{"id":158533,"date":"2015-06-11T11:22:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T11:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=158533"},"modified":"2015-06-11T11:22:14","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T11:22:14","slug":"big-oils-ethical-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/big-oils-ethical-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Oil\u2019s Ethical Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

International attention has once again turned to the murky record of BP\u2019s oil operations in Colombia. The High Court in London is to hear a case against BP<\/a>, filed on behalf of Gilberto Torres, a former trade unionist who was kidnapped and tortured by state-linked<\/a> paramilitaries in\u00a02002. In a trial in Colombia, the kidnappers said that they took direct orders from pipeline operator Ocensa, in which BP had a\u00a015% stake. They stated that Ocensa paid them an extra\u00a0$40,000 for the job.<\/p>\n

Legal cases such as this are vital: they aim to hold corporations to account and to contest systematic impunity<\/a>. Torres\u2019s London-based lawyers hope the lawsuit will open the way to hundreds of other cases on behalf of community leaders, activists and trade unionists killed or \u2018disappeared\u2019. BP, which withdrew from the Casanare region of Colombia four years ago, denies any connection with paramilitary groups. It has said it will \u2018vigorously\u2019 defend the action and that Ocensa was not under its control when Torres was abducted.<\/p>\n

The case is particularly significant because Casanare can be considered the birthplace of big oil\u2019s concern with human rights. In the mid-1990s, BP faced extensive criticism<\/a> for its links with the Colombian army and \u2013 by extension \u2013 with paramilitaries accused of assassinating environmentalists, community activists and trade unionists. The company was quick to \u2018learn from mistakes\u2019<\/a> and was one of the first corporations to establish a dialogue with international development organisations. In\u00a01997, BP representatives sat down to discuss human rights with an \u2018Inter-Agency Group\u2019 comprising Oxfam, Save the Children, Cafod, Christian Aid and the Catholic Institute for International Relations.<\/p>\n

BP went on to become a frontrunner in the recognition of human rights as a matter of concern for corporations. It has set the agenda by promoting corporate responsibility as an integral part of companies\u2019 performance. In 2000, BP became one of the original group of signatories of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights<\/a> for the extractive sector. The UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, visited BP\u2019s human rights training facility for the Colombian army in January\u00a0007. He subsequently stated that the Voluntary Principles had been \u2018implemented most extensively at the country level in Colombia<\/a>\u2019, with a positive impact on the \u2018once notorious 16th Brigade\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Casanare, the 16th Brigade was continuing to ensure it\u2019s ongoing notoriety. According to a report by Colombian human rights organizations<\/a>, soldiers killed Angel Camacho, just by BP\u2019s Cupiagua oilfield, the very month of Ruggie\u2019s visit. The report recorded over 30\u00a0extrajudicial executions at the hands of the 16th Brigade over the course of\u00a02007 alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International attention has once again turned to the murky record of BP\u2019s oil operations in Colombia. The High Court in London is to hear a case against BP, filed on behalf of Gilberto Torres, a former trade unionist who was kidnapped and tortured by state-linked paramilitaries in\u00a02002. In a trial in Colombia, the kidnappers said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-158533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}