The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project accompanied the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) at the recent meeting of the Roundtable for Human Rights in the face of corporate power (la Mesa por los DDHH frente al poder empresarial) and the United Nations Business and Human Rights Working Group.
Agencia de Prensa IPC has tweeted:
“#BusinessAndHumanRights @OscarRamirez_P from @comite_CSPP makes visible the criminalization of leaders of the community of San Luis de Palenque, Casanare, who opposed the social, environmental and cultural impacts generated by Frontera Energy (…)”
The tweet continues:
“Judicialization is one of the multiple risks that those who defend their human rights must face against extractive activities carried out by national and transnational companies in Colombia.”
La Mesa has summarized:
“In 2005, the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development, through Resolution No. 2147, granted an environmental license for the Cubiro Exploratory Block project, in Trinidad and San Luis de Palenque, Casanare.
Although the license warns of a series of potential effects on the social and economic infrastructure of the population, the impacts reported by the communities resulting from the project exceed these warnings.
Thus, two types of effects were identified: (i) the contamination of water sources, generation of respiratory and health problems for the communities and other living beings; and (ii) the non-compliance with economic obligations – approximately 3.4 billion pesos that were not paid to the community at the time of the protests, despite the fact that they provided transportation, food, lodging, among other services, for two years.
As a way of demanding payment of this debt and compliance with the regulations that protected people and the environment, several working groups were held in which unfulfilled agreements were reached between the community, represented by leaders such as Ferney Salcedo, Yulivel Leal, Jesús Leal, Miguel Angel Rincón, Carmen Salcedo, Josue Eliecer Rincón, María Teresa Rincón and Jerónimo Salcedo.
As a result of the company’s failure to comply with its commitments, between 2017 and 2018 the community and various leaders, exercising their rights, held peaceful mobilizations, which led to the prosecution of the same leaders who had been recognized for participating in the negotiations, since according to intelligence reports, they were part of an alleged organized crime group called “Los Jinetes con careta.”
In this regard, after the raid on their homes, which involved the participation of a large number of members of the public force and helicopters, the Attorney General’s Office irregularly and improperly accused them of having committed crimes such as conspiracy to commit a crime, violence against a public servant and obstruction of public roads, and two of them of attempted homicide due to the assault suffered by a member of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad at a demonstration in 2018 (where the identity of the man who assaulted him is still unknown).
Prensa Libre video: On November 16 and 19, 2018, Frontera Energy signed agreements with the Colombian Ministry of Defence. On November 27, 2018, the army and police launched a massive operation and arrested the social leaders.
However, the initiation of criminal proceedings against the 8 leaders (where the victims are Frontera Energy and Ecopetrol) would not have been possible without the existence of figures that allow the establishment of links between the companies, the accusing entity and the public force, such as the cooperation and/or collaboration agreements regulated in Resolution 5342 of 2014 of the Ministry of Defense.
Thus, in the present case, it was established that, prior to the criminalization and opening of criminal proceedings, agreements were signed, where:
i- 10 months before the capture of the victims, Ecopetrol (a partner of Frontera Energy) agreed to pay $17,600,983,146 pesos to the FGN for the creation of a unit called the Hydrocarbon Support Structure (EDA) so that the entity could investigate conduct such as the obstruction of public roads and the use of roads during social protests;
ii- 11 days before the arrest, the company paid the Ministry of Defense a total of $2.34 billion pesos, with the objective that the National Army would provide special protection to the areas of impact of the project (this same entity was one of those that participated in the construction of the intelligence report that led the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate the criminal proceedings);
iii- and 3 days after the mass capture, another agreement was signed between the same parties for an amount of $2.340 million to be executed within a period of one month and twelve days, which also had the objective of protecting the areas of interest of the company.”
The Mesa has also noted:
“The judicial process is currently in the oral trial stage and to date, 6 witnesses have been presented and more than 40 people are still pending to testify on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office. Of more than 100 proposed documentary evidence, only 4 have been incorporated so far. In addition to the delay in the process, which has lasted approximately 5 years, an improper use of criminal law has been established, establishing a violation of other rights such as freedom from arbitrary interference, arbitrary detention and stigmatization (article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).”
We continue to follow this closely.
Photo: PBI-Canada visits with social leaders in San Luis de Palenque, Casanare, criminalized for their opposition to the Canadian company Frontera Energy; July 1, 2022.
Published by Brent Patterson on