Last month, the Comisión Colombiana de Juristas (CCJ) in alliance with PAX Colombia and the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria Minera, Petroquímicas, Agrocombustibles y Energética (Sintramienergética) submitted a report entitled Drummond Ltda. Coal Mining: epicenter of persecutions, assassinations and violations to freedom of association to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP, for its Spanish acronym). The report focuses on the violence suffered by the union Sintramienergetica, including the extermination of its leadership in 2001.
As background, March 2021 marked the 20th anniversary of the killings of union leaders Valmore Locarno and Victor Orcasita at the hands of Colombian paramilitary members from the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), allegedly funded, in part, by Alabama-based coal company Drummond Company, Inc. and its Colombian subsidiary, Drummond, Ltd. At the time of the deaths, Valmore and Victor were President and Vice-President, respectively, of Sintramienergética, the union that represents hundreds of Drummond’s coal workers in Colombia. Gustavo Soler, who then replaced Valmore as the union’s President, was killed a few months later. As is clear in retrospect, the wave of killings actually began in February 2001, when Candido Mendez, a member of the union who had been actively engaged in organizing efforts, was executed in his home.
These systematic killings decapitated the union and silenced its membership, but Sintramienergética was nevertheless able to survive as one of the largest unions in Colombia. Sintra, as it is colloquially known as, continues its fight for truth and justice.
The 20th anniversary commemoration saw an increase in efforts to hold those who played a role in these crimes accountable. Now, a year later, Sintramienergetica, NGOs, and victims have submitted multiple reports to Colombia’s transitional justice mechanisms, including the JEP, providing evidence with respect to the role that multinationals, including Drummond, had in the violence against union members and campesino communities in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During that time, while the armed conflict escalated and illegal paramilitary groups expanded, coal companies operating in Colombia saw their profits increase. The expansion of illegal paramilitary groups (particularly the AUC’s Juan Andres Alvarez front) can be associated, to some extent, with evidence of funding by corporate actors in the region. CAL also submitted a report to the JEP on this issue in March 2022.
This blog post is an update to CAL’s blog from April 2021. This post provides additional information on the union leaders’ assassinations while describing their organizing work, the context in which they were killed, and the ongoing fight against impunity for their deaths.
Evidence regarding responsibility for the murders of the union leaders
On February 19, 2001, Candido Mendez, a Sintramienergética member, was killed in front of his family when several men showed up at his house in the middle of the night and tried to forcibly remove him. When Candido resisted, he was shot in front of his wife and son. There was no investigation or any type of inquiry in the aftermath of this assassination. Valmore made inquiries about the crime and circulated internal communications within Sintramienergetica regarding the matter. Weeks later, he was killed. According to his family, Candido’s death was likely a result of his active involvement in organizing efforts and public questioning of the company, Drummond, due to an increased presence of heavily armed paramilitary groups at Drummond’s cafeteria. When his family attempted to investigate Candido’s death, his son was threatened.
On March 12, 2001, paramilitary members intercepted a bus carrying Drummond workers returning home after a long shift at Drummond’s Pribbenow mine. Paramilitaries boarded the bus, identified Victor and Valmore and forced them off. Paramilitary members killed Valmore in front of his co-workers. They took Victor to a different location, where they tortured and killed him. Leading up to their deaths, Valmore and Victor advocated for better work conditions at the Drummond coal mine and publicly denounced the violent actions by and suspicious presence of paramilitary groups in the region, including at the Drummond coal mine (particularly its cafeteria). Shortly after the killings, Gustavo Soler, Victor and Valmore’s close friend, assumed Sintramienergética’s presidency, only to be assassinated months later.
Since that time, several lawsuits have been filed against Drummond for its alleged involvement in the hiring of paramilitary mercenaries to silence union activists. For years, these killings were met with impunity, until Colombian prosecutors initiated formal investigations against former paramilitary members and a Drummond contractor, Jaime Blanco. In 2013, Blanco was convicted for the murders of Valmore and Victor. In his testimony, Blanco (and paramilitary members in their own testimonies) explained how a carefully designed scheme involving his enterprise, a food service company, and Drummond, financed the AUC’s Bloque Norte, the region’s deadly paramilitary front. Allegedly, the union’s efforts to advocate for improved work conditions while publicly denouncing paramilitary groups led to the decision to decapitate the union while characterizing the union leadership as “leftist guerrilla sympathizers.” Today, Blanco’s case is being examined by the JEP. His submission and proposed plan are currently under review (see our blog on combating corporate impunity to learn more about the Blanco case and opportunities in the Colombian Transitional Justice process).
The union leaders' families and affected community members have filed several civil lawsuits against Drummond in Alabama, but none of them have been resolved in a meaningful way. The declarations obtained in many of these processes nevertheless corroborate previous testimonies that point to the role of a financial scheme involving Drummond that benefited the AUC.
The pursuit of truth and justice
In December 2020, after years of lapses in the investigations, the prosecutor’s office in Colombia, Fiscalía, formally accused two Drummond executives of financing paramilitary groups and complicity in gross human rights violations. This has been the first promising step toward accountability for human rights abuses during the Colombian conflict. (In 2004, Chiquita Brands International, the U.S.-based banana company, officially accepted responsibility for financing paramilitary groups in Colombia after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation. However, there have been no convictions in Colombia while the complex multi-district litigation process against Chiquita moves through a federal court in Florida).
Civil society has called for the two Drummond executives indicted for gross human rights violations, Jose Miguel Linares, Drummond’s president, and Augusto Jimenez, Drummond’s former president, to submit their cases to the JEP with the hope that they would contribute toward truth and justice by clarifying Drummond’s alleged role and participation in the conflict. It is important to highlight that the JEP does not have mandatory jurisdiction over economic actors. Instead, such actors have the opportunity to voluntarily submit their cases to the JEP for review, which they are incentivized to do because JEP jurisdiction affords them certain benefits. In this case, Linares and Jimenez chose not to present their cases to the JEP, but instead appealed the indictment. This is currently an ongoing case.
Although the fight for justice and truth has been slow and painful, Sintramienergética’s members, including those who personally witnessed the moment Victor and Valmore were violently removed from the bus (and one of them shot in front of their eyes), continue to fight for truth and accountability. Candido’s family, including his daughter, Maira, are actively engaged in Sintramienergetica’s activities and are dedicated to advocacy on behalf of truth and justice. Last year, in celebration of the lives of the assassinated union leaders, the union hosted a commemorative event in which members called for accountability, not only for the killings of their friends, but also for Drummond’s alleged involvement in several other alleged human rights violations, including displacement and the impact of coal extraction on the environment and surrounding communities (see Sintramienergética’s Facebook page for a full video of the event). In the midst of continuous victimization, union members and victims’ families convened to talk about the past, the present, and the future of the coal industry with hopes of truth and justice. Sintramienergética’s relentless fight specifically demands that Blanco contribute to the truth-seeking process at the JEP and accountability through an exhaustive investigation.
Now, after recent report submissions to the JEP on these issues, there is hope that these killings and all related violations against Sintramienergética will no longer be met with impunity. As the JEP develops its next group of macro-casos (an assortment of cases combined into a general case based on issue, actor, or region), and the criminal case against Drummond executives continues, victims’ families and the union, in partnership with several organizations, have combined efforts to ensure that the alleged role of coal mining companies, including Drummond, in the financing of illegal paramilitary groups and attacks against the union, is not ignored. On March 16, CAL participated in a special hearing at the JEP to support its efforts to open a case to investigate the role that economic actors, in alliance with state actors, had in the armed conflict.
Colombia’s civil conflict and the role of companies
These killings took place in a complex conflict setting. Colombia’s decades-long conflict, a civil war between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups, and official security forces, involved gross human rights violations, including forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, displacement, and a generalized and pervasive pattern of continuous violence that disproportionately affected marginalized communities. (Read more on our blog on corporate accountability and transitional justice in Colombia and beyond for more background on this issue). In this context, Colombia began a peace process in 2016, which culminated with the current transitional justice system that established a Truth Commission (CEV for its Spanish acronym), the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP for its Spanish acronym), and a Special Unit to locate disappeared victims (see our blog on combating corporate impunity to learn more about opportunities in the Colombian Transitional Justice Process).
Although many of the human rights violations that occurred during the armed conflict led to administrative and judicial processes, as well as processes within formal transitional justice mechanisms, the role of economic actors has barely been explored. Economic actor accountability in this context is rare and impunity for anti-union violence and calculated efforts to exterminate union leaders remains the norm. (This is not a problem unique to Colombia, which is why we created the Corporate Accountability and Sustainable Peace Lab to further explore these issues and advance corporate accountability in transitional settings).
Remembering Valmore, Victor, Gustavo and Candido
Perhaps one of the best ways to uphold the pillars of transitional justice, including truth and reconciliation, is to remember and celebrate the lives of those who fought for justice and advocated for their fellow workers with the knowledge that doing so put them at serious risk. Reflecting on the impunity that continues to characterize this matter, along with many others in Colombia (and beyond), it is important to center the victims’ families and those individuals and organizations that were directly impacted by these killings, to listen to their concerns and seek to address their demands. Valmore, Victor, Gustavo and Candido’s lives are not forgotten, and by sharing their story and the fight against impunity, we keep their memory alive.
This post is also available in Spanish.
Tatiana Devia is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab.
