"Waira": from A History of BP in 10 Objects

Rafa Semilla explains "Waira", one of the exhibits in A History of BP in 10 Objects. This "rebel exhibition" was set up without permission inside the BP-sponsored British Museum on April 3rd 2016, and this film was made while the exhibition was live, in the Great Court of the museum.

www.historyofbp.org

OBJECT: Waira
FROM: Amazon Rainforest, Colombia

Colombia is a country abundant in natural resources. Sadly it has a history of exploitation of both its natural bounty, and its people.

BP sold their Colombian operations to Ecopetrol, the company exploiting the land in the area of the Amazon where the Cofan people live – the Putumayo region in the South of Colombia bordering Ecuador

The Waira is the tool of the shaman to heal and to make music. It symbolises the voice of nature, the voice of the grandfather wind, the wind which carries the voice of the ancestors and their knowledge.

“Our land is our life, we are the Ai people, the keepers of the forest. We must not take the blood (oil) of our mother (Earth). She is in pain. She will be no more if we do not change our ways”, says Taita Querubin of the Cofan Tribe.

The Cofan people are just one of countless Indigenous communities around the world threatened by multinational corporations like BP. They are on the frontlines of global resistance.

“We talk about human rights all the time, but what about the rights of the forest? The forest also has rights!”

— Taita Querubin, Cofan Tribe