US Coal Firm Linked to Colombia Militias

[Snazzy]

Source: AP

US Coal Firm Linked to Colombia Militias


Jul 6, 10:53 PM (ET)

By FRANK BAJAK

LA LOMA, Colombia (AP) - The bus had just left Drummond Co. Inc.'s coal mine carrying about 50 workers when gunmen halted it and forced two union leaders off. They shot one on the spot, pumping four bullets into his head, and dragged the other one off to be tortured and killed.

In a civil trial set to begin Monday before a federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., union lawyers have presented affidavits from two people who allege that Drummond ordered those killings, a charge the company denies.

...

The lawsuit, filed under a U.S. statute that lets foreigners sue U.S. corporations for their conduct abroad, seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, alleging Locarno, Orcasita and Gustavo Soler - who was killed after he took over for Locarno - "were direct victims of Drummond's plan to violently destroy the union."

"I think they thought they could get away with anything, literally get away with murder," United Steelworkers lawyer Daniel Kovalik said.

...


Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070707/D8Q7G15O0.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. So glad to see the Democrats aren't letting this subject die down, yet.

Hope they'll have the courage and decency to keep right on it. From the article:

Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., said a congressional hearing that he called on the subject last week would be the first of many.
(snip)

At some time the tide is going to HAVE to turn if this country is going to overcome the filthy image the right-wing Presidents have created by laying waste to Latin America and the Caribbean for the sake of unbridled racism, greed, barbaric, cold, crude power playing, sneaky, dishonest, murderous, cheap larceny on a HUGE scale: just to show them we can. Dirtballs. Hope they'll burn in hell.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Coal, Coke...................

Don't seem to be too much difference and time has made little difference.

Coca-Cola

One of the many fights in Colombia that the trade unionist in the United States have actively been involved in is an American company called Coca-Cola.

According to the Pacific News Service dated Nov. 28,2001 written by David Bacon, workers at a Coca-Cola plant in Colombia, South America, hauled the multinational soft-drink giant into the U.S. courts because they are failing to get justice in their own country’s courts for the murder of their union leaders.

After union leader were gunned down at the plant gates workers at the plant in Carepa, Colombia tried to get just for four years in the courts in Colombia and instead some of the workers wound up behind bars while the murders went free.

http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/printthispage.php?pageid=1818

The worker were shot by a guy in para military gear with a rifle hiding behind police lines - I've seen footage of that.

More here :

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) Hours after they gunned down Isidro Segundo Gil, paramilitaries broke into the office of the local union representing workers at a Coca- Cola bottling plant in northern Colombia and set their headquarters on fire, witnesses say.

The paramilitaries followed up the murder and arson - which are described in a sealed Colombian criminal investigation seen by Reuters - by calling a meeting of workers inside the plant, located in the northern Colombian town of Carepa. During the session, the workers were told to resign from their union by that afternoon or risk a bullet.

Gil’s killing is the most chilling incident described in a lawsuit filed in a Miami district court in July whose allegations of abuses by management at locally owned Coca- Cola Co. bottling plants in Colombia have embarrassed the U.S. soft drink giant. The suit alleges that management at plants throughout Colombia used paramilitaries to crush unions with a terror campaign of threats, kidnap and murder.

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2001/11/04/bus13.html

[MannyGoldstein]

3. I Hope That Isn't Something Which Will Happen Here Next

However, until a sufficient number of elected officials begin to respect the rule of law, I don't have high hopes.

[ShockediSay]

13. Don't underestimate the corporafascists nt

[Omaha Steve]

4. So few comments when this is a story of murders and more

Are we Americans desensitized or just worried about human rights close to home?

[Judi Lynn]

5. Americans are involved in these atrocities. American taxpayers are also forced to pay

unbelievable levels of foreign aid to this country annually, coming in right after Israel, and Egypt.

Democrats are trying to investigate in Congress, and being threatened by the Colombian President and his officials,if they block even one thin dime of his financial support for any reason whatsoever.

I believe "desensitized" is exactly the right word. Self-absorbed, indifferent, and not inclined to curiosity. All possible effort is exerted by the administration to mold public perception, to keep anyone from knowing or caring about what is happening there, while American "advisors" and mercenaries, and military pour in and out of Colombia daily, and our taxes are funneled into a complete black hole, with absolutely NO positive return to the taxpayers.

[defendandprotect]

9. So true -- Capitalism is merely organized crime

This isn't one of the connections I immediately make re our international corporations, but it's something that Brig. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler told us long ago about the corporate connections to our imperialism and military intrusions into other nations.

Corporations -- like our government -- also use local criminal/Mafia types to carry out their putrid agendas.

In other words, Capitalism is deadly/suicidal as we can see from Global Warming/pollution of the planet.

Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime.

FDR did save capitalism by regulating it --
The corporations then worked to buy our legislators -- Senators and Reps -- and now own Congress.

In order to regain control of our "people's" government and our natural resources -- which should not be in the hands of private families -- we are going to have to understand capitalism's poisonous effects on our lives.

Listen to the world -- it's been telling us for centuries that capitalism is crime.

[NotGivingUp]

16. Excellent post!!! nt

[whistle]

6. Right out of the playbook "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism "

....and specifically items #9 and #10.


<snip>
The 14 Characteristics of Fascism
by Lawrence Britt
Spring 2003

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine's policy.

The 14 characteristics are:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.


2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.


3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.


4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.


5. Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.


6. Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.


7. Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.


8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.


9. Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.


10. Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .


11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.


12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.


13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.


14. Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

[PoiBoy]

7. A must read...

if you're interested...

Amy Goodman interviews self described "economic hitman" John Perkins.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/15/1436221&mode=thread&tid=25

<snip>
AMY GOODMAN: Why didn't you work for the N.S.A.?

JOHN PERKINS: Because these days it's not done that way. Nobody wants to be able to connect the dots. So the N.S.A., the C.I.A., these types of organizations often recruit economic hit men and the jackals, the assassins, the 007 types, but they will recruit us, maybe train us, and then turn us over to a private corporation, so that you really can't make the connection, so that if I were caught at what I was doing in one of these countries, it would not reflect on our government; it would only reflect on the corporation that I worked for.

AMY GOODMAN: And who did you work for?

JOHN PERKINS: I worked for a company called Charles T. Main, a big consulting firm out of Boston.

AMY GOODMAN: And your job?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, I started off as economist, became chief economist, and my job really – I had a staff of several dozen people. My job was to get them, and for me to convince these countries to accept these very large loans, to get the banks to make the loans, to set up the deal so that the money went to big U.S. corporations. The country was left holding a huge debt, and then I would go in or one of my people would go in and say, “Look, you know, you owe us all this money. You can't pay your debts. Give us that pound of flesh.”

The other thing we do, Amy, and what's going on right now in Latin America is that as soon as one of these anti-American presidents is elected, such as Evo Morales, who you mentioned, in Bolivia, one of us goes in and says, “Hey, congratulations, Mr. President. Now that you're president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. We have several hundred million dollars in this pocket if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I've got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out.”
<end>

WTF???

<snip>
JOHN PERKINS: No, it’s – what I'm saying is that, you know, I can make sure that this man makes a great deal of money, he and his family, through contracts, through various quasi-legal means, and I can also – if he doesn't accept this, you know, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Jaime Roldos in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama and Allende in Chile, and we tried to do it to Chavez in Venezuela and are still trying – that we will send in the people to try to overthrow him, as, in fact, we recently did with the President of Ecuador, or if we don't overthrow him, we'll assassinate him. And these people all know the history. They know that this has happened many, many, many times in the past.
<end>

Perkins makes an interesting point about Saddam Hussein...

<snip>
That's an easy thing to do, and incidentally, we also tried to do that to Saddam Hussein. When he didn't come around, the economic hit men tried to bring him around. We tried to assassinate him. But that was an interesting point, because he had pretty loyal security forces, and in addition he had a lot of look-alike doubles, and what you don't want to be is a bodyguard to a look-alike double and you think it's the president and you accept a lot of money to assassinate him and you assassinate the look-alike, because if you do that, afterwards your life and your family's isn't worth very much, so we were unable to get through to Saddam Hussein, and that’s why we sent the military in.

AMY GOODMAN: Although Saddam Hussein was in the pocket of the U.S. for many, many years.

JOHN PERKINS: He was and – but we wanted that final deal, similar to the one we’d struck with Saudi Arabia. We wanted to get Saddam Hussein to really tie in to our system, and he refused to do that. He accepted our fighter jets and our tanks and our chemical plants that he used to produce chemical weapons that we knew were being used against the Kurds and the Iranians. He accepted all that, but he wouldn’t quite tie into our system in such a big way that he would bring in the huge development organizations to rebuild his country, as the Saudis did, in a Western image. And that's what we were trying to convince him to do and also to guarantee that he would always trade oil for U.S. dollars, instead of Euros, and that he would keep the price of oil within limits acceptable to us. He would not go along with those things. If he had, he would still be president, Amy.
<end>

Lots more at the link... check it out!

[lanlady]

8. I'm just finishing his second book

"Secrets of the American Empire." Good stuff. Thanks for the link.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Wonderful! So worth everyone's time reading. Some DU'ers have suspected these things

for quite a while. It's so good to see these suspicions confirmed.

Better yet, to see John Perkins has said that the awakening of the people to what has been happening has produced powerful changes.

Hope to see this unity growing stronger and stronger from now on until they are free.

[NotGivingUp]

18. "The Secret History of the American Empire" by John Perkins...excellent!

Saw him on book tv 2 weeks ago. Reading his book right now.

[Radical Activist]

11. Anyone know who they supply coal to?

It might be time to start contacting American power companies who purchase their coal from Drummond.

[Judi Lynn]

12. They sell it right back to Alabama, where they used to have over 10 mines,

and a WHOLE LOT of employees before they pulled out and moved to Colombia, where they don't have strict environmental concerns, and don't have to bother their pretty little heads about medical insurance, powerful unions, etc.,etc.

I will try to look it up later, when I get a chance. I have seen the answer to your question before, but lost track of it. Drummond is a HUGE, prosperous company.

Here's a quick look at an available resource:

Published to acclaim—and death threats against its author and bombings of his union’s offices—in Colombia in 2003, The Profits of Extermination uncovers the role of multinational mining and energy companies in Colombia’s violence. Through legal maneuvers, corruption, and direct use of paramilitary violence, companies like Occidental Petroleum, Harken Energy, and many others, have taken over Colombia’s resources, displacing and murdering those who have tried to challenge them.

This book gives the lie to the claim that the “drug wars” are the main factor behind Colombia’s violence, and explains the role that the U.S. and Canadian governments and their corporations have played in the war against Colombia’s peasants, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian populations.
(snip)

http://nscolombia.tripod.com/nscolombia/index.blog?from=20050417

COLOMBIA: Miners' Woes Heard - If Faintly - in US
By Helda Martínez

BOGOTÁ, Mar 20 (IPS) - The pattern of persecution of miners in Colombia overlaps with the map of operations of foreign corporations, especially U.S. companies, Colombian trade unionists told a U.S. legislator.

"We believe it's a deliberate distortion to present the problem of human rights violations in Colombia as the result of a simple struggle between good guys and bad guys," lawyer and trade unionist Francisco Ramírez told IPS. "What is happening here is a war of economic interests."

Ramírez was speaking before a Mar. 3 meeting between trade unionists and U.S. Democrat Representative James McGovern in the Colombian capital, to which IPS had exclusive access and in which the workers said they were "tired of our people being killed, of the constant abuses and the impunity."

Three days later, a federal judge in the U.S. state of Alabama, Karon Bowdre, announced to the press that on May 14 the U.S. mining company Drummond would be put on trial for the murders of three trade unionists in Colombia.

Valmore Lorcano and Jaime Orcasitas, president and vice president of the Sintramienergética mine workers union, were murdered in March 2001. The two men worked for Drummond in the northern Colombian department (province) of Cesar.
(snip/...)

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37000

[Judi Lynn]

14. More on Drummond, which attempted to seal documents on the murder probe

November 09, 2006
Drummond Files to Seal Documents in Colombia Murder Probe

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Nov. 9 - The brutal torture and murders of three Colombia union leaders and workers at Drummond coal company's Colombian mines continue to run low on the American justice radar screen. Now, the civil murders case may be silently swept under the rug if Drummond lawyers get their way in an Alabama courtroom.

Drummond lawyers from the firm of Starnes and Atchison in Birmingham and from Baker Botts in Washington, D.C., the firm of long-time Republican fixer James Baker, were back in U.S. Federal Court in November seeking to, in a sense, freeze-wrap in a super seal all documents in the civil murders case.
(snip)

Mr. Drummond, a University of Alabama trustee emeritus and a member of the UA Business School Hall of Fame, testified in a deposition about paying a half million dollars in "stipends" to the Colombia police and military for protection of the Drummond mines and port in areas of northeast Colombia. It is widely known there that the police and military are notorious for moonlighting as right-wing paramilitaries, which hire out for protection of the Drummond assets under threat from leftwing guerrillas, who are also designated as "terrorist actors" in Colombia's interminable civil war.
(snip)

"These Colombia murders are very similar to the civil rights violations which were perpetrated in the U.S. in the early 1960s," Jackson says. "Especially comparable to the murders of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the killings of the four little girls in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham.

"All were victims of civil rights struggles and justice long denied - just like in these 2001 murders in Colombia in this case meandering turtle-slow in federal court," Jackson says. "And not only slow, but under a cloud of secrecy that is not warranted at all - and in fact, is a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of the press and the public."

"Judge Bowdre's constant sealing and gag orders have a chilling effect by cutting journalists off from sources, potential sources and information about this case," he said. "The judge is throwing a shroud over this case."
(snip/...)

http://www.locustfork.net/blog/drummond_coal/drummond_files_to_seal_documen.html#more

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Drummond Coal Faces Dutch, Colombia Investigations
Special Report: An Update From the Road on the Ongoing Investigations of Drummond Coal

by Stephen Flanagan Jackson

AMSTERDAM, Holland, Oct. 11 - The Drummond Coal company of Alabama faces a barrage of lawsuits and international investigations in The Netherlands and in Colombia, sources say.

"We received a good reception from the Dutch congressman concerning our request for the government and Foreign Affairs Minister of The Netherlands to look into our charges involving the Drummond Co. claim-jumping our Colombia oil concession, and the Colombia government framing my brother, Henk (Hendrik van Bilderbeek)," Albert van Bilderbeek says
(snip)

Since receiving the former Llanos concession in December, 2003 near its La Loma coal mines, Drummond has discovered a lucrative natural gas field in the former Llanos Oil area - now Drummond’s bailiwick which stretches for some 250,000 acres in Las Nieves "The Snows" region near the border of oil-rich Venezuela.

Van Bilderbeek charges Drummond with a "symbiotic and cooperative" relationship with both the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitary at the Drummond Co.’s $500 million coal investment. The military connection - including payoffs - is validated directly by Garry N. Drummond, who acknowledges at least a half million dollars in "stipends" to Colombia military and police personnel.
(snip/...)http://www.locustfork.net/blog/drummond_coal/drummond_coal_faces_dutch_colo.html#more

[Judi Lynn]

15. Former military witness testifies "legalizing" means dressing a Colombian civilian dead guy up as

leftist guerilla to make the killing look legal! He's also a witness against Drummond:

Plaintiffs want surprise witness
Would testify he saw company supply outlaws
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
RUSSELL HUBBARD
News staff writer

Lawyers suing Drummond Co. for the slaying of Colombian union activists said in legal documents Tuesday they have found a new witness who plans to say in court the company supported armed outlaw groups in the South American nation.

Edwin Manuel Guzman was a sergeant in the Colombian Army and is now in that country's witness protection program, according to a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham.

Guzman, the filings said, served in a Colombian army unit that helped guard Drummond's coal mine and rail lines. He is prepared to testify that he saw the Birmingham-based company supply a right-wing armed outlaw group and direct its military activities.
(snip)

Guzman goes on to say in a deposition attached to the filing that Rodriguez told him his Colombian Army unit "had no business" interfering with AUC's military activities. Guzman says in the deposition he planned to "ambush" AUC units on his turf, but that Rodriguez approached him in a black sport-utility vehicle and told him to lay off.

Page 2 of 2
Guzman goes on to say he was then relieved of his position as platoon commander and placed in a macabre new position.

"It was at this time that I personally began to work in `legalizing' civilian victims of the paramilitaries ... meaning we would plant guerrilla uniforms on and weapons in civilians that AUC killed in order to make the killings appear legitimate," Guzman says in the deposition.
(snip/...)

http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/business/1177488950215900.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

[1932]

17. The privatization of government -- this is a big issue. Why are corporations acting as private army

and police forces? Why are AMERICAN companies doing that in FOREIGN countries?