The Associated Press - U.S. Companies Tied to Colombia Labor Activist Murders at House Hearing

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The Associated Press - U.S. Companies Tied to Colombia Labor Activist Murders at House Hearing

The United States shares the blame for Colombia's suffering, a top Democrat said Thursday at a congressional hearing focusing on allegations that U.S. companies funded illegal right-wing militias that have killed hundreds of union activists in the Andean nation.

"We are complicit in the devastation of that society," said Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat. "So it is a moral imperative that requires us to help Colombia end that cycle of violence"

Delahunt, who chairs the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, spoke during a hearing in which Chiquita Brands International Inc. and the Alabama coal company Drummond Co. Inc. were singled as having close ties to Colombia's paramilitaries. Chiquita has acknowledged having paid paramilitaries $1.7 million (€1.3 million) in protection money over six years. Drummond has denied having made any payments.

Dan Burton, a Republican, pointed out during the more than two-hour hearing, however, that "I have not heard any hard evidence that these transactions took place."

He was referring to allegations aired by witnesses, who included an ex-paramilitary and a labor activist from Colombia, that Drummond's top executive in that country personally paid paramilitaries $200,000 (€148,500) to kill two union leaders in 2001 who worked at a Drummond mine.

A civil suit against Drummond in the killings of three union leaders who were all killed in 2001 after leaving its mine in La Loma, Colombia, is to be heard by a federal jury on July 9 in Birmingham, Alabama, a few miles (kilometers) from the company's headquarters.

Burton noted that Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, has put in place policies that led to the demobilization of more than 30,000 paramilitaries, a process he said has helped drastically reduce violence in the country.

The hearing was called by Delahunt, Rep. Eliot L. Engel,chair of the House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and Robert E. Andrews, who heads the Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Its witnesses included Edwin Guzman, a former Colombian army sergeant who became a member of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC. He said Drummond gave trucks and motorcycles to paramilitaries to patrol its mine grounds.

"There are links between the paramilitaries, Drummond, the army and politicians," he said through an interpreter, admitting that he personally had no proof the company made payments to the paramilitaries. "At one point, the army captured 14 paramilitaries on Drummond property."

The president of Colombia's national mining union, Francisco Ramirez, claimed not just Chiquita and Drummond but also Coca-Cola, Occidental Petroleum, BP Amoco and Exxon Mobil were complicit in the killing of union activists in Colombia — either by paying paramilitaries or indirectly through the U.S. military aid for Colombian army units that he said committed the murders.

Delahunt noted that Chiquita, which sold its operations in Colombia three years ago, has admitted paying both leftist rebels and paramilitaries. The company was fined $25 million (€18.5 million) by the U.S. Justice Department this year for making $1.7 million (€1.2 million) in payments from 1997-2004 in a banana-growing region.

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