Gore hypocracy: oil threat to SA indian tribe

DC

Moderator Emeritus
There is no end to this man's corruption

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/03/13/timfgnusa01006.html


March 13 2000
UNITED STATES





Gore campaign stumbles over threat
to tribe

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

Links
AL GORE's links to a controversial oil firm and a South
American tribe's threat of mass suicide have put the
Vice-President's campaign for the presidency on the
defensive.

The Democratic candidate, who claims to be a champion
of the environment, is under attack from activists over his
silence on Occidental Petroleum's multibillion-dollar
drilling project in an area of Colombian rainforest that an
indigenous tribe claims as ancestral lands. The U'wa, a
5,000-strong tribe who inhabit a patch of remote cloud
forest in the Colombian Andes, entered the US
presidential race after Occidental was given permission by
the Colombian Government to explore land a few hundred
yards from their reservation.

Their protests against the proposal to drill for oil have
resulted in violent clashes with police and the death of
three American environmentalists, apparently at the hands
of revolutionary guerrillas that the tribe had said would
move into the area if oil exploration began.

The U'wa, who say they would rather die than see "the
blood of Mother Earth" removed, have threatened to
commit mass suicide by hurling themselves off a cliff, as
many of their ancestors did to avoid being brought under
Spanish rule in the 17th century.

Mr Gore, the author of a bestselling book on saving the
environment, has refused to answer environmentalists'
calls to intercede or to talk to the press about the U'wa
case. Protesters are dogging his every step, disrupting
campaign appearances and sponsoring adverts attacking
him.

"Gore can make a difference. He can save the U'wa and
avert a public relations disaster for himself by intervening
now," Lauren Sullivan, of Rainforest Action Network,
said.

The Vice-President's father, the former senator Albert
Gore Sr, owed much of his wealth to Occidental's late
chairman, the billionaire Armand Hammer. Hammer, who
was quoted as saying that he had Mr Gore Sr "in my back
pocket", was a wheeler-dealer who acted as a gobetween
for the United States and the Soviet Union from the days
of Lenin to Gorbachev. He counted Ronald Reagan and
Margaret Thatcher among his friends and pleaded guilty to
making illegal donations to Richard Nixon's re-election
campaign.

Mr Gore Sr was given a $500,000-a-year job with
Occidental when he left the Senate and benefited from a
deal in which Occidental bought mineral-rich land close to
the Gore family farm, sold it to the family and then paid
the Gores $20,000 a year for the mineral rights. The
Vice-President is still collecting cheques from this deal,
although another company is now paying for the rights. He
also owns shares in Occidental worth up to $500,000
(£317,000).

Since Mr Gore joined the Clinton ticket in 1992,
according to a study by the Centre for Public Integrity,
Occidental has contributed more than $470,000 to the
Democratic Party, including a $100,000 cheque that was
written two days after the present chairman, Ray Irani,
stayed in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House, and
$35,550 to Mr Gore himself.

In 1995, on Al Gore's recommendation, the Clinton
Administration did what Nixon and Reagan had tried and
failed to do, offering the 47,000-acre Elk Hills oilfield in
California for sale. Occidental was the highest bidder,
paying $3.65 billion to triple its American reserves.

"It was the largest privatisation of federal property in US
history," Charles Lewis, of the Centre for Public Integrity,
said. "Despite his public reputation as a staunch
environmentalist, Gore recommended that the President
approve giving oil companies access to this
publicly-owned land."

As he maintains his silence on Occidental and the U'wa,
Mr Gore is trying to turn his greatest vulnerability - the
campaign finance scandals of the last presidential election
- into an asset by making campaign finance reform a key
plank of his general election manifesto. In an interview
with The New York Times yesterday, he said that he had
made mistakes in attending a now notorious fundraiser at
a Buddhist temple and making fundraising calls from the
White House.

"I have learnt from those mistakes," he said, "and I am
passionate about the need for reform."

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
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