Oil in a Time of War
Dudley, Steven & Murillo, Mario
As protests over the privatization of oil and the growing power of foreign capital are met with militarization and repression, Colombia's oil industry is becoming another theater of...
...7 The most well-documented cases are the murders of several they I USO leaders who were assassinated by criticize the naval intelligence network of Barrancabermeja in the department of Petrc Santander...
...Gabriel Narvdrez, an advisor to the El Morro Association, says that the murders were the work of paramilitary forces contracted by BP...
...2. Authors' interview, William Giraldo, Chief Press Officer for Ecopetrol, October 1997...
...2 These association contracts were first implemented in 1969 as a way to insure that foreign companies, with their state-of-the-art technology, would keep exploring the country for oil...
...The report quoted sources which accused DSC of providing names and photographs of community activists who have organized against BP's activities to local paramilitary groups...
...By the 1960s, Ecopetrol was drilling in previously unexplored areas and finding several large reserves that other companies had overlooked...
...4, September/October 1996, pp...
...World in Action documented these relationships in El Morro, a community in Casanare, in the heart of BP's newest oil installations...
...9 rC a ne n h When the company was created in 1951, there was great hope that it would one day be able to compete with the multinationals...
...Oil is Colombia's most important commodity...
...Established in the early 1990s with the assistance of U.S...
...Most of Ecopetrol's future earnings, however, depend on its association with British Petroleum, which in 1997 began extracting crude from the largest oil deposit ever discovered in Colombia, the Cusiana, located in the eastern department of Casanare...
...The Colombian government has continued to investigate the charges, while BP has tried to put a positive spin on the negative publicity...
...Using the conflict as one of their arguments, Ecopetrol and the Colombian government are trying convince the Colombian people that there is no longer a need for a state-owned oil company...
...This past November, moreover, Colombia's Superintendent of Security designated the Rural Cooperatives of Self-Defense and Security, known as the Convivir, to assist in the protection of multinational operations...
...Compared to coffee, which in 1996 represented 3.4% of the gross national product (GNP) and 15.2% of Colombia's exports, oil accounted for 4.3% of the GNP and 26.8% of the country's exports...
...Cusiana, for example, was discovered by Ecopetrol in the early 1970s, but the company lacked the resources to access the main deposits...
...In 1988, the com"pany explored 3,245 square miles of ter-gotiates ritory, but by 1996 that figure was down to 621, and last year there was no explo- ction ration at all...
...In December 1996, for example, 20 USO members and five non-union affiliated engineers were detained and charged with rebellion by the attorney general's office...
...There is mounting evidence, moreover, that directly implicates British Petroleum in the dirty war against those who oppose its growing power in the industry...
...The poverty and environmental devastation that follow oil, as well as the devastating effects that the industry has had on the indigenous peoples of oil-rich regions (see "The U'Wa Struggle to Survive," p. 45), have brought oil into the center of the ELN's political discourse and military strategy...
...BP has not limited its protection contracts to the Colombian armed'forces...
...While the growing influence of multinationals has prompted a military response from the ELN, and to a lesser extent from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the powerful Worker's Trade Union (USO), which represents Ecopetrol workers, has been unwavering in its rejection of the government's privatization schemes and has been quick to mobilize workers against further renegotiations of the company's contracts with multinationals...
...3 From the outset, however, association contracts with foreign companies have undermined Ecopetrol's ability to develop independently...
...As part of the Samper Administration's efforts to secure new infusions of capital, Ecopetrol's board of directors announced a new round of contract changes in October 1997, designed to attract an additional $4 billion in foreign investment...
...Cobaria denied any connection with the guerrillas, stating that all external interference in U'Wa territory, whether by paramilitaries, guerrillas, the armed forces or Occidental, was against the interest of his community...
...The military also forced the population to move some three miles away from the oil well, ostensibly for their own protection...
...5. These and other oil statistics are from Ecopetrol, and can be found on their website at <www.coltrade.com...
...Beginning with the exploitation of the Cusiana reserve, however, companies like British Petroleum began A soldier stands by a stream polluted with oil, following an ELN attack on an oil installation in January 1997 in Arauca, Colombia...
...This, however, has not stopped the attorney general's office from persecuting the USO leadership...
...As protests over the privatization of oil and the growing power of foreign capital are met with militarization and repression, Colombia's oil industry is becoming another theater of the country's ongoing war...
...With the exception of Occidental, moreover, Colombia does not represent a high percentage of any one company's overseas investments-in most cases less than 10...
...been gradual but devastating...
...This transnationalization of Ecopetrol, along with the government's persistent threats to formally privatize the company, have generated widespread opposition from various quarters...
...Today, Ecopetrol is at the center of the government's move towards the privatization of key state industries...
...9. Robert Weiner, "War By Other Means: Colombia's Faceless Courts," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...While BP denies any connection between their security personnel and the El Morro murders, it has acknowledged that it employs private security forces to protect its facilities in Colombia...
...This has left Ecopetrol at the ts directly whim of the multinationals, which often use Ecopetrol's information and then e army...
...Human Rights Watch, Colombia's Killer Networks...
...We need protection and we use experts in security because we are an oil and exploration company," Phil Mead, associate president of BP's Colombia office, told World in Action...
...6. La RepOblica (Bogota), November 27, 1997...
...29, No...
...After public accusations against the company, Occidental's president eventually retracted his statements...
...The department of Arauca, where the Cusiana its say deposit is located, has one of the highest rates of illegal detention, while in the ers were department of North Santander, which is )rk of traversed by the Caiio Lim6n-Coveiias pipeline, forced disappearances have iry forces reached alarming numbers...
...Some sources have suggested that these heavily armed civilian groups, which are reported to have close ties with the paramilitaries, will be assigned toEcopetrol installations...
...Since 1987, over 80 members have been assassinated, the majority by paramilitary forces working in conjunction VOL XXXI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1998 43REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA Six people from El Morro were killed in 1996 after with the government...
...departments alone account for almost 10% of the confrontations between guerrillas and the military...
...According to Ecopetrol, the workers' request is being considered, but no changes have as yet been implemented...
...Steven Dudley is a freelance journalist and researcher In 1995, he volunteered with Peace Brigades international in Barrancabermeja, Colombia...
...Colombian armed forces and the paramilitaries against two powerful guerrilla groups...
...With each successive renegotiation, the company's revenue base and its negotiating position vis-A-vis the multinationals have deteriorated...
...Last year, the company announced that it was moving its Latin America headquarters to neighboring Venezuela...
...According to the report, employees of Defense Systems Colombia (DSC), DSL's local subsidiary, train Colombian police officers in counterinsurgency techniques on BP rigs while wearing Colombian police uniforms...
...As the oil industry has become increasingly embroiled in Colombia's armed conflict, observers on all sides agree that one of the key issues that must be addressed in any future peace talks is oil...
...This, in turn, has resulted in a gradual but dramatic decrease in the number of active Ecopetrol wells-from 216 in 1986 to only two today...
...As a result, USO leaders have become the targets of detentions and brutal attacks from the armed forces and the paramilitaries...
...government with $37 million from the Agency for International Development (AID...
...The national government, the armed forces and the municipalities where the companies operate receive a total of 20% in royalties, while the other 80% is split evenly between Ecopetrol and BP...
...They were tried in Colombia's infamous regional court system, which was created in 1991 at the behest of the U.S...
...The most recent wave of attacks, however, comes at a time when the political struggles over Ecopetrol's future have become increasingly embroiled in the armed conflict that has pitted the Mario Murillo is host and producer of "Our Americas: The Weekly Report on Latin America and the Caribbean" at WBAI Radio, and is a member of NACLA's editorial board...
...Compared to private oil companies, only a small fraction of Ecopetrol's profits are reinvested in the company for growth and exploration...
...Colombia's Secret Soldiers," BBC World in Action Special Report, 1997...
...3. Authors' interview, William Giraldo...
...In addition, it enjoys widespread support among the population because of its historic role in the struggle for the nationalization of oil and the creation of Ecopetrol in the 1940s...
...Our specialty is not security, so we use firms to give us advice on security training...
...6 The Samper Administration has reason to fear, since the USO is one of the country's strongest labor unions...
...The multinationals, meanwhile, are lurking like vultures, waiting to get their claws on Ecopetrol's carcass...
...and El Colombiano (Bogota), August 17, 1995...
...The violence against civilian political activists, coupled with the militarization of oil-producing regions in NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 42REPORT ON CHIAPAS &t COLOMBIA the context of the war against the guerrilla, have turned the country's oil industry into yet another theater of its ongoing war...
...out all exploration...
...5 Multinationals extract virtually all the oil produced in Colombia, giving them tremendous leverage at the bargaining table...
...On 65 different occassions in 1997, the National Liberation Army (ELN) attacked the pipeline installations of Colombia's state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol...
...8. Human Rights Watch/Americas, Colombia's Killer Networks: The Military-Paramilitary Partnership and the United States (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996...
...Large-scale privatization initiatives began during the government of C6sar Gaviria (1990-1994), who enacted a series of labor and tariff reforms in order to make Colombia more appealing to international investors...
...Within the logic of the Samper Administration, however, union activists are only an appendage of a much larger threat to its oil policies-the ELN...
...Private Colombian investors in the industry are few and far through between, and those that do exist, like the tax of $1 powerful Santo Domingo Group, have been limited to marginal enterprises like NOW it r fuel distribution and pipeline construction...
...9 Although these regional tribunals were established to prosecute drug dealers and guerrillas, they have also been widely used to persecute activists from peasant and workers' unions and other social movements...
...and "Y sin embargo se exporta," Tiempos del Mundo (Bogota), November 27, 1997...
...31-36...
...Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1997...
...The USO responded by threatening a progressive slow-down of operations until a "zero-hour," when its members would go on strike nationwide...
...Since 1986, the ELN has carried out 636 pipeline bombings, which have cost Ecopetrol an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue...
...4 Atection Further renegotiations in 1973 drove the government to the brink of bank- flat war ruptcy, forcing Ecopetrol to slowly phase ,er barrel...
...These two d by BP...
...As a result, BP, with an investment of $140 million, was able to locate and exploit these wells...
...Precisely for this reason, however, USO leaders have been targets of brutal repression...
...This was the case in the southern department of Putumayo, for example, where the army set up military installations inside Ecopetrol facilities...
...While it is true that some of the founding members of the USO belonged to the ELN in the 1960s, there is no evidence of a formal connection between the two organizations...
...4. Rene de la Pedraja, Energy Politics in Colombia...
...Given the wave of paramilitary violence sweeping the country and the government's strategy to do away with all possible bases of support for the guerrillas, Occidental's accusations were tantamount to a death sentence for Cobaria...
...If the numerous association contracts 5, the oil signed during this period are paidfor any indication, this strategy was paid for successful...
...The Samper Administration has continued Gaviria's policies, but has not succeeded in privatizing Ecopetrol, in large part due to the efforts of the USO...
...Another case is that of Roberto Cobaria, chief of the U'wa, who was accused by Occidental Petroleum of opposing exploration on tribal lands because of pressure from the ELN.14 The not-so-subtle insinuation was that the U'wa were sympathetic to the ELN's cause and supported the guerrilla's attacks against oil installations...
...It was so successful that the multinationals began to point Ecopetrol to areas that they knew were dry so that Ecopetrol would give up exploring...
...El cadaver de un pastor en el laberinto de las violencias," Justicia y Paz (Bogota), October-December 1991...
...Last November, President Samper announced that oil was one of the issues he was willing to discuss with the guerrillas...
...Ecopetrol Until 19 is the largest state-owned company in industn Colombia and the only national interest that actually owns a majority of any part army p of the industry...
...apply their capital to get at the most prof- itable wells...
...In an unprecedented move, the army assigned 3,000 troops from its 16th Brigade to the area surrounding BP's Cusiana installations in early 1996...
...Colombian Rebels Dynamite Another Oil Pipeline," Associated Press, December 27, 1997...
...Oil in a Time of War 1. See Ren6 de la Pedraja Tomdn, Energy Politics in Colombia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989...
...Six people from the association were killed in 1996 after they publicly criticized BP's environmental and security practices...
...Under these agreements, multinationals and Ecopetrol share exploration costs as well as information about current and previous attempts to find new deposits...
...This means that foreign companies can pull out at any time without suffering great losses...
...Of the 636 ELN attacks against pipeline installations since 1986, 503 have targetted the Caiio Lim6n-Covefias pipeline, which transports some 170,000 barrels of oil per day from Occidental Petroleum's Caiio Limon facility in the eastern department of Aurauca to the port of pL 'I d ta te Covefias in the northwestern department Publicly of Sucre, cutting across one of the ELN's j British principal areas of influence.' 0 The government has responded by militarizing eum's these areas and terrorizing the local population, whom they presume to be guerntal and rilla supporters...
...3 British and Colombian human rights groups are concerned that any collaboration between BP and Colombian security forces in counterinsurgency matters will inevitably lead to more human rights violations...
...The military's attempts to protect the oil infra- structure from guerrilla attacks has often put civilians in the crossfire between the armed forces and the guerrillas...
...Although they are considered legal, human rights groups like the Colombian Commission of Jurists and Human Rights Watch have accused the Convivir of committing human rights abuses against civilians.12 Until 1995, the oil industry indirectly paid for the protection of the armed forces through a flat war tax of $1 per barrel...
...negotiating protection agreements directly with the armed forces...
...This militarization has policies...
...7. See El Tiempo (Bogota), May 11, 1993 and January, 14, 1994...
...A 1997 BBC World In Action investigative report entitled "Colombia: BP's Secret Soldiers" documented that in 1992, BP contracted the services of Defense Systems Limited (DSL), a private military training company that provides counterinsurgency services in 26 countries...
...Ecopetrol's exports have quadrupled prot since 1986 and there is still much poten- agreeme tial for growth...
...intelligence environn personnel, this paramilitary network has security assassinated over 100 community leaders and union activists in the region.8 Reside The Samper Administration has pub- the mur licly denounced the union as a "terrorist cartel" and has accused its leadership of the v belonging to the ELN in a thinly veiled attempt to discredit the USQ and justify paramilii legal persecution and paramilitary vio- contract lence against its leaders...
...While the community initially welcomed the oil company, local leaders have now created an association to protest the contamination of their fresh-water supply during BP's construction of a new road...
...In addition to its systematic attacks against oil pipelines, the group has continued to attack and kidnap industry officials...
...1 But as with many public enterprises, a large portion of its revenue with ti is used to pay off the debt of the other public-sector companies...
...While the company has not yet been formally privatized, neoliberal reforms have virtually gutted it, opening the way for transnational capital and making Ecopetrol's future increasingly dependent on the likes of Occidental Petroleum and British Petroleum (BP...
...But given the fact that the industry is almost entirely in the hands of multinationals, what there is to be discussed remains unclear...
...The workers complained that the presence of the army put them in jeopardy in the event of a direct guerrilla attack, and they asked for a one-kilometer buffer zone between the company's installations and the military base...
...The presence of paramilitaries, moreover, has only exacerbated the violence in the region...
Vol. 31 • March 1998 • No. 5
