Toronto-based Frontera Energy’s plans challenge ecotourism in Los Kioscos, Colombia

Photo: Eliceo Enciso’s sister Sandra and her daughter point to their land where Frontera Energy wants to drill for oil. Photo by Darius Ossami.

On June 30, the Berlin-based Nachrichtenpool Lateinamerika reported: “The municipality of Los Kioscos is located in the Colombian department of Meta, in the middle of the Llanos Orientales… Meta is considered a ‘caliente’, a dangerous area: since the 1980s, the FARC guerrillas have been in power, sometimes various paramilitary associations… [These llanos/plains are also] oil-producing areas.”

That article notes: “Campesino and human rights activist Eliceo Enciso Quevedo lives here [in Los Kioscos, about 200 kilometres from Puerto Gaitan].”

It’s also where Toronto-based Frontera Energy is located.

Eliceo says: “As soon as the [ERPAC paramilitary] leaders were expelled from the area, a multinational corporation strangely appears.”

The article continues: “In fact, the oil company Pacific Rubiales began in early 2009, shortly after the expulsion, …with test bores.”

“The Llanos are a water-rich area. To extract the oil, the spring areas are tapped, the rivers threaten to dry out. The water is polluted with chemicals and pumped back into groundwater, which makes the environmental damage even greater.”

“In the Meta department, [Eliceo] says, the prosecutor’s office, army and police often work together with local paramilitaries.”

“But now that the armed groups have left, Eliceo is fighting the government … and the oil company.”

“Law 1274, passed in 2009 by then-President Alvaro Uribe, declared the oil and mining industry a public interest. Landowners are obliged to allow extraction of raw materials and infrastructure measures on their land in return for compensation. In order to protect the facilities, the military is stationed in the territory of the company.”

“The Encisos are complaining about this, and also against the fact that they should cede 80 percent of their land to the oil company, which is now called Frontera Energy. Frontera no longer wants to negotiate with them.”

“Their motto is: ‘Progress is the way’. It sounds like a threat.”

“Probably for this reason the Encisos now dream of ecotourism. Eliceo’s sister Sandra runs the Enciso de Corazin Foundation. It plants organically produced fruit and vegetables and wants to sustainably manage soil and pasture land. She hopes for tourists who want to enjoy an (still) undisturbed wildlife and the incredible expanse.

“But on the horizon you can already see an oil rig.”

To read the full NPLA.de article, please click on The long struggle against paramilitaries, guerrillas and oil companies.