Colombia: US court throws out suit against Drummond
Colombia: US court throws out suit against Drummond
Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 11:34 Andean Theater
On July 25 US District Judge David Proctor in Birmingham, Alabama, dismissed a 2009 lawsuit seeking to hold the Alabama-based Drummond Co. Inc. coal company liable for killings by rightwing paramilitaries near a Drummond mine in Colombia. The suit, Balcero Giraldo v. Drummond Co., charged that the company had been paying the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which the US listed as a terrorist organization in 2001, to protect a rail line used to ship Drummond coal. Judge Proctor based his decision on the US Supreme Court's Apr. 17 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which sharply restricted the use of the 1789 Alien Tort Statute for foreign nationals to sue for human rights violations that took place outside the US. Proctor ruled that under the Kiobel decision the plaintiffs would need to present sufficient evidence that the alleged crimes were planned in the US; the judge said they had failed to do so.
This was labor rights attorney Terry Collingsworth's third failure in an effort to have US federal courts act on evidence that Drummond was responsible for the murders of Colombians, including unionists working for the company in Colombia. In January a Colombian court found former Drummond contractor Jaime Blanco guilty in the 2001 murders of two union members; Blanco has charged that Drummond senior managers ordered the murders, and the judge that convicted Blanco asked Colombian authorities to investigate Drummond's role. (Birmingham Business Journal, July 31; Bloomberg News, Aug. 1)
As of Aug. 2 Drummond was still confronted with an open-ended strike that miners in the company's Colombian mines started on July 23 over wage issues. Labor Ministry officials were trying to organize direct talks between the two sides in Santa Marta in the Caribbean department of Magdalena; the company's Pribbenow and La Loma mines are located in the nearby department of Cesar. A union negotiator, Humberto Suárez, told Bloomberg News that a deal might be made "in the next few days." (Business Week, Aug. 2, from Bloomberg) Meanwhile, a group of former Drummond employees with health problems occupied the cathedral in Santa Marta on Aug. 2 and began a hunger strike to protest the lack of attention by the company and the government to their situation. (El Tiempo, Bogotá, Aug. 2)
http://ww4report.com/node/12506
(Short article, no more at link.)
Clearly the Drummonds have friends in high places. What a shame.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...the assassination of labor leaders is a protected activity here:
Chiquita execs let off with a "fine" for using death squads to solve their "labor problem" in Colombia--a deal engineered by none other than our current U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, when he was in private practice.
The U.S. State Department (Hillary Clinton) sending a letter to the judge in the Drummond Coal case successfully pressuring the judge on 'national security' grounds to excuse Bush Junta crime boss and former prez of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, from testifying in the case. (The plaintiffs thus denied deposition and discovery from the U.S. 'made man' who built his career on death squad hits.)
TWO U.S. multinationals now "forgiven" for their many murders of their workers in Colombia.
Dozens of death squad witnesses extradited from Colombia on mere drug charges, and 'buried' in the U.S. federal prison system, by complete sealing of their cases (an unusual procedure), over the vociferous objections of Colombian prosecutors--engineered by Uribe and then U.S. ambassador William Brownfield in 2009-2010 (Brownfield subsequently elevated to U.S. "drug czar" for Latin America--one of the dirtiest U.S. players during the Uribe regime.)
Uribe honored with academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown.
Blackwater "fined" by the U.S. State Department for "unauthorized" "training" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." "Unauthorized," my ass. The death squads in Colombia were not limited to the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing hit teams. Bush Junta atrocities; Obama/Clinton State Department coverup. And what was the U.S. military (let alone its 'contractors') doing in Colombia, in proximity to Colombian military massacres like the one in La Macarena?
The targets: Labor leaders and other advocates of the poor. Peasant farmers (FIVE MILLION of them brutally displaced from their lands--THE worst human displacement crisis on earth). Human rights workers, journalists and--with U.S. spying help (Brownfield)--judges, prosecutors and political opponents.
SEVEN BILLION U.S. taxpayer dollars to these criminals (--and that's the money we know about!).
Thousands murdered. Millions displaced. Others intimidated, silenced, living in fear. And Obama has closed the deal with the U.S./Colombia "free trade" agreement. "Free trade" for THE PROTECTED. "Free trade" for KILLERS. "Free trade" for the uber-rich.
And, not incidentally, Big Pharma/Big Ag are now poised to take over, monopolize and GMO-ize the trillion+ dollar illicit trade in herbal, recreational and addictive drugs. Obama's prez in Colombia, Manual Santos, has proposed complete legalization, now that rival gangs (rival to the CIA, the DEA, the NSA, the FBI, the Bush Cartel, et al) and the "little guys" (subsistence farmers) have been crushed by the...
U.S. "war on drugs."
No surprise here at all, that a U.S. judge would let Drummond Coal off scot free for killing labor leaders. Cuz, if Drummond Coal could be held accountable, WHO ELSE might be held accountable for the second worse--most demented, most corrupt, most horrible U.S. war in recent times (in addition to war of terror on Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya and points east)?
WHO ELSE? The entire "military/industrial/police state' complex has been in on it! Don't expect THEIR judges to hold them accountable!
