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Blanco Maya called for questioning (US Drummond Coal union workers' murders in Colombia)

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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-27-10 06:03 AM
Original message
Blanco Maya called for questioning (US Drummond Coal union workers' murders in Colombia)
Blanco Maya called for questioning
Friday, 26 November 2010 14:46 Scott Kobewka

Jamie Blanco Maya, the brother of Colombia's former Inspector General Edgardo Maya, was called for questioning by a human right prosecutor in relation to the murder of two unionists working for multinational coal company Drummond, reports Caracol Radio.

Blanco Maya, former head of a company which provided cafeteria services at the Drummond mine in the Cesar department, was arrested in September for his alleged role in the murder of the two unionists. Detained paramilitary combatant Jairo Jesus Charris Castro told RCN that Blanco Maya met with former AUC leader Ospino Pacheco to order the murders of Valmore Locarno and Victor Hugo Orcasita. The two men were president and vice president, respectively, of a labor union at Drummond, and were killed on March 12, 2001.

According to Charris, Blanco Maya ordered the murder of the two unionists because they complained to Drummond about the food quality and he feared losing his $600,000-a-year contract.

Caracol Radio reports that Blanco Maya ordered ex-paramilitary John Jairo Esquivel Cuadrado to kill the two men.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/13135-blanco-maya-called-for-questioning.html

http://www.elpilon.com.co.nyud.net:8090/inicio/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/V%C3%ADctor-Hugo-Orcasita-Amaya-Y-Valmore-Locarno-Rodr%C3%ADguez-y-.jpg

Victor Hugo Orcasita, and Valmore Locarno
tortured, murdered union workers for Alabama-based Drummond Coal

http://www.elpilon.com.co.nyud.net:8090/inicio/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/PRIMERA-JAIME-BLANCO-MAYA.jpg

Jaime Blanca Maya

http://www.cambio.com.co.nyud.net:8090/portadacambio/719/IMAGEN/IMAGEN-3504588-2.jpg

Inspector General brother Edgardo Maya

http://www.elheraldo.com.co.nyud.net:8090/ELHERALDO/BancoMedios/Imagenes/aliastigre.jpg

Hired paramilitary murderer, all purpose P.O.S., John Jairo Esquivel Cuadrado
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-27-10 06:38 AM
Response to Original message
1. The two murdered men had received death threats from the paras prior to their murders.
They had gone to their company bosses at Birmingham, Alabama-based Drummond Coal Company, and begged for permission to sleep in the building on the floor on weeknights, instead of traveling by bus to be with their families overnight, returning only on weekends. The company lost no time in rejecting that plea for help, even knowing, of course, the men were terrified.



Gary Drummond, middle, with Colombia president Alvaro Uribe, on the left.

http://www.southernstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/images/sitepieces/drummond_protest.jpg http://www.fightbacknews.org.nyud.net:8090/sites/default/files/drummond2.jpg

http://www.birminghamfreepress.com.nyud.net:8090/v5/0307/coal.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/4137/4883741899_4d19c6ba64_z.jpg

Drummond, Colombia
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-27-10 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Thanks for the visual connection between the rape of Mother Earth and the murder of labor leaders.
They so often go hand in hand.

That photo of Drummond Coal's operations in Colombia is devastating.

And, frankly, I don't believe this cafeteria owner's story about why the union leaders were murdered. I suspect that he is covering for Drummond executives, probably in fear for his own life or the lives of his family. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Drummond would cancel his contract over complaints from union leaders. They are an extremely wealthy and powerful multinational corporation. Why would they care? Food service complaints? I mean, really.

Consider also the atmosphere of corpo/fascist terror that the Bushwhacks were fostering in Colombia. They not only ultimately larded the Colombian military and government--entities with one of the worst human rights records on earth--with $7 BILLION in military aid, they also, ultimately, let corporations like Chiquita off with a handslap, for hiring death squads to take care of their labor problems in Colombia*. Chiquita, Dole, Drummond and others were paying millions of dollars to death squads, who murdered many thousands of people--most of them labor leaders and other civilians. The Colombian military was meanwhile also murdering thousands of people--labor leaders, human rights workers and others--and displacing 5 MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, with state terror, on behalf of rich landowners, multinational corporations and the protected major drug lords. The Bushwhacks were likely using Colombia as a laboratory for training death squads for Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it reasonable to believe that, in this atmosphere of "anything goes" as to mayhem and murder by the rich and powerful, Drummond would cancel a cafeteria contract over labor union complaints?

It's POSSIBLE that this Bushwhack-fostered murder and mayhem created such impunity for major crimes that someone like this cafeteria owner figured he could do the same thing, to protect his business, not realizing that "little guys" can get prosecuted, while people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Alvaro Uribe--and their big corp executive pals--can't be.

Possible, but not probable. You point your finger at the rich and powerful--at the "made men" who are above the law--and you risk far more then a jail sentence.

Sometimes I think that the world has become one great big Corporate Mafia.

---------------------------

*(Obama appointed Chiquita's attorney in that case, Eric Holder, as U.S. Attorney General. The Obama administration is also engaged in protecting Alvaro Uribe--and probably, by implication, Bush Junta players including Junior--with extraditions and asylums with regard to death squad and spying witnesses against Bushwhack tool, Alvaro Uribe, in Colombia. Holder was likely personally involved in yanking the death squad witnesses out of Colombia and 'burying' them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--by completely sealing their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC. And Obama's appointee to the CIA, (Daddy Bush pal) Leon Panetta, was likely involved in the overnight asylums recently granted by Panama to the chief spying witnesses against Uribe--also over the great objections of Colombian prosecutors. So the Democrats (B. Clinton) initiated "Plan Colombia," the Bushwhacks turned it into a "scorched earth" war on the poor and now the Democrats are tidying up the Bushwhacks' trail. I mention this because--like the war on Iraq--these horrors do not happen without the significant complicity of the Democratic Party leadership. The Bushwhacks may be monsters; the Democratic leadership are their enablers and "fixers.")
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