The U'Wa is an indigenous people in Colombia numbering about 8,000. Since 1992, they have been tenaciously battling a plan by Occidental Petroleum to drill 550 yards away from the U'Wa's oil-rich property, which is expected to have 1.4 billion barrels of oil beneath it. The U'Wa have even threatened mass suicide -- a collective leap off a 1,400-foot cliff -- if Occidental realizes its plans.

And though Vice President Al Gore has close ties with Occidental, he has been unwilling to even remotely discuss the controversy, dispatching his aides to spin and shade and parse in his defense.

There was supposed to be a U'Wa presence in Los Angeles, but Friday, two U'Wa were reportedly denied travel visas from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. They were on their way to a protest rally held Monday morning at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles.

Many of the same cast of characters protesting corporate globalism from last year's rallies in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Seattle are here as well -- but at this rally, their cause was more specific.

"The U'Wa controversy is the best example of what's wrong with politics today," says Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch. "Gore controls Occidental shares, and has enjoyed the sponsorship of Occidental Petroleum, but so far he's been completely silent."

A healthy serving of approximately 400 protesters, CHiPs on the side, rallied in the shadow of various oil and gas association buildings. Their signs read "Gore -- Oxy out of U'Wa land," but it was essentially the same protest as held in other venues, their papier-mâché puppets mocking what they view as corporate America's marionette relationship with both Gore and Gov. George W. Bush.

One banner formerly reading "Stop the War Against the Poor," was taped over, "the U'Wa" replacing "the Poor." Recycling!

Gore and his father both enjoyed close personal and financial relationships with Occidental and its founder and CEO Armand Hammer, who died in 1990. In his lifetime, Gore has received almost $500,000 in payments from Occidental stock, according to the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, Gore serves as the executor of a trust fund for his mother that contains Occidental stock valued at between $500,001 and $1 million, according to his 1999 financial disclosure report.

"Al Gore can personally do something" about the U'Wa controversy, Soltani insists. "He can divest his money from Occidental, he can make a statement in support of the U'Wa people ... but he has done nothing."

That's not quite true -- he's actually hidden from the topic, and done a fairly good job of it. But the conflict has heated up; in February, three U'Wa children drowned while fleeing Colombian police during a rally, and at the end of June, riot police broke up a U'Wa road blockade, shooting two members of the tribe.

As the chaos has increased, Gore's spokespeople have been asked to comment with increasing frequency.

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