As protests over the privatization of oil
and the growing power of foreign
capital are met with militarization and
repression, Colombia's oil industry is
becoming another theater of the
country's ongoing war.
On 65 different occassions in 1997, the National
Liberation Army (ELN) attacked the pipeline
installations of Colombia's state-owned oil com-
pany, Ecopetrol. Since 1986, the ELN has carried out
636 pipeline bombings, which have cost Ecopetrol an
estimated $1.5 billion in revenue. The most recent wave
of attacks, however, comes at a time when the political
struggles over Ecopetrol's future have become increas-
ingly embroiled in the armed conflict that has pitted the
Mario Murillo is host and producer of "Our Americas: The Weekly Report on Latin America and the Caribbean" at WBAI Radio, and is a member of NACLA's editorial board. Steven Dudley is a freelance journalist and researcher In 1995, he volunteered with Peace Brigades international in Barrancabermeja, Colombia.
Colombian armed forces and the paramilitaries against
two powerful guerrilla groups. Today, Ecopetrol is at
the center of the government's move towards the pri-
vatization of key state industries. While the company
has not yet been formally privatized, neoliberal reforms
have virtually gutted it, opening the way for transna-
tional capital and making Ecopetrol's future increas-
ingly dependent on the likes of Occidental Petroleum
and British Petroleum (BP).
This transnationalization of Ecopetrol, along with the
government's persistent threats to formally privatize the
company, have generated widespread opposition from
various quarters. While the growing influence of multi-
nationals has prompted a military response from the
ELN, and to a lesser extent from the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the powerful
Worker's Trade Union (USO), which represents
Ecopetrol workers, has been unwavering in its rejection
of the government's privatization schemes and has been
quick to mobilize workers against further renegotiations
of the company's contracts with multinationals. As a
result, USO leaders have become the targets of deten-
tions and brutal attacks from the armed forces and the
paramilitaries. There is mounting evidence, moreover, that directly implicates British Petroleum in the dirty war
against those who oppose its growing power in the indus-
try. The violence against civilian political activists, cou-
pled with the militarization of oil-producing regions in
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 42REPORT ON CHIAPAS &t COLOMBIA
the context of the war against the guerrilla, have turned
the country's oil industry into yet another theater of its
ongoing war.
Oil is Colombia's most important commodity.
Compared to coffee, which in 1996 represented
3.4% of the gross national product (GNP) and
15.2% of Colombia's exports, oil
accounted for 4.3% of the GNP and
26.8% of the country's exports. Ecopetrol Until 19
is the largest state-owned company in industn Colombia and the only national interest
that actually owns a majority of any part army p of the industry. Private Colombian
investors in the industry are few and far through
between, and those that do exist, like the tax of $1
powerful Santo Domingo Group, have
been limited to marginal enterprises like NOW it r fuel distribution and pipeline construc-
tion. Ecopetrol's exports have quadrupled prot
since 1986 and there is still much poten- agreeme tial for growth. 1 But as with many public
enterprises, a large portion of its revenue with ti
is used to pay off the debt of the other
public-sector companies. Compared to
private oil companies, only a small fraction of
Ecopetrol's profits are reinvested in the company for
growth and exploration.
Large-scale privatization initiatives began during the
government of C6sar Gaviria (1990-1994), who enacted
a series of labor and tariff reforms in order to make
Colombia more appealing to international investors. The
Samper Administration has continued Gaviria's policies,
but has not succeeded in privatizing Ecopetrol, in large
part due to the efforts of the USO. Most of Ecopetrol's
future earnings, however, depend on its association with
British Petroleum, which in 1997 began extracting crude
from the largest oil deposit ever discovered in Colombia,
the Cusiana, located in the eastern department of
Casanare. 2 These association contracts were first imple-
mented in 1969 as a way to insure that foreign compa-
nies, with their state-of-the-art technology, would keep
exploring the country for oil. Under these agreements,
multinationals and Ecopetrol share exploration costs as
well as information about current and previous attempts
to find new deposits. The national government, the armed
forces and the municipalities where the companies oper-
ate receive a total of 20% in royalties, while the other
80% is split evenly between Ecopetrol and BP. 3
From the outset, however, association contracts with
foreign companies have undermined Ecopetrol's ability
to develop independently. With each successive renego-
tiation, the company's revenue base and its negotiating
position vis-A-vis the multinationals have deteriorated.
9
rC
a
ne
n
h
When the company was created in 1951, there was great
hope that it would one day be able to compete with the
multinationals. By the 1960s, Ecopetrol was drilling in
previously unexplored areas and finding several large
reserves that other companies had overlooked. It was so
successful that the multinationals began to point
Ecopetrol to areas that they knew were dry so that
Ecopetrol would give up exploring. If
the numerous association contracts
5, the oil signed during this period are
paidfor any indication, this strategy was paid for successful. 4
Atection Further renegotiations in 1973 drove
the government to the brink of bank- flat war ruptcy, forcing Ecopetrol to slowly phase
,er barrel. out all exploration. In 1988, the com-
"pany explored 3,245 square miles of ter-
-gotiates ritory, but by 1996 that figure was down
to 621, and last year there was no explo- ction ration at all. This has left Ecopetrol at the
ts directly whim of the multinationals, which often
use Ecopetrol's information and then
e army. apply their capital to get at the most prof- itable wells. Cusiana, for example, was
discovered by Ecopetrol in the early
1970s, but the company lacked the resources to access
the main deposits. As a result, BP, with an investment of
$140 million, was able to locate and exploit these wells.
This, in turn, has resulted in a gradual but dramatic
decrease in the number of active Ecopetrol wells-from
216 in 1986 to only two today. 5 Multinationals extract
virtually all the oil produced in Colombia, giving them
tremendous leverage at the bargaining table. With the
exception of Occidental, moreover, Colombia does not
represent a high percentage of any one company's over-
seas investments-in most cases less than 10%. This
means that foreign companies can pull out at any time
without suffering great losses.
As part of the Samper Administration's efforts to
secure new infusions of capital, Ecopetrol's board of
directors announced a new round of contract changes in
October 1997, designed to attract an additional $4 bil-
lion in foreign investment. The USO responded by threat-
ening a progressive slow-down of operations until a
"zero-hour," when its members would go on strike
nationwide. 6 The Samper Administration has reason to
fear, since the USO is one of the country's strongest labor
unions. In addition, it enjoys widespread support among
the population because of its historic role in the struggle
for the nationalization of oil and the creation of Ecopetrol
in the 1940s. Precisely for this reason, however, USO
leaders have been targets of brutal repression. Since
1987, over 80 members have been assassinated, the
majority by paramilitary forces working in conjunction
VOL XXXI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1998 43REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA
Six people from
El Morro were
killed in 1996 after
with the government. 7 The most well-doc-
umented cases are the murders of several they I
USO leaders who were assassinated by criticize the naval intelligence network of
Barrancabermeja in the department of Petrc
Santander. Established in the early 1990s
with the assistance of U.S. intelligence environn
personnel, this paramilitary network has security assassinated over 100 community leaders
and union activists in the region.8 Reside
The Samper Administration has pub- the mur licly denounced the union as a "terrorist
cartel" and has accused its leadership of the v belonging to the ELN in a thinly veiled
attempt to discredit the USQ and justify paramilii
legal persecution and paramilitary vio- contract lence against its leaders. While it is true
that some of the founding members of the
USO belonged to the ELN in the 1960s, there is no evi-
dence of a formal connection between the two organi-
zations. This, however, has not stopped the attorney
general's office from persecuting the USO leadership. In
December 1996, for example, 20 USO members and five
non-union affiliated engineers were detained and charged
with rebellion by the attorney general's office. They were
tried in Colombia's infamous regional court system,
which was created in 1991 at the behest of the U.S. gov-
ernment with $37 million from the Agency for
International Development (AID). 9 Although these
regional tribunals were established to prosecute drug
dealers and guerrillas, they have also been widely used
to persecute activists from peasant and workers' unions
and other social movements.
Within the logic of the Samper Administration, how-
ever, union activists are only an appendage of a much
larger threat to its oil policies-the ELN. In addition to
its systematic attacks against oil pipelines, the group has
continued to attack and kidnap industry officials. The
poverty and environmental devastation that follow oil,
as well as the devastating effects that the industry has
had on the indigenous peoples of oil-rich regions (see
"The U'Wa Struggle to Survive," p. 45), have brought
oil into the center of the ELN's political discourse and
military strategy.
Of the 636 ELN attacks against pipeline installations
since 1986, 503 have targetted the Caiio Lim6n-Covefias
pipeline, which transports some 170,000 barrels of oil
per day from Occidental Petroleum's Caiio Limon facil-
ity in the eastern department of Aurauca to the port of
pL
'I
d
ta
te
Covefias in the northwestern department Publicly of Sucre, cutting across one of the ELN's
j British principal areas of influence.' 0 The gov-
ernment has responded by militarizing
eum's these areas and terrorizing the local pop-
ulation, whom they presume to be guer-
ntal and rilla supporters. This militarization has
policies. been gradual but devastating. The depart-
ment of Arauca, where the Cusiana
its say deposit is located, has one of the highest
rates of illegal detention, while in the
ers were department of North Santander, which is
)rk of traversed by the Caiio Lim6n-Coveiias
pipeline, forced disappearances have iry forces reached alarming numbers. These two
d by BP. departments alone account for almost
10% of the confrontations between guer-
rillas and the military." The presence
of paramilitaries, moreover, has only exacerbated the
violence in the region.
The military's attempts to protect the oil infra- structure from guerrilla attacks has often put
civilians in the crossfire between the armed
forces and the guerrillas. This was the case in the south-
ern department of Putumayo, for example, where the
army set up military installations inside Ecopetrol facil-
ities. The workers complained that the presence of the
army put them in jeopardy in the event of a direct guer-
rilla attack, and they asked for a one-kilometer buffer
zone between the company's installations and the mil-
itary base. According to Ecopetrol, the workers' request
is being considered, but no changes have as yet been
implemented.
This past November, moreover, Colombia's
Superintendent of Security designated the Rural
Cooperatives of Self-Defense and Security, known as the
Convivir, to assist in the protection of multinational oper-
ations. Some sources have suggested that these heavily
armed civilian groups, which are reported to have close
ties with the paramilitaries, will be assigned toEcopetrol
installations. Although they are considered legal, human
rights groups like the Colombian Commission of Jurists
and Human Rights Watch have accused the Convivir of
committing human rights abuses against civilians.12
Until 1995, the oil industry indirectly paid for the pro-
tection of the armed forces through a flat war tax of $1
per barrel. Beginning with the exploitation of the Cusiana
reserve, however, companies like British Petroleum began
A soldier stands by a stream
polluted with oil, following an
ELN attack on an oil installation
in January 1997 in Arauca,
Colombia.
negotiating protection agree-
ments directly with the armed
forces. In an unprecedented
move, the army assigned 3,000
troops from its 16th Brigade to
the area surrounding BP's
Cusiana installations in early
1996. The military also forced
the population to move some
three miles away from the oil
well, ostensibly for their own
protection.
BP has not limited its protec-
tion contracts to the Colombian
armed'forces. A 1997 BBC
World In Action investigative
report entitled "Colombia: BP's
Secret Soldiers" documented
that in 1992, BP contracted the
services of Defense Systems
Limited (DSL), a private mili-
tary training company that pro-
vides counterinsurgency services in 26 countries.
According to the report, employees of Defense Systems
Colombia (DSC), DSL's local subsidiary, train
Colombian police officers in counterinsurgency tech-
niques on BP rigs while wearing Colombian police uni-
forms. The report quoted sources which accused DSC of
providing names and photographs of community activists
who have organized against BP's activities to local para-
military groups.
World in Action documented these relationships in El
Morro, a community in Casanare, in the heart of BP's
newest oil installations. While the community initially
welcomed the oil company, local leaders have now cre-
ated an association to protest the contamination of their
fresh-water supply during BP's construction of a new
road. Six people from the association were killed in 1996
after they publicly criticized BP's environmental and
security practices. Gabriel Narvdrez, an advisor to the El
Morro Association, says that the murders were the work
of paramilitary forces contracted by BP. While BP denies
any connection between their security personnel and the
El Morro murders, it has acknowledged that it employs
private security forces to protect its facilities in
Colombia. "We need protection and we use experts in secu-
rity because we are an oil and exploration company," Phil
Mead, associate president of BP's Colombia office, told
World in Action. "Our specialty is not security, so we use
firms to give us advice on security training."'3
British and Colombian
human rights groups are con-
cerned that any collaboration
between BP and Colombian
security forces in counter-
insurgency matters will
inevitably lead to more human
rights violations. The
Colombian government has
continued to investigate the
charges, while BP has tried to
put a positive spin on the nega-
tive publicity. Last year, the
company announced that it was
moving its Latin America head-
quarters to neighboring
Venezuela.
Another case is that of
Roberto Cobaria, chief of the
U'wa, who was accused by
Occidental Petroleum of oppos-
ing exploration on tribal lands
because of pressure from the ELN.14 The not-so-subtle
insinuation was that the U'wa were sympathetic to the
ELN's cause and supported the guerrilla's attacks against
oil installations. Cobaria denied any connection with the
guerrillas, stating that all external interference in U'Wa
territory, whether by paramilitaries, guerrillas, the armed
forces or Occidental, was against the interest of his com-
munity. Given the wave of paramilitary violence sweep-
ing the country and the government's strategy to do away
with all possible bases of support for the guerrillas,
Occidental's accusations were tantamount to a death
sentence for Cobaria. After public accusations against
the company, Occidental's president eventually retracted
his statements.
As the oil industry has become increasingly embroiled
in Colombia's armed conflict, observers on all sides agree
that one of the key issues that must be addressed in any
future peace talks is oil. Last November, President Samper
announced that oil was one of the issues he was willing to
discuss with the guerrillas. But given the fact that the
industry is almost entirely in the hands of multinationals,
what there is to be discussed remains unclear.
Using the conflict as one of their arguments, Ecopetrol
and the Colombian government are trying convince the
Colombian people that there is no longer a need for a
state-owned oil company. The multinationals, meanwhile,
are lurking like vultures, waiting to get their claws on
Ecopetrol's carcass.
Oil in a Time of War
1. See Ren6 de la Pedraja Tomdn, Energy Politics in Colombia
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989); and "Y sin embargo se
exporta," Tiempos del Mundo (Bogota), November 27, 1997.
2. Authors' interview, William Giraldo, Chief Press Officer for
Ecopetrol, October 1997.
3. Authors' interview, William Giraldo.
4. Rene de la Pedraja, Energy Politics in Colombia.
5. These and other oil statistics are from Ecopetrol, and can be
found on their website at
