Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . [If you are you a long suffering Oil Magnate then you need to read this... Bill] ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 4:08 PM Subject: Colombia. Rebels Cripple Colombia Oil Industry From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 08:03:44 -0500 (CDT) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CLM: Weekend Digest 12 August 2001 ________________________________________________________________ COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR www.prairienet.org/clm Sunday, 12 August 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Friday, 10 August 2001 Rebels Cripple Colombia Oil Industry By Juan Pablo Toro ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday, 10 August 2001 Rebels Cripple Colombia Oil Industry ------------------------------------ By Juan Pablo Toro ARAUQUITA, Colombia -- Viewed from a helicopter circling over a guerrilla bomb attack on a major oil pipeline, thick black smoke from burning crude obscured the verdant plains. The following day, a repair crew guarded by army troops was fixing the ruptured pipeline, which serves a field run by U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum. The men worked hurriedly in a landscape of blackened trees and the carcasses of fish, lizards and rodents killed when the oil spilled across fields and ponds. The men wore hard hats, but these wouldn't stop the potshots the rebels occasionally take at them. ''They told me I would be working in the wilderness,'' a repairman grumbled. ''They never said people would be shooting at me.'' In Colombia's lawless oil frontier, braving rebel bombings, kidnappings, sniping and extortion are part of the price of developing this South American country's most important legal export. The attack last month was the 111th guerrilla bombing this year against the Cano Limon pipeline, which carries crude 470 miles from eastern Arauca state to a Caribbean port. Two leftist rebel groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, are stepping up attacks as part of a blackmail scheme and, they maintain, a protest against government subservience to foreign oil interests. Exasperated officials say the guerrillas are bleeding away the country's economic future and causing ecological catastrophe. Cano Limon, Colombia's second largest pipeline, has taken more than 800 hits since it opened in 1986. The bombings have forced the closure of the pipeline for all but two weeks since February. Two attacks last week left a 50 mile oil spill along the region's main river and forced the state capital, also called Arauca, to shut its water supply for two days. The government blames the bombings for a 30 percent drop in oil exports this year, and say they have cost federal coffers and Occidental more than $400 million in lost tax revenues and sales. Arauca state, which gets 90 percent of its budget from oil taxes, is hurting the most. Teachers and public hospital workers haven't been paid since February, prompting protests and cutbacks in services. Dubbed ''Saudi Arauca'' after the discovery of oil set off a development boom in the mid-1980s, the state now regrets its dependence on crude. An amusement park with a wave pool and an Olympic cycling track in the state capital symbolize the promise that oil held out for Arauca. ''If so much violence is the price of what we call development, then maybe it would be better to live in peace and go more slowly,'' said the mayor of the state capital, Jorge Cedeno. The bombings are not the first headache in Colombia for Los Angeles-based Occidental. An exploration project near an Indian reservation has brought embarrassing international criticism. The tiny U'wa tribe once threatened mass suicide to stop the project, which it says will draw guerrilla violence to its lands. The FARC rebels threaten to continue attacks until Occidental agrees to pay a ransom. In a phone interview from Los Angeles, Occidental vice president Lawrence Meriage said the company has refused to cave in. President Andres Pastrana pledged last month to create an army battalion exclusively dedicated to defending the pipelines. But relief may ultimately hinge on faltering peace talks with both rebel groups. Among their many conditions for ending their 37-year war, the rebels are demanding that more of the oil profits go to Colombia's social development. Skeptics believe the guerrillas are mainly after the industry's money for themselves. Col. Gustavo Matamoros of the army's Arauca-based 18th Brigade doubts more troops will make a difference. His 500-man, helicopter-equipped unit has been run ragged by the rebels, who strike quickly in remote stretches of the pipeline. ''It only takes three guerrillas to blow up the pipeline,'' Matamoros said. The rebels dig holes to reach the pipeline, most of which is about 5 feet underground, sabotage it and escape into the bush. Officials usually find out when pressure gauges at pumping stations register a sudden drop. The rebels are long gone by the time the troops arrive. Copyright 2001 Associated Press ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ **************************************************************** * CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at * * http://www.prairienet.org/clm * * and the CHICAGO COLOMBIA COMMITTEE * * Email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or * * Dennis Grammenos at [EMAIL PROTECTED] * **************************************************************** * To unsubscribe send request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * unsubscribe clm-news * **************************************************************** KOMINFORM P.O. 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