Since the beginning of the decade, all the areas of expansion of oil palm plantations have coincided geographically with areas of paramilitary presence and expansion, to the extent that some of the new plantations being developed have been financed as farming projects for the same demobilised paramilitary from the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – United Self-Defence Force of Colombia) who had previously made incursions into these very areas.
On June 21st, Luis Alberto, who I know better as ‘Janio’, was walking back to his home in the Humanitarian Zone of El Tesoro when he was assaulted by five illegally armed paramilitaries, who tied him up for half an hour, kicking him and threatening to kill him, accusing him and other community members of being guerrillas. Now, two weeks later I wonder if Janio is, like me, still recovering from the shock of the event.
While current public policies in Columbia encourage palm tree plantations, thereby destroying the Pacific and the Bajo Atrato biodiversity, scientifics and ecologist movements around the world are questioning the positive effects of palm oil and its use as a biocombustible.
THE UNDERSIGNED TRADE UNIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ORGANISATIONS REJECT THE SUSPENSION OF THE SECURITY MEASURES AGREED WITH THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CAUTIONARY MEASURES DECREED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COMISSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE PHYSICAL INTEGRITY AND LIFE OF THE PRESIDENT OF SINTRAMINERCOL.
This article focuses on the role of multinational corporations in the Colombian conflict, particularly how they contributed to the escalation of land conflicts and to the violent transformation of the rural economy into one based on rentier capital. It also explores how these companies helped in fomenting and financing the war system, an element that could partly explain the protracted persistence of the Colombian conflict.
Francisco Ramírez Cuellar, the president of mining union Sintraminercol left his home with his girls to take lunch at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday 10th October. On arriving at the corner of 49th Street and 5th Avenue in the Palermo district of Bogotá, he spotted a red and black high cylinder motorbike ridden by two people and coming towards him. The passenger was looking at him fixedly and had a pistol in his right hand resting on his leg. Francisco immediately got behind electricity and telephone cabinets denying the killers a target to shoot at.