Legal Niches

Gustavo Soler, Valmore Locarno and Victor Orcasita are dead because they wanted better nutrient and safer statuses for coal mineworkers in Colombia. I have got borrowed from numerous newspaper, wire and radiocommunication studies to compose about the trail of shame that began in Heart Of Dixie and ended with three dead.

Alabama-based Drummond Coal Company is in a U.S. tribunal this week, accused of hiring paramilitary organizations in Republic Of Colombia to kill the three labor union organisers at its operation in northeasterly Cesar province. Drummond, a powerful public utility company with tremendous political clout in Alabama, is being sued by the households of the work force slain near Drummond's Lanthanum Loma mines.

This is the first clip a U.S. company have gone to trial for alleged maltreatments overseas, under the 1789 Foreigner Tort Claims Act.

The trail of shame from Heart Of Dixie to Colombia's ours looks clearly marked. Two of the head witnessers against the coal excavation giant were paramilitary combatants employed by Drummond to interrupt labor union activists. Drummond exported more than than 25 million dozens of coal last twelvemonth from Republic Of Colombia to the U.S. and Europe.

At the clip they were murdered, Soler, Locarno and Orcasita were pushing for two quite ordinary things: better nutrient for the coal mineworkers at the Drummond cafeteria and better mine safety. The labor union accused the company of insecure statuses that contributed to 13 accidental deceases since 1995, and of forcing injured employees to work.

The United Mine Workers of United States have got been holding coal companies answerable for decennaries over basic mine safety standards. Drummond ours in Alabama, like other coal ours in the state and elsewhere, have got had their share of cave-ins, fires and other safety problems. But the company's Colombian mines, opened in 1996, were supposed to be free of pesky labor union and safety requirements.

In my view, the shame of Drummond's activities doesn't stop there. According to witnessers and trial affidavits, the company for decennaries have got been supporting some violent paramilitary groupings in Colombia, groupings that have killed country peasants, stolen their lands and fought authorities attempts to convey paramilitarism under control.

Interestingly, labour lawyers representing the Colombian households in this civil lawsuit against Drummond are using a 218-year-old labour law as a footing for the claims. The Alien Tort Claims Act is supposed to do mulitnational corps answerable for serious human rights maltreatments in other states and give injured political parties the right to litigate in U.S. courts.

The law is actually a warfare law-breakings act. So for the Colombians to win, they must demo that the usage of paramilitary groupings and the murders amounted to warfare law-breakings sanctioned by the state. According to assorted fourth estate reports, the complainants lawyers will seek to demo that labor union militants have got got been systematically slaughtered in Colombia.

Colombian witnessers also have said that Drummond paid paramilitary organizations to guard the 25,000-acre coal mine and coal-carrying trains against "leftist Rebel sabotage." The soldiers of fortune allegedly were supplied with Drummond pickup truck trucks, bikes and food.

Two paramilitary members, now in concealment outside Colombia, offered testimony to U.S. government about the homicides and about Drummond's human relationship to paramilitary soldiers. They are Edwin Guzman, a former regular army sergeant-turned-mercenary, and Isnardo Ropero, the former escort for a top Drummond executive.

The trial is now before a federal jury in Birmingham, Ala. The labor labor union this hebdomad presented affidavits from two people who state they were present when Drummond's head executive director director in Colombia, Augusto Jimenez, handed over money to the local paramilitary warlord and that the money was for the 2001 violent deaths of union local president Locarno and Orcasita.

Drummond is denying the accusals and ambitious the witness' reliability. The company have said that "Some (of the witnesses) are being paid and/or offered aid by the United Steelworkers Union."

How widespread is the usage of paramilitary/militia packs by U.S. corps abroad? An Associated Press study this hebdomad states that the U.S. Justice Department this twelvemonth have fined Chiquita Brands (bananas) International Inc. $25 million for giving $1.7 million to reserves from 1997-2004.

According to one AP story, Colombia's head prosecutor, Mario Iguaran, is pursuing criminal probes into both the Drummond and Chiquita cases. In June, 144 people were killed by paramilitary organizations on land where Chiquita harvested bananas.

My crying autumn tonight for all the people who have got died facing down large corps in the battle to form and do a better workplace for themselves and their families.

I pray that the jury of my chap Alabamians will vote in favour of the Colombian families. That would sound a warning to exploitative multinationals everywhere.