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US judge OKs May jury trial in Colombian union killings

by Stephen Flanagan Jackson --- LatinAmericanPost.com

An Alabama coal giant faces a May 14 jury trial for the 2001 wrongful deaths of three of its Colombian employees --- all union leaders at its coal mine in Colombia.

US Federal Judge Karon O. Bowdre allowed the charge --- a tort claim for damages --- to remain in the unsolved homicides of the three coal mine workers. The judge threw out several other charges against Drummond Company and its Colombia subsidiary for lack of evidence in a summary judgment hearing at the Hugo L. Black US Courthouse here Tuesday, Feb 27. The status of the blockbuster testimony of a key Colombia witness, Rafael García, remains up in the air. The original civil lawsuit was filed in March 2002 under the obscure Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789.

Drummond, headquartered in Birmingham, operates a lucrative coal mine in northeast Colombia --- a country mired in a long-running civil war. Drummond’s front in Colombia --- Drummond Limited --- ships its Colombian coal all over the world. One of Drummond’s largest customers is the Southern Company which receives the Colombian coal through the Port of Alabama in Mobile for its electric-generating plants throughout the southeastern United States, including Alabama Power. Other coal-burning electric plants around the USA buy from Drummond. Drummond’s largest international customer is Israel.

“All we need is just one charge,” said a satisfied labor lawyer, Terry Collingsworth of Washington, DC. Collingsworth, of the International Labor Relief Fund, is one of the stable of attorneys for the Colombia labor union. He said the judge’s ruling allows the case to move forward to a jury trial not only under the ATCA, but --- as a backup --- under Colombia's law. The union, SINTRAMIENERGETICA, claims Drummond employees were complicit in the three murders of the union officers, allegedly perpetrated by the paramilitary or right wing death squads, which, according to plaintiffs, share Drummond’s disdain for labor unions. The dead Colombians are Valmore Locarno, Victor Hugo Orcasita, and Gustavo Soler.

Drummond was represented at the hearing by William Jeffress, Jr. of Baker Botts, James Baker’s law firm of Washington. Drummond's attorneys sought to have the entire case dismissed. Jeffress has characterized the charges as “lies…damnable lies.” He said the controversial witness, García, is lying about seeing Drummond executive Augusto Jiminez pass to the right wing paramilitary money and orders to kill two of the union leaders.

At the conclusion of the three hour hearing, Judge Bowdre suggested that the opposing lawyers work toward arbitration or mediation “to save your clients’ money!”

The only news medium attending the hearing was LatinAmericanPost.com, the English-language newspaper/website out of Bogota, Colombia.

One other key witness --- also one of the original plaintiffs along with the slain men’s families and union --- for the Colombian labor union is currently unavailable. Jimmy Rubio has gone into “deep hiding” in Colombia, according to attorneys, after his father was murdered by right wing paramilitary. The killers cut out his father’s tongue and stuffed it down his throat --- a version of the Colombia necktie.

Judge Bowdre indicated she would consider testimony from García but has already ruled she will not permit his May 2006 declaration obtained by a Colombia labor union attorney to be used at trial. The judge asked both sides to report back to her later in March concerning arrangements for deposing García either in person from his Colombia prison cell or via videoconference so García “can be properly cross examined.” García, deemed the Colombian Canary, is a former Colombian government intelligence official. The jailed García is fingering corruption at the highest levels in Colombia, all the way to the presidency.

The judge said she is unsure if, in Colombia, Drummond controls the right wing paramilitary or if the right wing paramilitary controls Drummond. The US State Department has designated the right wing paramilitary as terrorists as well as the communist guerrillas, Latin America’s last armed, left wing insurgents who operate throughout Colombia and pose threats to Drummond’s coal mining and shipping in northeast Colombia.

Judge Bowdre also pointed out that the trial date is subject to change, depending on the availability and acceptability of García for a deposition. She said if the May 14 date cannot be met, then the trial would probably be re-scheduled for sometime next October.

The parade of pricey, prestigious lawyers continued for both plaintiffs and defendants in the case which is running under the US media radar. Joining the Colombian labor union counsel was the former University of Alabama linebacker and Academic All-American Robert “Bob” Childs, accompanied by a partner, Rusty Johnson, from his Birmingham firm. Jeffress, also representing Lewis “Scooter” Libby in his perjury case, was aided by Anthony Davis of Starnes & Atchison of Birmingham.

The judge, citing lack of evidence, dismissed most of the charges made by the Colombian union, including all charges against Drummond Company, Inc. and all charges under the Torture Victims Protection Act. Not only did Judge Bowdre refuse to “pierce the corporate veil,” she dropped Drummond Company CEO Garry N. Drummond, the University of Alabama trustee emeritus and member of the UA Business School Hall of Fame, as a defendant.

Drummond himself has admitted in an affidavit that he pays the Colombian military “stipends” to protect his dangerous Colombia mine. At the hearing, Drummond’s lawyer said it is known that some of the Colombia military moonlight as paramilitary, but “there is no definite proof” of this in the killings of the three union leaders.

Drummond’s attorney --- in a rather lengthy spiel before the judge --- also defended a pair of Spanish idioms that ostensibly add fuel to the fires of the accusations of Drummond complicity.

Drummond’s top executive in Colombia, the Harvard-educated Jiminez, was heard on several occasions to comment about the union leaders bellyaching about poor pay and poor working conditions: “El pescado que abre mismo boca y se muere!” Loosely translated, Jiminez was making the point --- not to be applied to fishermen --- that the fish that opens his mouth dies!

“Just a harmless idiom,” Jeffress told Judge Bowdre.

Then the Washington lawyer added that the same is true for another Spanish phrase. “The vulture is on the shoulder” comment attributed to Drummond management was not directed at any particular union member, and, therefore, according to Jeffress, innocuous.

Jeffress also told the judge that if the right-wing paramilitary had access to the Drummond coal mining compound “inside the fence, that had nothing to do with the murders.”

“From my understanding, the paramilitary engages in extortion, kidnapping, and drugs,” said Jeffress, “Drummond has a policy not to cooperate with those people. They (paramilitary) are fulltime criminals.”

“All of our evidence shows that the paramilitary were in and around the coal mining compound and receiving logistical support from Drummond,” the Colombian labor lawyer told Judge Bowdre.

García’s potentially incriminating testimony also points to a working relationship between Drummond and the powerful paramilitary of the Cesar state, the Bloque Norte, led by the notorious “Jorge Cuarenta” --- Rodrigo Pupo. The Colombian congressional representative from the area is looking into connections between Drummond and the paramilitary as well as Drummond’s suspicious links to a politically powerful family in Cesar, the Araujos. The solon, Miguel Duran, is also investigating charges that Drummond --- allegedly evading royalty payments to Colombia --- underreports coal sales and siphons money through the Cayman Islands.

Stephen Jackson is associate professor of Journalism at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Contact sfjackson10@hotmail.com or (205) 366-8858

Editor's note: From time to time The Panama News has published articles and columns by Stephen Jackson, who came to Panama in 1995 to help train reporters at El Panama America and who has stayed in touch. In order to do this story, he has had to do something newsworthy in its own right --- mounting a successful challenge in a US court of appeals to Judge Bowdre's gag order that sealed documents in the court file of this case and prohibited parties and attorneys from talking to the press about the matters raised in those documents.

The activities of Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries have received much international attention lately. Based on the testimony of this case's Mr. García and others a number of politicians close to President Álvaro Uribe have been disgraced for their ties to these organizations, most notably Colombia´s foreign minister, who resigned after her father and brother, both pro-Uribe legislators, were arrested for paramilitary  groups. Then the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands, which also operates in Panama, admitted to making payoffs to the AUC paramilitaries but offered as its excuse that it also paid the FARC guerrillas.

Both the right-wing AUC and the left-wing FARC are officially listed as terrorists by the US State Department but the Bush administration has never seen fit to invoke either the Patriot Act or the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act against US corporations that finance paramilitary violence abroad.

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