The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

WITNESS LINKS U.S. COMPANIES, COLOMBIA STRIFE

from: Avi Chomsky
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June 29, 2007, 1:17AM

Witness links U.S. companies, Colombia strife

A former right-wing soldier tells Congress of illegal militia ties

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4930738.html

By JOSH MEYER and CHRIS KRAUL

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - A former paramilitary soldier told a congressional panel
Thursday that several U.S. companies provided financial support to illegal
militias accused of killing Colombian civilians.

Edwin Guzman, a former Colombian army sergeant who later became a
paramilitary member, testified that his military units were responsible for
guarding the property of the Birmingham, Ala.-based Drummond coal company,
which has extensive operations in Colombia.

Guzman said the Colombian military also worked closely with right-wing
paramilitary units housed on Drummond premises in an effort to protect the
company and its coal shipments from leftist guerrillas.

Drummond provided company vehicles, gasoline and other supplies to the
paramilitary group, the AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia,
Guzman said.

It has been illegal for U.S. companies to provide financial assistance
to the AUC since September 2001, when the U.S. government designated it as a
terrorist organization. But Guzman told members of three House Foreign
Affairs Committee panels that protection agreements between the outlawed
groups and corporations were commonplace.

"Drummond is not the only company paying for the services of the
paramilitaries. There are many other companies that are paying," Guzman said
through an interpreter. "I hope the members of the Congress investigate
these things further because every time we raise these things in Colombia,
they try to erase our testimony any way they can."

The chairmen of two of the subcommittees, Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said the four-hour hearing was only the
first step in what they hope to be an aggressive investigation into whether
U.S. corporations were underwriting violence in Colombia by paying
protection money to paramilitary groups.

Both lawmakers cited the case of Chiquita Brands International, which
recently admitted to paying nearly $2 million to the AUC and to the
left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to protect its
banana-growing operations and employees in Colombia. Chiquita agreed to pay
$25 million in fines to settle a Justice Department investigation, admitting
to doing business with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. The FARC
also is listed as a terrorist organization.

The Democratic leadership in Congress, citing such concerns, has begun
re-examining Plan Colombia, the billion-dollar anti-drugs and terror aid
program that has been in place since 2000.

Drummond has denied the allegations and told lawmakers Thursday that it
could not comment on Guzman's allegations because of a pending civil court
case that alleges Drummond was behind the slaying of three union leaders in
2001.

Two of the leaders, Victor Orcasitos and Valmore Locarno, were pulled
off a company bus and killed. Gustavo Soler, who took Locarno's place as
union president, was killed in a similar fashion seven months later.

Guzman testified Thursday that Colombian army training "tells us that we
have to attack the leftists in any way we can, and that unions are guerrilla
groups and we have to attack them by legal and illegal means."

But he stopped short of telling the lawmakers that the military
conspired with paramilitary groups to kill the union workers or other
civilians. And he said he had "no evidence on how Drummond gave money to the
paramilitaries."

In his prepared remarks, Guzman went further, however, saying that an
AUC commander whom he identified as "Cebolla" told him that paramilitaries
were responsible for the murders of Locarno and Orcasitos. He said
paramilitaries and the Colombian army shared the opinion that the Drummond
miners union "represented a subversive organization and consequently a
legitimate military target."

"I must confess that we in the military viewed the murders of Valmore
Locarno and Victor Orcasitos in early 2001 as military victories," Guzman
said. "I do not have that opinion today, but I did back then as a
consequence of my military training."

Guzman also said in the statement that the AUC killed many civilians on
and around the Drummond property, and that he was ordered while in the
military to help cover up any links between their deaths and the coal
company.

Engel said the allegations against Drummond, if true, "would be an extremely
serious violation of our laws. ... It appears that we have only scratched
the surface of U.S. corporate malfeasance in Colombia."

Maria McFarland, a Colombia specialist for the New York-based Human
Rights Watch, testified Thursday that 2,515 Colombian trade unionists have
been killed since 1986, nearly two-thirds of them by paramilitary groups.

In March, Colombia Attorney General Mario Iguaran said in an interview
that his office was investigating claims by a government witness now in jail
that Drummond paid paramilitaries to kill the three union leaders.


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