Movement of Victims asks for the resignation of the Mayor of San Onofre

BECAUSE OF HIS LINKS WITH PARAMILITARY GROUPS, WE ARE ASKING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF THE MAYOR OF SAN ONOFRE.
(Translated by Anne Boylon, a CSN translator)

San Onofre-Sucre, November 27, 2006/November 28



Doctor

ALVARO URIBE VELEZ

President of the Republic of Colombia

Doctor

MARIO IGUARAN ARANA

Attorney General

Doctor

JULIO CESAR TURBAY QUINTERO

National General Comptroller

Doctor

VOLMAR PÉREZ

Peoples Defender


Dear Sirs:

The President of the Republic haas recently made public statements to the effect that all state civil servants about whom there are indications of connections and alliances with paramilitary groups must immediately present their resignations and make themselves available to the judicial authorities.

These statements are a response to recent public revelations of complicity between members of Congress and leaders of the Colombian Autodefensas. The Supreme Court has been carrying out investigations and taking decisions relative to these situations.

At the request of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes, the Colombian Senate Commission on Human Right summoned the San Onofre community and its surrounding hamlets to public hearing today. At this hearing inhabitants of the community were able to make known all the information they have relative to the crimes committed in their region during the last decade.

The public hearing was held in the Rodolfo Blanco Municipal Sports Stadium in San Onofre with more than 1,000 persons in attendance, among them representatives of the diplomatic corps, members of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, regional military and police authorities, delegates from the Federal Prosecutor´s Offiice and the Peoples Defender´s Office, the San Onofre mayor and various delegates from national and international human rights organizations.

Previous to and during the hearing the General Secretary of the Commission received approximately 200 testimonies from the victims, including personal testimonies from 18 witnesses. Though there were 42 registered to testify, they were not all able to appear due to a break-down in the plane transporting the Senate Commission to the hearing which resulted in a delay in beginning the hearing.

Those able to testify gave accounts of massive forced disappearances, connections of politicians with paramilitaries, the existence of mass graves, administrative corruption and the situation of dire misery faced by 2, 162 displaced families.

All of these testimonies coincided in revealing the responsibility by action and by omission of the municipal mayor, Mr. Jorge Blanco Fuentes.

The witnesses stated that the present Mayor was the only candidate to the mayoral office due to the violent threats made against his opponents and the population. In addition, the witnesses also stated that the mayor had the complete and unlimited support of the paramilitary leader, Rodrigo Mercado Pelufo, alias, ¨Cadena.¨ Witnesses also testified to the effect that the mayor had knowledge of the criminal acts perpetrated against fincas such as ¨el Palmar¨ but that he did nothing to protect the San Onofre community and its neighboring inhabitants. Documents were also presnted at the hearing revealing that resources totaling in the millions have been delivered to the municipality by national entities, but that none of these have been used for public works, in spite of claims to the contrary made by the municipal administration.

Because of these testimonies and also those included in the written testimonies presented to the Human Rights Commission of the Senate, we, exercising our constitutional right to formulate petitions to the authorities, respectfully request of you the following:

1. To the President of the Republic that he ask for the immediate and irrevocable resignation of the Mayor of San Onofre.
2. To the Public Prosecutor that, using the documentaion produced in the hearing and that are in the possession of the secretary general of the Senate Human Rights Commission, he initiate an official penal investigation of the conduct of this civil servant
3. To the General Procurator, that he, by means of the same documentation, initiate a disciplinary investigation of Mayor Jorge Blanco.
4. To the General Comptroller, that he, also using the above-mentioned documentation, inititate a general audit of all the municipal accounts beginning with the admistration of Mr. Blanco; that he also designate a commission to carry out a site visit in order to verify the state of execution of the public works in the municipality.
5. To the appropriate authorities, that they guarantee the life and the physical and psychological integrity of the San Onofre population in the Sucre department, especially of those who very valiently testified in the recent hearing.
   

Respectfully,

Movimiento Nacional de Victimas de Crimenes de Estado

Corporación Yira Castro

Asociación Minga

Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos

Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo

Asonal Judicial

Fundación Manuel Cepeda

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net

Drummond Faces Dutch and Colombia

Drummond Faces Dutch & Colombia

Investigations Of Colombia Coal, Oil Ventures                           

By Stephen Flanagan Jackson

 ( Copyright‹2006)

AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND---A barrage of lawsuits and  international investigations awaits an Alabama-based multinational which does business in The Netherlands and in Colombia.

    ³We received a good reception from the Dutch congressman concerning our request for the government and Foreign Affairs Minister of The Netherlands to look into our charges involving  the Drummond  Coal Co. claim-jumping our Colombia oil concession, and the Colombia government framing my brother, Henk (Hendrik van Bilderbeek),² said Albert van Bilderbeek.  

   Drummond¹s president and CEO is Birmingham¹s Garry N. Drummond, a wealthy Alabama businessman and  generous political campaign contributor---also a former trustee of the University of Alabama. One of Drummond¹s largest customers in the US is the Southern Company which purchases Drummond¹s Colombian coal imported through the Port of Mobile for its electric power plants throughout the Southeast.

    Van Bilderbeek is one of the two Dutch brothers who had a potentially lucrative Colombia oil concession stripped from him and his older sibling and investors. Recently this Fall, van Bilderbeek personally dispatched his grievance to The Hague. The scenic, historic Dutch center of government and international affairs sits some 25 miles southwest of Amsterdam in this table-flat, water-laden Lowcountry, one of Europe¹s most prosperous niches.

    A Colombia lawmaker---from the district in Colombia where Drummond operates the world¹s largest open pit coal mine---also attended the meeting at The Hague with Representative Hans van Baalen of a Parliament foreign affairs committee, and Jochem de Groot, a foreign policy advisor for the Dutch Parliament. The Colombian legislator pointed out that much of Drummond¹s Colombia coal transports throughout Europe after arriving via the nearby Rotterdam port.

    Miguel Duran told van Baalen and de Groot that the Colombia Congress is investigating Drummond¹s overall activities in Colombia and would also investigate whether or not special favors were accorded Drummond in its takeover of the Llanos Oil concession ³in record time.²

    Duran, who represents the state of Cesar in northeast Colombia---site of  the coal mines and the untapped oil fields in question--- reported to the Dutch solon that ³in Colombia there is great concern that Drummond may be underreporting its coal production---and subsequently dodging its full royalties due Colombia--- by laundering its gross revenues through the Cayman Islands.² Duran also mentioned that Drummond¹s ³sweetheart deals with the Colombian government---especially on a railroad concession to transport the coal to the Puerto Drummond Caribbean port--- as well as ³influence peddling and bribes² are subjects of  the Colombia Congress investigation.

    ³The report on Drummond should be ready later this year,² said the veteran, 39 year old politician, a lawyer by training and trade.



  Albert van Bilderbeek alleges, ³ Ša set-up which involves the Colombia presidency, the Colombia president¹s  top aide, and Drummond to take our Llanos Oil mineral rights and pass it on to Drummond.² These charges are  substantiated in a detailed affidavit obtained by a van Bilderbeek lawyer in Colombia. The younger van Bilderbeek also charges, ³They arrested  Henk on false charges of money laundering for the paramilitary and drug dealers also, and have incarcerated him for two years without a trial or bond or even specific charges.²

 Albert van Bilderbeek presented to van Baalen  certified testimony of a Colombia witness claiming the DAS (Department of Administrative Security)---Colombia¹s equivalent of the US FBI and controlled by the Colombia president---orchestrated the framing of Henk(van Bilderbeek) and Llanos, and that the DAS fed incriminating and untrue information about Llanos to the  US DEA(Drug Enforcement Agency).  That key witness, Rafael Garcia, is currently in a Bogota prison facing charges of manipulating the DAS computer system as former DAS director of information technology.  Garcia, fearing for his life, is also a key and controversial witness in another case---a civil charge alleging wrongful deaths in a  US federal court in Birmingham---levied against Drummond Co. in the 2001 assassinations of three of its Colombia labor union employees. The US judge has sealed Garcia¹s deposition in which he maintains that he saw a Drummond payoff to the ³Bloque Norte² paramilitary in Valledupar, Colombia for two of the three brutal killings.  A jury trial is anticipated  in March for that  tort case in Birmingham, Ala. in which the Colombia labor union, SINTRAMIENERGETICA, is suing Drummond for wrongful deaths under the obscure 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act of the US.

    ³I want to help Dutch nationals get a fair shake and justice,² said van Baalen, referring to the van Bilderbeek brothers¹ predicament.  ³I will ask the Dutch government to take this issue up with the Colombia government.²

  Speaking after the meeting with the MP (Member of Parliament) at The Hague, Albert  

van Bilderbeek said he is now planning three lawsuits.  ³We will file in Colombia court to request Henk¹s release or at least to let him out of prison on bail or on house arrest,² he revealed, adding,  ³We will also sue the Colombia government in Colombia in an effort to have our mineral rights restored or to receive compensation.

  ³As for the first lawsuit we filed in April, 2005 against Drummond in the US, we will re-file in a US court against Drummond for racketeering in a scheme involving the Colombia president(Alvaro Uribe), and his top aide, Fabio Echeverri, and Ecopetrol, the Colombia mineral-rights agency,² concluded van Bilderbeek. ³And don¹t forget,  Garry N. Drummond, the CEO, himself has admitted that Echeverri worked in Colombia for Drummond Co. for some 15 years.²

 ³ I , myself, fear for my own life if I go to Colombia now,² said van Bilderbeek, ³and I would probably be arrested and thrown in prison with my brother.²

   According to van Bilderbeek, the Danish government has banned Denmark ports from receiving Drummond¹s Colombia coal in response to questions surrounding the unsolved murders of the Colombia union leaders. Van Bilderbeek said he would welcome similar action by the Dutch unions and Dutch government.

    Van Bilderbeek is a tenacious, diminutive Dutchman. Van Bilderbeek said his Jewish family suffered oppression under the Nazi occupation and  will not back down from what he terms as strong-arm tactics. Van Bilderbeek is majority owner and executive of the Llanos Oil Exploration Ltd. outfit which claims the Colombia oil field with a billion barrels potential.  Plus, Drummond, since receiving the former Llanos concession in December, 2003 near its La Loma coal mines, has discovered a lucrative natural gas field in the former Llanos Oil area---now Drummond¹s bailiwick which stretches for some 250,000 acres in Las Nieves (The  Snows) region near the border of oil-rich Venezuela.  

    Van Bilderbeek charges Drummond with a ³symbiotic and cooperative² relationship with both the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitary at the Drummond Co.¹s $500 million coal investment. The military connection‹including payoffs--- is validated directly by Garry N. Drummond,  who acknowledges at least a  half  million dollars in ³stipends² to Colombia military and police personnel. The jailed Garcia---the ³Colombia Canary²--- affirms he is an  eye-witness and ear-witness to Drummond¹s top man in Colombia, Augusto Jiminez, dealing with the paramilitary and its notorious right-wing death squads.

    Drummond officials and lawyers vehemently deny claims that Drummond pays paramilitary troops in Colombia or was involved in any wrongdoing to obtain the oil concession or was complicit in the 2001 murders of its three Colombia union leaders. In fact, president Uribe and Mr. Drummond met recently and Uribe issued a statement saying Garcia, the key witness, is lying because Drummond¹s Jiminez was out of Colombia at the time Garcia claims to have witnessed the  paramilitary ³payoff² meeting before the Colombia union killings.  In the Llanos case, Colombian government officials characterize the van Bilderbeek arguments regarding losing its oil rights as sour grapes and retort that the  Llanos executives are responsible for the problems which led to the jerking of the oil concession.                                           



                                                  ­end-

(Stephen Flanagan Jackson is associate editor of LatinAmericanPost.com of Bogota, Colombia and associate professor of Journalism at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Ala. Contact sfjackson10@hotmail.com.)