at the Apple Tree pub, 45 Mount Pleasant WC1
(Chancery Lane 0.4 miles, Farringdon 0.4 miles)

Speakers: Francis Andrews, Andy Higginbottom

Eye witness reports from Colombia:

Casanare province to the east of the Andes, location of BP’s main oilfields, where oil workers union USO cannot organise, where there is extensive environmental damage, where the communities face continuous army patrols and targeted disappearances that eliminated a generation of local organisations, that are now recovering and appealing for international support.

Barrancabermeja in the central Magdalena Medio region is the site of Colombia’s biggest oil refinery (see photo) and a historic centre of struggle. But today ‘Barranca’ is controlled by the Black Eagle paramilitary death squads working with official impunity. Despite these conditions, the heroic resistance continues, organised especially by women in the communities, organisation OFP.