themselves to stop Oxy's drilling, getting arrested is the least I can do to make sure it doesn't happen."...