{"id":133837,"date":"2024-07-02T11:55:07","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T09:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/?p=133837"},"modified":"2024-07-05T17:00:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T15:00:32","slug":"drummond-case-corporate-litmus-test-colombia-transitional-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/133837-drummond-case-corporate-litmus-test-colombia-transitional-justice.html","title":{"rendered":"The Drummond case, a corporate litmus test for Colombia\u2019s transitional justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Colombian transitional justice\u2019s range of action over civilians allegedly involved in serious crimes during the internal conflict is quite legally limited. But one case could strike out: the case against two top executives of Drummond, the largest mining company in the country today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP)<\/a>, the judicial arm of Colombia's transitional justice<\/a> system, has focused mainly on investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by members of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian army, so far charging almost 100 former rebels and military officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, few civilians that financed or collaborated with parties to the conflict, have reached the JEP. There is at least one prominent politician<\/a> and several citizens who aren\u2019t known publicly, but no major economic or business actor, even though this is also part of its mandate. This could change with the dossier on Drummond, the largest mining company in the country today, signalled since over a decade ago of allegedly funding paramilitaries. Two of Drummond\u2019s top executives, its current president and his predecessor, were charged by the Attorney General's Office and will have to decide in the coming months whether to appear before the special tribunal or defend themselves in an ordinary trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case, in addition to being possibly the only one in which the JEP may try to establish the responsibility of important businesspersons, is even more interesting because it is advancing in three different tracks simultaneously: in the transitional justice, in the ordinary justice system and in US courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drummond's controversial legacy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Drummond is a private company founded almost a century ago<\/a> in the United States, owned ever since by the Alabama family whose name it bears. In fact, it was led for four decades by one family member, Garry Drummond, until his death<\/a> in 2016. It began extracting coal in Colombia in 1995, at the La Loma Pribbenow mine located in La Jagua de Ibirico, in the Caribbean department of Cesar, in the north of the country. It then added two more mines, El Descanso Norte in 2008 and El Corozo in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coal has been a highly profitable business for both the US mining company and the Colombian state. In 2023 alone, Drummond exported<\/a> 27 million tonnes of coal, its sixth year<\/a> leading that sector. That same year, the company claims to have paid<\/a> 17 million dollars in taxes and royalties to the country, even operating in the midst of government promises<\/a> to abandon production of one of the most polluting fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it has also been a controversial company<\/a>. In 2013 it was involved in one of the biggest environmental accidents in the country's history, when an overloaded barge dumped 500 tonnes of coal into the ocean to avoid sinking in an episode that sparked national outrage.\u00a0 Five years earlier, it had been fined<\/a> $48 million by a high court for not properly settling its royalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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