investigation. PAX was received on 3 April 2013 by Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg and several Glasenberg declared shortly after the start of the meeting: “I will bet all my shares in this company transfer from Glencore, or Glencore operations, to a paramilitary, then you’ve got me. But I know that you will never get that. Impossible.” 337
In the course of the meeting, PAX informed Glasenberg of the statements from former paramilitaries referring to payments in cash. Glasenberg immediately picked up the phone to call Peter Coates, who had been Prodeco’s director in Colombia as of 1995. He asked Coates whether he knew on what the allegation of Glencore’s support to the paramilitaries might be based. Coates replied: “That’s just absolute rubbish. At that time, there were rumours that Drummond was supporting the paramilitary [...]. Because you know, I had to hold the accounts so it just didn’t happen – it just didn’t happen.” 338
At the request of the PAX investigation team, and with Glencore’s mediation, a meeting took place on 28 May 2013 in Bogotá with the former managers of Prodeco’s security department, Manuel Gutiérrez and Luis Hernando Ochoa. Gutiérrez – who referred to himself in the third person – said he made no payments to the paramilitaries: “I don’t know how Manuel could have done that in person, because I have no money, and not in the name of the company either […]. I don’t know how, by what magic, a contribution of this magnitude could be created. And then, after an initial amount, how did they keep paying the remainder?” 339
In the conversation, the former Prodeco and Glencore employees also suggested that the
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PAX ! The Dark Side of Coal
100 and 150 workers involved.” 340 A member of staff in Baar said: “We did own the Calenturitas
why would we support a paramilitary?” 341
from Cesar in the years before and after the takeover of Prodeco by Glencore, which indicate that large-scale coal extraction and export from Prodeco’s sea port was already taking place and continued until at least 1998. 342 In that sense, the company at that time clearly had more to
defend than only a few barracks and installations.
Even if it were true, however, that large-scale extraction by Prodeco only (re)commenced in 2004, this does not mean that there was no security operation in the late 1990s. Certain security experts consider that during the preparatory and construction phase of a mining operation there is an increased risk of human rights violations and the possible involvement of companies in illegal armed groups. 343 According to these experts, security is one of the mayor issues for a
Prodeco set up a security department at a very early stage and had a security arrangement with the military even when there were only construction activities taking place. According to El Canoso, it was vital for Prodeco to get the security situation under control before actual production started. 344
Gutiérrez and Ochoa also stated that there was no contact between Prodeco and the AUC in the 1998–2006 period. Gutiérrez: “These days I know that many managers of the security departments of many companies took these companies down that path and activities of this kind [collaboration with the AUC]. But the companies Prodeco and Cerrejón Zona Centro never had contacts of that sort.” When asked whether he had ever attended a meeting with Vicente Castaño, he replied: “With Vicente Castaño: never.” 345
However, it transpired later in the meeting that there was some direct contact with the paramilitaries. Gutiérrez: “We had good relations with Jorge 40, who was then still known as El Papa. […] We came across each other at military ceremonies, which they always invited us to.” He also recalled: “We did have a meeting with Mancuso, and another paramilitary whose discuss [the kidnapping of] Mark Bossard. […] The paramilitaries had offered to mediate in Mark Bossard’s release.” 346
Gutiérrez explained in the meeting how the paramilitaries generally came into contact with the companies, and how this came about in Prodeco’s case: “Every day, there were some 10 to the pretext that the paramilitaries used for making contact with the companies. Who did they speak to in these companies? To the security department. […] This is how the approach [from the AUC] started with us, the security department. […] That man [Jorge 40] always made use of someone who worked for us: Mario Rodríguez. […] Mario Rodríguez was a former army captain. […] Mario Rodríguez’ former position meant he had many contacts with the authorities and with groups that were set up at the time: these were the paramilitary groups.” 347
However, he denied that these contacts led to lasting ties with the AUC and stated that Prodeco sought its own solution for the ongoing security problems. Gutiérrez: “Instead of maintaining so many contacts [with the paramilitaries], [we wondered] why not set up our own security service, within our own security department […]? We buy weapons from the Ministry of Defence […].
Our armed security service would guard our personnel, investigate and check everything, and patrol at night, but was not allowed to maintain external contacts bypassing Manuel Gutiérrez and Luis Ochoa […].” 348
The (former) Glencore and Prodeco employees to whom the investigation team spoke have AUC, or that the contacts were structural in nature.