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US mining firm denies death squad ties

The US-based coal company Drummond denied any relationship with far-right death squads in Colombia and said it has no intention of settling a US lawsuit that alleges its complicity in the murder of three labor leaders.

A federal judge in Alabama this month allowed a civil suit to go forward against Drummond Co Inc for allegedly paying a hit squad to kill three union leaders at one of its Colombian mines in 2001.

Colombia's chief prosecutor on Tuesday also announced a formal criminal investigation into allegations Drummond, based in Birmingham, Alabama, had ties with the paramilitaries.

"Drummond publicly states that it has not nor will it make any payments, agreements or transactions with illegal groups and emphatically denies that the company or any of its executives has had any involvement with the murder of three labor union leaders," the company said in a statement on Thursday. "It will not settle with the plaintiffs."

Drummond's defense comes as another US multinational, fruit giant Chiquita Brands, has acknowledged funneling US$1.7 million to far-right paramilitary militias in Colombia. The company agreed to pay a fine of US$25 million.

Colombian authorities are investigating whether to bring criminal charges against Chiquita's executives and seek their extradition to stand trial here.

Colombia is embroiled in its worst political scandal in decades as revelations continue to emerge tying the country's political class -- many of them backers of President Alvaro Uribe -- to the paramilitaries, which have trafficked extensively in cocaine, committed massacres and stolen millions of hectares of land from peasants.

Drummond mines coal along the Caribbean coast, a longtime paramilitary stronghold. At Thursday's news conference, local Drummond vice president Jose Miguel Linares acknowledged that one of the company's directors, Alfredo Araujo, is a cousin of Senator Alvaro Araujo, who was jailed last month on charges of conspiring with the paramilitaries to kidnap a political rival.

Alvaro Araujo's father, a regional political power broker, is wanted on the same charge.

The scandal prompted Senator Araujo's sister, Maria Consuelo, to step down as foreign minister.

Drummond said it has full confidence in Alfredo Araujo.

The company also appears to have been shaken by accusations from a former paramilitary collaborator, Rafael Garcia, who is serving a prison sentence for wiping clean the records of drug traffickers when he worked for the secret police.

Garcia says he was present when the president of Drummond Colombia, Augusto Jimenez, handed over "a suitcase full of money" in 2001 to a representative of regional paramilitary warlord Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, better known as "Jorge 40."

"Mr. Jimenez indicated at this meeting that this money was to be given to Rodrigo Tovar Pupo to assassinate specific union leaders at Drummond," Garcia said in a written statement last year to the lawyers of the three murdered union leaders.

A Drummond lawyer, Hugo Palacios, said on Thursday that the company "emphatically denies" such a meeting. "We are confident that it will be proven that Garcia's testimony is false," he said.
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