Colombia’s biggest coal companies dodge specifics over “payment to armed groups” allegations

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia’s biggest coal companies dodge specifics over “payment to armed groups” allegations
Jul 1, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya

Mining companies Drummond Ltd. and Glencore subsidiary Prodeco denied allegations the companies provided financial and logistical support to armed groups, but declined to provide substantive details on Tuesday.

According to a report published Monday by a Dutch NGO, the companies allegedly funded and encouraged the proliferation of paramilitary groups responsible for 2,600 selective assassinations, 500 killed in massacres, 240 disappearances, and 59,000 internally displaced people in the northern Colombia state of Cesar between 1996 and 2006.

The NGO’s report was based on testimonies by victims and victimizers of the now-defunct AUC paramilitary group.

“But not to your questions”

American company Drummond and Prodeco onTuesday refuted the allegations found in the 142-page investigative report by Dutch peace organization PAX.

Neither multinational responded to specific questions from Colombia Reports about the nature of the relationship between the companies and the paramilitaries; why security personnel had alleged links to paramilitaries; and the stance of the companies on the victims of atrocities in the vicinity of the mines.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/coal-companies-operating-colombia-call-ngo-accusations-unsubstantiated/

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Drummond Company is based in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Drummond Company is based in Birmingham, Alabama.

More information on the Drummond Coal Company from earlier articles:

Steel Workers to Attack Drummond Coal Co. Role in Columbian Unionists' Murders
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

(Press Associates, Inc.)
By Mark Gruenberg

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. --The Steel Workers, aiding
their Colombian union brethren, will attack the role
of Alabama-based Drummond Coal Co., in murders of
three top union leaders at Drummond’s La Loma mine in
the South American nation.

~snip~
One link, the witnesses told the lawmakers, is that
Drummond knew about the killers’ plans, and did
nothing, even when the unionists asked for the same
protection--such as sleeping in the guarded barracks
at the mine--the company gives its Colombian on-site
managers.

“As became apparent shortly after the killings, the
Drummond Co. was well aware of the threats posed by
Right Wing paramilitaries in the region,” Kovalik
testified. Drummond denied the union leaders’
requests for protection, and instead said “they hoped
the (Colombian) government, and in particular the
agency known as the DAS”--a special security
service--“would be able to assist them with their
concerns."

Kovalik, quoting the DAS chief’s affidavit, said the
president of Drummond’s Colombian subsidiary “handed a
suitcase full of cash” to the leader of the
most-prominent paramilitary group, AUC, and “openly
stated the money was in exchange for murdering” the
first two union leaders at La Loma mine, Locarno and
Orcasita. AUC murdered all three.

“Drummond’s leaving the fate of its workers to the DAS
was tragically ironic, for in early 2006, the DAS
itself was collaborating with right-wing
paramilitaries to have trade unionists killed,”
Kovalik said. “Indeed, according to former DAS
intelligence officer Rafael Garcia, the DAS was
keeping and providing the paramilitaries with a list
of trade unionists it wanted them to kill.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2928336


Ex-Uribe adviser to testify in Drummond-Paramilitary unionist murder trial .
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014110167

Drummond Union: Govt Muffles Key Witness (Alabama coal company, death squad, Colombia)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2928336

Colombian families appeal Uribe's immunity in Drummond murders trial
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101493385

Widow of slain mine union leader speaks out against Alabama's Drummond Co. in Colombia
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110820376

ETC., ETC.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Alabama Coal Billionaire Battles Murder Suits as Prices Ebb

Alabama Coal Billionaire Battles Murder Suits as Prices Ebb
By Anthony Effinger and Matthew Bristow Jul 15, 2013 11:01 PM CT


[font size=1]
Photographer: John Wathen

Drummond Co.'s Shannon mine is located outside Birmingham. Most of the company's coal is mined in Colombia.[/font]

Gustavo Soler knew he was in trouble. It was 2001, and Soler was union president at a coal mine in Colombia owned by Drummond Co., which is controlled by the wealthiest family in Alabama.

Soler’s predecessor, Valmore Locarno, and Locarno’s deputy, Victor Orcasita, had been killed seven months earlier, and now Soler was getting threats, says his widow, Nubia, in an interview in Bogota. He told his family to pack up. They would leave the area as soon as he got home from the union office in Valledupar, a city in the country’s coal belt. He never made it.

Armed men stopped his bus, asked for him by name and abducted him. He was found under a pile of banana leaves with two bullet holes in his head, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its August issue.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-16/alabama-billionaire-battles-murder-suits-as-prices-ebb.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. The Colombian Connection

The Colombian Connection
U.S. aids a dirty war against unions
By David Bacon

In mid-March, Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Orcasita were riding from their jobs at the Loma coal mine in northern Colombia. Locarno and Orcasita were president and vice president of the union at the mine, a local of Sintramienergetica, one of Colombia's two coal miners' unions. As the company bus neared Valledupar, 30 miles from the mine, it was stopped by 15 gunmen, some in military uniforms.

They began checking the identification of the workers, and when they found the two union leaders, they were pulled off the bus. Locarno was hit in the head with a rifle butt. One of the gunmen then shot him in the face, as his fellow workers on the bus watched in horror. Orcasita was taken off into the woods at the side of the road. There he was tortured. When his body was found later, his fingernails had been torn off.

Leading a union often means losing a job, even blacklisting. In many countries, it can bring imprisonment by governments who view unions as a threat to the social and economic elite. But the most dangerous country by far is Colombia, where labor activism is often punished with death. By mid-May, 44 Colombian trade union leaders already had been murdered this year. Last year, assassinations cost the lives of 129 others. According to Hector Fajardo, general secretary of the United Confederation of Workers (CUT), the country's largest union federation, 3,800 trade unionists have been assassinated since 1986. Out of every five trade unionists killed in the world, three are Colombian.

U.S. energy, trade and military policies are contributing to the devastation of the country's labor movement. Bush administration energy policies encourage the use of coal in U.S. power plants, and millions of tons are now mined for export by U.S. corporations in the midst of Colombia's civil war. Free market economic reforms, pushed by the International Monetary Fund, are provoking a wave of resistance by Colombian labor, which is being met by violent repression. And U.S. military aid provided by Plan Colombia supports activities by right-wing paramilitary groups, who in turn target trade union leaders.

The Loma mine is owned by Drummond Co., a multi-national corporation based in Birmingham, Alabama. Drummond opened the mine in 1994, and it is now Colombia's second largest. At first, according to Ken Zinn of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), Drummond promised its U.S. workers that it wouldn't import Colombian coal to compete with its U.S. operations. But since 1994, Drummond has closed five mines in Alabama, laying off 1,700 members of the United Mine Workers. Its one remaining U.S. mine employs about 500 miners.

Alabama used to export coal--13 million tons in 1996, mostly from Drummond mines. Last year's exports totaled only 3 million tons. But 5 million tons of Colombian coal crossed the Alabama State Docks in Mobile last year. It was bound for plants operated by the Alabama Power Co., a division of the Southern Co., which also operates generating facilities in Florida and Mississippi. The plants were formerly fueled by Drummond's U.S. mines. Another half million tons went to the Alabama Electrical Cooperative. At the Loma mine, production rose 4 million tons in 2000, to a total of 11.8 million, after the company built a huge drag line. The company expects to sell 15 million tons next year, and 25 million tons by 2006. For Drummond the transfer has resulted in substantial savings on labor costs. A union miner in Alabama earns $18 an hour, or $3,060 a month, plus benefits.

More:
http://inthesetimes.com/issue/25/17/bacon2517.html