Bolivia approves nationalization contracts with foreign energy firms

Source: Xinhua

UPDATED: 18:11, April 20, 2007
Bolivia approves nationalization contracts with foreign energy firms

The Bolivian Congress on Thursday unanimously approved 44 contracts that the government signed with 12 foreign oil companies in the framework of the country's energy nationalization policy, according to reports from La Paz.
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On May 1, 2006, Bolivian President Evo Morales issued a decree for the nationalization of the country's oil and gas industry, demanding that foreign companies in the country must sign new contracts with state owned companies before Oct. 28, 2006 and recognize the country's total control over its energy resources.

Furthermore, foreign companies must pay the government about 50 percent to 82 percent of their revenues generated through productions in the country, otherwise move out of the country, according to the decree.

The 44 newly approved contracts were signed last October with companies including Repsol of Spain, Petrobras of Brazil, Total of France, ExxonMobil of the United States as well as BP and British Gas of the UK.

Read more: http://english.people.com.cn/200704/20/eng20070420_368358.html

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Native Peruvians in mortal danger of extinction from oil companies:

Background sheet on isolated Indians of Peru

19 Apr 2007

Peru's Ombudsman, the top human rights body in the country, has warned the Peruvian government that uncontacted Indian tribes are threatened with extinction by oil exploration.

The uncontacted tribes, numbering an estimated 15 in total, live in the most remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon. Their territories are at serious risk of invasion since the Peruvian government has opened up 70% of the Amazon to oil exploration.

'The government must not allow any organisation to explore for or exploit hydrocarbons if it endangers tribal peoples living in isolation, due to their particular vulnerability,' states the Ombudsman's report. 'The carrying out of natural resource extraction in reserves where these people live is a fundamental issue that the government must rigorously and conscientiously address, given that the rights to life, the health and the existence and integrity of these peoples is at stake.'

The Indians are extremely vulnerable to any form of contact because they do not have immunity to outsiders' diseases. After being contacted for the first time in the 1980s following oil exploration on their land, more than 50% of the Nahua tribe in the south-east of Peru died.

More:
http://www.survival-international.org/press_room.php?id=2365