August 2011: British Petroleum Sells colombian buisness to Talisman Energy a canadian company
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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.
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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.
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In the December 2000/January 2001 Monitor, I reported that Enbridge Inc., one of Canada's leading energy corporations, was linked to death squads in Colombia according to information provided by Amnesty International. Below, I examine the impact of this revelation in Canada as well as detail the further damage caused in Colombia by the consortium of which Enbridge is a part.
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Francisco Ramirez is President of SINTRAMINERCOL, the union representing workers in the Colombian state-owned mining company MINERCOL, and Secretary of FUNTRAMIENERGETICA, the federation of Colombian energy sector unions including the oil industry workers union USO, SINTRAMINERCOL, and SINTRAMIENERGETICA. He is also a member of the Human Rights Committee of the CUT union federation. Francisco is currently touring Britain, meeting with the NUM, UNISON, T&GWU, UNIFI, TUC (Wales), NWTUC. To arrange further meetings contact the Colombia Solidarity Campaign coordinator Richard Solly:
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This paper explores the contentious relationship between foreign investment and political violence in Colombia. In particular, it examines the impact of Canadian oil investment on the armed conflict. In the past two years, there has been a veritable flood of Canadian oil companies to Colombia, many of which are involved in oil exploration and development in regions of the country where conflict is most intense. Indeed, there appears to be a strong correlation between regions of mineral wealth and regions of political conflict.
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In 1999, Colombia became the leading recipient of US military and police assistance, replacing Turkey (Israel and Egypt are in a separate category). Colombia receives more US military aid than the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean combined. The total for 1999 reached about $300 million, along with $60 million in arms sales, approximately a threefold increase from 1998.
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Since 1990, 35,000 Colombians have been killed in a horrific escalation of political violence. An average of ten political assassinations are reported every day. Colombia's state security forces and their paramilitary allies have been responsible for the vast majority of these killings. Many paramilitary death squads have been created by the Colombian military.
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Note from the PASC : in 1995, CIDA approved $241,861 in training and technical assistance funds for the Colombian government's Pacific Plan. The money was to go to Radarsat International Inc. (Ottawa) which until December 1, 1998, had received $171,248.
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