Paramilitaries to testify against Drummond: Report (US coal company in Colombia)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Paramilitaries to testify against Drummond: Report
Tuesday, 06 September 2011 11:56
Toni Peters

A U.S. court has allowed three Colombian former paramilitaries to testify against Alabama-based coal company Drummond for the company's alleged links to paramilitary organization AUC, Noticias Uno reported Tuesday.

The ex-paramilitaries, who were part of the paramilitary organization's Northern Bloc under the command of alias "Jorge 40," are due to appear in court next week after the Alabama court allowed their appearance. The former paramilitaries claim the AUC ordered the assassination of at least 600 people between 1995 and 2005 in the northern department of Cesar for the benefit of Drummond.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama ordered that the former paramilitaries alias "Bam Bam," "El tigre," "El samario," and Jesus Charris are to give testimony before representatives of the victims who claim that the multinational is responsible for the 600 murders.

Drummond allegedly ordered the assassination of rural dwellers who chose not to sell their land to make way for the company's railroad which transported carbon from the land-locked Cesar department to the Caribbean Sea.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18800-paramilitaries-to-testify-against-drummond-report.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. What are the chances justice will be be allowed? Drummond is powerful, their friends going all the w

their friends going all the way to the former Colombian President's office.

The Drummond brothers have been creatures from the black lagoon for years and years, sending so many innocent working men, all mens doing work these parasites could NEVER accomplish, to their hideous death, after the men were warned they were marked for murder, some of them going directly to Drummond to beg for minimal protection, at least, from the assassins.

Filthy ####s destroyed the lives of many U.S. workers first, before oozing their slimy way to Colombia to start life all over, raping that labor pool, and sending their ill-gotten product back to Alabama, to be bought by their old customers they already exploited while exploiting US coal workers mercilessly.

I hope the sky falls on the Drummond brothers.



Gary Drummond (left), the owner of Drummond Corporation, is a close friend of
former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe (right)

Drummond Accused of Killing Trade Unionists, Former Colombian President Uribe Called to Testify
News from Colombia | on: Thursday, 11 November 2010

A paramilitary death squad commander has revealed how executives of the US mining multinational Drummond ‘congratulated’ paramilitary commanders for arranging the assassination of two union leaders at Drummond’s Colombian coal mines. The court room admission, by now jailed paramilitary leader Alcides Mattos Tabares, comes just days after former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was subpoenaed to testify in a civil case against Alabama-based Drummond for their alleged links to paramilitaries.

Mr Mattos Tabares explained how following the 2001 assassinations of Valmore Locarno and Victor Hugo Orcasita (the President and Vice-President respectively of the trade union representing workers at Drummond), two senior members of the Drummond management team met with the paramilitary commanders responsible for the murders to thank them for a successful operation.

Although one of Drummond’s former contractors in Colombia, Jaime Blanco Maya – the brother of the current Colombian Inspector General Edgardo Maya – has been arrested and charged in connection with the killings, so far no senior Drummond officials have been detained. But human right groups insist that both Gary Drummond, the US owner of the multinational, and Jean Jakim, Drummond’s head of security, were implicated in the murders and point to additional testimony from a former member of the DAS secret police who claims to have seen Drummond’s president in Colombia, Augusto Jimenez, handing over a bag full of cash to notorious paramilitary commander ‘Jorge 40’.

More:
http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/news/article/834/drummond-accused-of-killing-trade-unionists-former-colombian-president-uribe-cal

[Kingofalldems]

2. Kick and Recommend for justice

[Judi Lynn]

3. Murder of Catholic Priest in Colombia Greeted With Collective Silence

Murder of Catholic Priest in Colombia Greeted With Collective Silence
Posted: 9/7/11 03:18 PM ET

Last night, I received an email from the Colombia Support Network about a Catholic priest who was assassinated in Colombia. His name was Father Jose Reinel Restrepo, and he was killed in the midst of his campaign against the threatened incursion of a Canadian mining operation, Medoro Resources, into an area which will require an entire town (that of Marmato) to move and which will destroy the livelihood of more than 2,000 independent small miners who mine gold for a living as their families have done since the time of the Spanish Conquest. As is many times the case, the identities of Father Restrepo's killers -- armed men traveling by motorcycle -- are not known and may never be known for sure. However, given Father Restrepo's activism against a multinational concern, and given the modus operandi of the assailants, there is a good chance that they were right-wing paramilitaries linked to the Colombian military -- the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Western Hemisphere.

The news of Father Restrepo's death was particularly upsetting, though, for one involved in solidarity work with Colombia, it is the type of news one receives on an almost daily basis. And so, this year alone, I have received the news of the 22 union leaders (many of them teachers) killed so far; of the human rights and indigenous leaders killed; of the Colombian Air Force bombing entire villages; of union and human rights leaders arrested; of the three prisoners in Valludepar's high security prison killing themselves because of the deplorable conditions -- conditions which the last person who killed himself (on September 1) referred to as "a living death."

What is so infuriating about all this is the fact that this death and carnage goes virtually unreported by the mainstream U.S. press, and does not alter the status of Colombia as the closest U.S. ally in the hemisphere. Indeed, I think about the coverage of the press, including my local paper, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which ran front page stories about prison riots in Venezuela over poor conditions there. Yet, the murder of a Catholic priest in Colombia -- much less horrible prison conditions in Colombia which have elicited suicides as well as protests including prisoners sewing their own mouths shut -- apparently warrant no coverage at all.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/murder-of-catholic-priest_b_950504.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Uribe does not have to tesify in Drummond case

Uribe does not have to tesify in Drummond case
Friday, 09 September 2011 06:51
Toni Peters

A Washington D.C. federal judge decided former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe does not have to testify in the case against coal giant Drummond, Colombian media reported Thursday.

Judge John Bate recognized the immunity Uribe had requested from the U.S. State Department. Therefore it was ruled that he could not be called as a witness in the trial against the coal giant.

~snip~
According to the judge, the plaintiffs are seeking "information related to illegal activity" from Uribe. As Uribe is not a defendant in the case, he can not be forced to testify, the judge ruled.

Victims of paramilitary violence accuse Drummond of having paid the AUC between 1999 and 2005, a period during which 116 civilians were killed, in the northern Colombian department of Cesar where the coal giant operates. According to the victims, Uribe has knowledge about the alleged relations between the coal company and the paramilitaries.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18877-uribe-does-not-have-to-tesify-in-drummond-case.html

[Overseas]

5. K&R.