President Bush’s proposed $98 million for protection of Occidental Petroleum ‘s (OXY) pipeline reveals the hidden agenda behind the Bush Administration’s Colombia policy-namely subsidizing and securing US corporations’ access to Colombia’s oil reserves.
Amazon Watch opposes President Bush’ plan to subsidize security costs for a socially irresponsible corporation bent on operating in a war zone. This strategy is a sure recipe for increased abuses against indigenous and local communities that may have legitimate concerns about OXY’s operations.
Disturbingly, OXY was one of the only US oil companies who last year refused to sign the Clinton Administration’s Voluntary Principals on Security and Human Rights, a code of conduct aimed at preventing human rights abuses by private security and police forces hired to protect company installations.
In recent years, the company has repeatedly called the military to the Siriri concession to break up peaceful blockades by the U’wa people who have been resisting drilling on their sacred territory. Two indigenous children died during one such attack and others were injured.
In June 2001, a Colombian judicial inquiry exposed active collaboration between AirScan, OXY’s private security firm guarding the pipeline, and the Colombian military. Eighteen civilians, mostly children, were killed when AirScan helped an air attack on the village of Santo Domingo by providing information gathered during security work for OXY. The plane’s infrared equipment was used to pinpoint ground targets.
OXY’s Colombia operation is not solely a victim of guerrilla sabotage but a principal contributor to the cycle of violence in the region. Oil production is funding all sides of the conflict. It has been widely reported that the FARC have long taxed a percentage of the pipeline’s revenues destined for the province of Arauca. The rise in the ELN’s power in Colombia can also be directly traced to the mid 1980s when millions of dollars in payoffs by OXY’s contractors to the group – then a fledgling band of rebels – – helped ensure the Caño Limon pipeline met its construction schedule. Revealing the ethically questionable lengths to which OXY goes to operate in Colombia, a company official testified before a Congressional subcommittee in 2000 that employees are “regularly shaken down” by both the FARC and ELN guerrilla groups and are “required to pay a ‘war tax’ to both or they will not be able to work.” While the guerrillas have caused millions in damages to the pipeline, right wing paramilitaries have siphoned at least $5 million by illegally tapping the pipeline.
OXY’s war zone operation is not politically viable. The pipeline has been a magnet for violence because the Colombian state oil company, Ecopetrol, is the major beneficiary. The pipeline’s revenues are the primary source of funding for the Colombian military. Furthermore, since the early 1990’s, the Colombian military has charged a per barrel tax to fund its campaign against the guerrillas. Already one in four soldiers are assigned to protecting oil installations.
As long as there is civil strife, there will be pipeline bombings. Security experts say the 500-mile above ground pipeline running through remote countryside cannot be effectively secured.
Throughout its sixteen-year history, the pipeline has been bombed over 1000 times, spilling more than 2.5 million barrels of crude amounting to more than 10 times the size of Exxon Valdez into the environment and rivers. These spills have not been adequately cleaned up and have despoiled fragile environments.
Having depleted its current reserves, OXY is now faced with declining oil production unless it soon finds new oil reserves. The country’s largest oil reserve is beneath the land the U’wa people call their sacred territory. Will US military aid be used to impose oil drilling on the U’wa?
The Bush administration admits that the pipeline protection program is a change in strategy from fighting a drug war to fighting insurgents. It appears the Administration is driven more by a desire to protect US oil investments than to find solutions to the four-decade long conflict. The US public should consider whether the Administration’s proposal is influenced by OXY’s contributions of nearly half a million dollars to the GOP.
The US’s involvement in a war against the guerrillas and in defense of big oil will not bring peace, democracy or sustainable development to Colombia. It will however, place more innocent communities in the crossfire and drag the US deeper into an un-winnable war. Congress should reject this dangerous brand of corporate welfare and instead investigate OXY’s role in fueling violence and human rights abuses in Colombia.
