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And: Uranium Deal Helps Benefactors, But Costs Taxpayers $2.1 Billion
(Washington, Jan. 11) On Sept. 7, 1995, Vice President Albert Gore Jr., stood on the White House lawn and talked in sweeping terms about ending the era of big government. He touted a list of recommendations formulated by the National Performance Review, an initiative Gore directed that he claimed streamlined the federal bureaucracy, cut unnecessary waste and helped make the government “work better and cost less.” Gore said that his report, delivered to President Clinton that day, would continue the drive to “reinvent government.”
Gore did not mention that his recommendations to the president included a plan to give oil companies access to thousands of acres of oil-rich, publicly owned land that the U.S. Navy has held as emergency reserves since 1912. Ever since the federal government earmarked the reserves for military emergencies, the oil industry had tried and failed to pry them away from the Navy.
In 1922 a couple of oil men – Edward L. Doheny and Harry Sinclair – bribed Albert Fall, the secretary of the interior in the Harding administration, for secret leases to drill on two of the fields, the Teapot Dome field just outside of Casper, Wyo., and the Elk Hills field in Bakersfield, Calif. Doheny and his Pan American Petroleum and Transport Co. (later Atlantic Richfield Co, or ARCO), paid $300,000 to Fall in exchange for the rights. When the bribes were uncovered, the ensuing Teapot Dome scandal forced the resignations of Fall (who later went to prison), and Edward Denby, the secretary of the Navy.
IN 1973, DURING THE ARAB oil embargo, the Nixon administration tried to lease Elk Hills to boost domestic oil production. In 1984, 1986 and 1987, the Reagan administration proposed selling Elk Hills for a lump-sum payment of $1.5 billion that would go toward reducing the federal budget deficit. Each time, Congress wisely blocked the sale of Elk Hills.
But where Fall, Nixon and Reagan had failed, Gore succeeded. Despite the history of the naval petroleum reserves, despite the royalty revenues that the field continued to generate, Gore recommended that the government put Elk Hills on the auction block. Clinton took Gore’s advice and approved a deal to let oil companies buy some of the reserves. The White House then pushed to have language authorizing the sales inserted in the 1996 defense authorization bill, which Congress ultimately approved. Oil companies bid on the field and, finally, on Oct. 6, 1997, the Energy Department announced that the government would sell its interest in the 47,000-acre Elk Hills reserve to Occidental Petroleum Corp. for $3.65 billion. It was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history, one that tripled Occidental’s U.S. oil reserves overnight. During the months after the sale, Occidental tripled the amount of natural gas extracted from the field.
Although the Energy Department was required to assess the likely environmental consequences of the proposed sale, it didn’t. Instead it hired a private company, ICF Kaiser International, Inc.*, to complete the assessment. The general chairman of Gore’s presidential campaign, Tony Coelho, sat on the board of directors.
Just hours after the announcement of the Elk Hills sale, Gore stood across town on the campus of Georgetown University and delivered a speech to the White House Conference on Climate Change on the “terrifying prospect” of global warming, a problem he attributed to the unchecked use of fossil fuels such as oil.
EVEN AS OCCIDENTAL was moving forward with plans to boost oil production at Elk Hills, Gore told his audience: “If we ignore the scientific warnings and continue stubbornly on our current course, we’d better begin to prepare what we would like to say to our children and grandchildren, because if they encounter the terrible consequences the scientific community is saying now come as a result of global climate disruption, and then look back at the evidence which was clearly laid out for us in our generation, they might fairly ask, ‘If you knew all that, why didn’t you do something about it?’”
If there is one oil company that Gore might ask “our children and grandchildren” to forgive, it is Occidental Petroleum. The company has been a steady supplier of campaign funds to Gore and to the Democratic Party, though its relationship with Gore goes far deeper. Armand Hammer, who built Occidental Petroleum into the behemoth it is today and who’s been described as “the Godfather of American corporate corruption,” liked to say that he had Gore’s father, Sen. Albert Gore, Sr., “in my back pocket.” When the elder Gore left the Senate in 1970, Hammer gave him a $500,000-a-year job as the chairman of Island Coal Creek Co., an Occidental subsidiary, and a seat on Occidental’s board of directors. By 1992, Gore owned Occidental stock valued at $680,000.
FOR PART OF HIS CAREER, Albert Gore Sr., received two paychecks: one from the taxpayers and another from Hammer. Hammer, who raised prize bulls, met the elder Gore at a Tennessee cattle auction in the 1940s. He put Gore, who was then a member of the House, on the payroll of his New Jersey cattle business. Thus began a cozy relationship between the two men that would last until Hammer’s death in 1990.
Hammer personified the worst excesses of both capitalism and Communism. In his biography of Hammer (Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer), Edward Jay Epstein notes that Hammer built a pencil factory outside Moscow in 1926 and returned to the United States soon after to launder funds for the Communist Party. In the 1930s, Hammer marketed something he called the “Romanoff Treasure,” a collection of fake Russian art that he passed off as genuine. Much of the proceeds of the sales went to Josef Stalin’s government. Hammer helped recruit Soviet spies and position them in the U.S. government. At one time he even had a contract to train dogs for the Soviet police.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted to prosecute Hammer for his activities on behalf of the Soviet government. But Hammer had friends in Congress whom Hoover believed would attempt to protect him from prosecution; among them was Gore, who took to the floor of the Senate once to defend Hammer against allegations of bribery (later proved to be true) in obtaining government contracts.
Gore’s job as a senator was even more useful to Hammer the capitalist. In January 1961 the most sought-after ticket in Washington was to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural ball; Gore made sure that Hammer got one. A few months later, Gore successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to allow Hammer to visit the Soviet Union. The Kennedy administration had banned the importation of Soviet crabmeat on the ground that it was produced with slave labor; Hammer reported that he had found no evidence to support the ban, which was soon lifted. Gore even suggested to President Kennedy that Hammer, whom the FBI had long known was an agent for the Soviet Union, act as an envoy to Nikita Khrushchev should any crisis erupt between the two superpowers.
In April 1968, Senator Gore stood by Hammer’s side when the industrialist officially opened his Libyan oil fields. Occidental was not a player in world crude-oil markets until Hammer bribed King Idris and some of his officials to gain a concession to the huge reserves there. Two years after Gore left the Senate, Hammer placed him on Occidental’s board of directors, where he earned a much higher salary than he had as a U.S. senator.
BY THE TIME the younger Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the Gore relationship with Hammer had already begun to transfer from father to son. In the 1960s, Gore informed Hammer that zinc ore had been discovered near the Gore farm in Smith County, Tenn. Hammer, who owned Occidental Minerals (a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum), bought the land for $160,000, twice the only other offer. But after buying the land, Hammer made a strange decision – at least from a business standpoint. Rather than mine the zinc-rich land, he offered instead to let Gore buy it from him. Then, once ownership transferred to Gore, Occidental starting paying Gore $20,000 per year for the mineral rights to mine it. After the first payment, Gore Sr. sold the land to his son for $140,000. Gore has received a $20,000 check in the mail almost every year since.
Perhaps even more astounding than Hammer’s decision to sell the land and pay royalties is that Occidental never actually mined the land. In 1985, Gore began leasing the land to Union Zinc, Inc., a competitor of Occidental. Gore still receives $20,000 a year in royalties. In all, the Hammer-engineered sweetheart deal has put hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits in Gore’s pocket.
The relationship between Hammer and Al Gore, Jr., continued. Gore and his wife once caught a ride across the Atlantic Ocean on Hammer’s private jet; they hosted Hammer at Reagan’s 1984 inauguration and President Bush’s in 1988; and they attended Hammer’s 90th birthday extravaganza in Washington on May 21, 1988. When Hammer came to Washington for business, he and Gore frequently lunched together in the company of Occidental’s lobbyists.
In return, Hammer and members of his family bent over backward to get money into Gore’s campaigns.
GORE RECOGNIZED that his relationship with Hammer and his company did not look good. In 1992, before President Clinton settled on him as his running mate, Gore’s father wrote a memo for Clinton on his ties to Occidental to prepare him for possible questions about it. After the election, however, Gore resumed his old relationship with the company and its new chairman, Ray Irani.
Occidental, for example, loaned $100,000 to the Presidential Inaugural Committee to help pay for the ceremony and the celebrations surrounding it. And Gore used his connections to bring in money from Occidental for the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign. According to a memo from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, Occidental gave $50,000 in response to one of Gore’s “no –controlling –legal authority” telephone calls from his office in the White House. Indeed, since Gore became part of the Democratic ticket in the summer of 1992, Occidental has given more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes.
Irani might lack Hammer’s high profile – the old chairman traded quips with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show – but he has been as cozy as his predecessor was with occupants of the White House. Two days after he slept in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House, Irani’s company dropped $100,000 on the Democratic National Committee He was also one of 130 guests at Clinton’s second official state dinner, on Sept. 27, 1994, where then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his wife were the guests of honor. Occidental had some interest in Russian oil; in the spring of 1994, Irani had traveled with the late Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown on a trade mission to Russia.
Uranium Deal Helps Benefactors, but Costs Taxpayers $2.1 Billion
IN 1993, Vice President Gore boarded Air Force Two and flew to Moscow for meetings with Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin about the vitally important task of protecting nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the newly decentralized former Soviet Union. It was a natural mission for Gore; during his tenure in the Senate, he had become something of an expert in arms control agreements and, thanks to the patronage from Hammer, had already met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscow’s longtime ambassador to Washington.
Many defense experts consider Russia’s nuclear arsenal to pose the greatest immediate threat to U.S. security, of even greater concern than China’s alleged acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets. The Chinese will no doubt develop sophisticated warheads and the missiles to launch them over the next decade or two; the Russians already have them. The fear of loose nukes grew as economic conditions in the old Soviet republics deteriorated in the early 1990s. Gore’s mission was to reach an agreement with Russia on a way to manage all those weapons in a post-Cold War world.
Gore and Chernomyrdin signed a 20-year, $12 billion deal under which Russia would ship its weapons-grade uranium to the United States. The U.S. Enrichment Corp. (then government-owned) would buy the highly enriched uranium, process it into lower grade, reactor-friendly uranium and sell it to nuclear power plants in the United States. The cash-starved Russian government would get much-needed dollars to pay its nuclear scientists, those scientists would not be tempted to offer their services around the world, and nuclear material would be under the protection of the United States.
IT LOOKED GOOD ON PAPER, but it didn’t work out that way. In 1996, Congress passed a bill to privatize the U.S. Enrichment Corp., a move that threatened the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, though one that in fact would ultimately benefit Gore.
Foreign policy experts – including Thomas Neff, a senior researcher for the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, who conceived of the uranium agreement – warned that privatization threatened the deal. A privatized, profit-seeking U.S. Enrichment Corp., would pay Russia far less cash for its uranium than the amount Gore and Chernomyrdin had originally agreed on. Gore, as the broker of the deal, was in a perfect position to lobby against the privatization scheme. He didn’t. Instead, the Clinton-Gore administration wholeheartedly supported privatization of USEC as part of its efforts to “reinvent government.”
USEC’s board of directors, led by William Rainer, a large donor to the
Presidential Inaugural Committee in 1993, had decided to consider two options:
Sell the company to a behemoth like Lockheed Martin Corp., or go it alone with
an initial public offering. Rainer and the board chose the latter course. In 1998,
the U.S. government got $1.9 billion from the sale of USEC to private investors.
Clinton rewarded Rainer for presiding over USEC’s privatization by nominating
him to serve as the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
At his Senate confirmation hearings, Rainer said, “I thought it was the right
decision, and one year later, I look at the decision and I still think it was the right
decision.”
The decision was certainly right for some of Gore’s biggest benefactors, which quickly cashed in on what turned out to be a $75 million bonanza. Wall Street firms such as Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Company; Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.; and Goldman Sachs & Co., Gore’s No. 3 career patron, collectively raked in at least $42 million in underwriting fees. Well-connected law firms, among them Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Patton, Boggs earned nearly $11 million for their part in taking the company private. USEC retained J.P. Morgan & Company, Inc., as its adviser in the deal; J.P. Morgan, in turn, , hired Greg Simon, Gore’s domestic policy adviser, for a fee of $10,000 a month to help it select the new, privatized company’s directors.
AS NEFF AND OTHER EXPERTS had predicted, however, the deal soon began to unravel. Later in 1998 USEC announced that it had received shipments of uranium from the U.S. Department of Energy. The sudden glut caused the worldwide price of uranium to plummet, and the Russians suddenly stood to receive less money than they had been promised. Yeltsin’s government cried foul and threatened to sell its nuclear material to other countries, including Iran. The White House scrambled to come up with the money the Russians demanded, and managed to quietly slip an extra $325 million for the Russians – a taxpayer-financed bailout – into an omnibus appropriations bill before Congress.
Neff, the architect of the plan to ship Russia’s weapons-grade uranium to USEC for reprocessing, estimates that it will cost taxpayers $140 million a year for 15 years to continue purchasing the Russian nuclear material, for a total cost of $2.1 billion – or $200 million more than the sale of USEC brought in.
Gore’s “reinvention” of USEC made a lot of money for some of his most reliable
political patrons. It also endangered nuclear arms control and left in private
hands the management of facilities that are contaminated with deadly
substances.
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TESTIMONY OF JAMES LILLY
HEARING OF THE COMMISSION ON THE ROLES AND CAPABILITIES
OF THE UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
"....I'm talking about the ability of the Agency clandestined service to connect into the network of power brokers that changed the world. And a lot of businessmen have this. They have a sense of this. I know businessmen who have a very good -- they would fly into China Armand Hammer, and he would see four Chinese leaders in two days. I would get included on one or two of these meetings. But he obviously was having intimate conversations because he had the biggest investment in China, $800 million in a coal mine. We never got any good intelligence feedback on this. Of course, the whole operation collapsed as a fiasco....."
Bump for Bush.
The book mentioned above on Hammer, "Dossier" by Edward Jay Epstein is an absolute must read for any intelligent voter--hopefully will be reprinted for the upcoming campaign--
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That's what happens when Boyd and I get going. Thanks for the post and for starting a new thread.
OXY To Drill Off Albania's Coast By Mid-97
Occidental of Albania Inc, will start drilling off the Albanian coast by mid-1997. Occidental planned to start the $15 million drilling operation when a floating platform, currently working in West Africa, arrives in Albania. It plans to drill a well that will be 4,000 to 4,500 meters deep in block three near the dividing line of Albania's continental shelf with Italy in the Adriatic. Occidental owns the full concession but it may take on some minority partners. Once drilling starts it will take about 100 days to determine whether oil or gas reserves are present. Occidental of Albania Inc, a unit of U.S. Occidental Petroleum Corp, drilled in the same offshore block without success in 1994. Occidental came to Albania five years ago and is now in negotiations with the government to take an onshore concession.
Accidental, Partners Sign Contracts on Albania Oil and Gas
LOS ANGELES, January 19 - Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: OXY) announced that a group led by its subsidiary Occidental of Albania Ltd. has signed production-sharing contracts with the National Petroleum Agency of Albania for three blocks covering more than 1.1 million acres, according to PR Newswire. Blocks A, 2 and 3 are located within the eastern portion of an onshore fold and thrust belt where more than 500 million barrels of oil and 1 trillion cubic feet of gas have been discovered. Over the three-year exploration period, Occidental will conduct a 650- kilometer seismic program, perform geologic field studies and drill two exploratory wells. Primary objectives of the exploration are thrust fault- related structures in carbonate reservoirs that are geologically similar to recent multibillion- barrel discoveries in the Apennine thrust belt area of southern Italy. Occidental, with a 50 percent interest, is the operator for a group that includes Anschutz Albania Corporation with a 30 percent interest and IPC Albania Ltd. with a 20 percent interest.
Occidental and partners sign Albania contracts
Jan. 20, 1998 Occidental Petroleum Corporation has announced that a group led by its subsidiary Occidental of Albania Ltd. has signed production-sharing contracts with the National Petroleum Agency of Albania for three blocks covering more than 1.1 million acres. Blocks A, 2 and 3 are located within the eastern portion of an onshore fold and thrust belt where more than 500 mm barrels of oil and 1 tcf of gas have been discovered*. Over the three-year exploration period, Occidental will conduct a 650 km seismic programme, perform geologic field studies and drill two exploratory wells. Primary objectives of the exploration are thrust fault-related structures in carbonate reservoirs that are geologically similar to recent multibillion-barrel discoveries in the Apennine thrust belt area of southern Italy. Occidental, with a 50 % interest, is the operator for a group that includes Anschutz Albania Corporation with a 30 % interest and IPC Albania Ltd. with a 20 % interest.
*Note that according to Oxy's map one of these blocks is next to Montenegro and close to Kosovo.
Both Gores, old and young, were long the corrupt stooges of Armand Hammer. The Gores began poor but became rich - by means that do not bear examination.
"Albania
After finalizing contracts for three onshore blocks in 1998, Occidental intends to acquire 650 square kilometers of seismic, conduct geological field studies, and drill two wells over the three year exploration period. The new blocks, in whuch Occidental has a 50 percent working interest and is operator, are within the onshore field and thrust belt where more than 500 million barrels of oil and 1 TCF of natural gas reserves have been discovered...."
| Financial Times, 1/19/00 World News / Americas
By Matthew Jones
Environmentalists and human rights activists are accusing Al Gore, the US vice-president and candidate for the Democratic party presidential nomination, of hypocrisy over his shareholding in an oil company prospecting in Colombian rainforests. Mr. Gore has targeted the environmental and human rights vote as part of his election campaign and was last week rated "the most knowledgeable" presidential candidate on green issues by the influential League of Conservation Voters. But the U'wa Defense Working Group, which represents the U'wa indigenous tribe from the north east of Colombia, says Mr. Gore is inextricably linked with Occidental Petroleum, the US oil group which plans to start drilling on its ancestral lands in the next few months in search of an estimated 1.5bn barrels of oil. According to Mr. Gore's official Public Financial Disclosure Report for 1998, the latest information available, the vice-president owned between $250,000 and $500,000 in Occidental stock inherited from his father, Albert Gore Sr., who died in 1998. Mr. Gore Sr. became a board member of Occidental Petroleum after losing his Senate seat in 1970. According to the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit organization that analyses ethics in politics, Ray Irani,the Occidental chief executive, made a donation of $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in the early 90s following a stay in the Lincoln Room of the White House. The campaign group is urging environmentalists not to vote for Mr Gore and to protest about his links to Occidental on the campaign trail. Neither the White House nor Mr. Gore's campaign team has responded to requests for comment. Stephen Kretzmann, U'wa campaign co-ordinator for Amazon Watch, a California-based environmental group, said: "This will not look good for Al Gore in the midst of an election campaign. It is clear that he could stop the drilling with a phone call and if he doesn't do something about this he will lose the environmental and human rights vote." The U'wa, who number 5,000, first hit the headlines in1996 when they threatened to commit collective suicide if Occidental's drilling plans were not halted. The drill site falls 600m outside the legally recognized U'wa Unified Reserve but the tribe claims it is within larger, traditional ancestral territory. The UDWG claims development of the site would be damaging to the tribe and the environment because of the likely increase in oil-related violence between different armed factions in the politically unstable region. It says Occidental's existing pipeline has been attacked more than 600 times in the last 12 years leading to 2.1m barrels of crude oil spilling into the soil and rivers, and that U'wa members and humanitarian workers have been killed or injured in the cross-fire. Occidental said earlier this month that it planned to start building roads to the test site at the end of January and would sink the first test well at the site in May. Ken Hufmann, Occidental's vice-president of investor relations, refused to comment on Mr. Gore's stock holding in the company or any political donations that it had made. He would say only: "We're moving ahead with plans to drill the well but I have no specific dates." |
[A couple of quotes from 'lookin' around]:
"I've called Gore's campaign headquarters several times on this and was interrupted and hung up on twice in a row. The second time i posed as a potential contrubitor! It seems as if his campaign staffers have been told to stay away from this issue. Methinks it's pretty important for anyone with a phone and a buck or two to spare to call and ask some questions."
[Another]:
"On January 19, 2000 more than 5,000 agents of the Colombian Military, heavily armed, invaded our traditional territory, exactly at Cedeno, where Oxy's oil drilling site Gibraltar 1 is situated. Faced with opposition presented by the U'wa people, headed by our representative and indigenous leader Roberto Cobaria, military forces declared that "the oil will be extracted even over and above the U'wa people." Also police forces were dispatched to the zone for the security of Occidental's engineers.
Since the 15th of November 1999, more than 250 U'wa people have occupied Cedeno, part of our ancestral territory, resisting the exploitation brought on by Oxy. Now we are being surrounded by the 5000 military agents and Colombian police who have put at risk our physical integrity.
With this deed, Occidental and the Colombian government are insisting on ignoring our territorial rights over land we have occupied for thousands of years. We are the owners of the territory on which they aim to exploit petroleum, without recognizing the constitutional rights of community lands for our ethnic group which are inalienable, non-negotiable, and irremovable, protected by public laws over collective property.
In this way, the Colombian government headed by the Minister of Mining and Energy with the compliance of INCORA, in a shadowy process is seeking to declare U'wa territory a special petroleum reserve zone with the false argument that the national petroleum industry is covered by the law as a public utility or social interest, with the sole purpose of permitting and facilitating petroleum exploitation by the multinational corporation Occidental. We are making an urgent call to the national and international community, and to all groups who have supported us, to mobilize against this last attempt to trample upon the U'wa nation, which threatens our existence and culture. WE U'WA WILL NOT CEDE OUR CULTURAL, HISTORIC AND ANCIENT RIGHTS. WE PREFER GENOCIDE SPONSORED BY THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT RATHER THAN HANDING OVER OUR MOTHER EARTH TO OIL COMPANIES."
Clinton, U.S. lawmakers agree on aid for Colombia
09:46 p.m Feb 01, 2000 Eastern
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton and Congressional leaders agreed on Tuesday on the urgency of approving a proposed $1.6 billion aid package for Colombia to counter the country's important trade in illicit drugs*.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers discussed the issue in a meeting with Clinton on this year's legislative agenda.
White House spokesman Jake Siewert said all sides wanted to move quickly in approving the aid for Colombia.
``There seems to be very strong bipartisan support for that, and the president said to the leaders that he would like to move that as quickly as possible,'' he said. ``It's something the speaker and the Senate Majority leader also said that they firmly supported.''
In his State of the Union address last week, Clinton proposed a new law to help Colombia fight drug cartels.
The government of Colombian President Andres Pastrana has appealed for international help in its battle against drug producers and Marxist guerrillas who ``tax'' drug traffickers.
U.S. officials believe that about four-fifths of the cocaine entering the United States either comes from Colombia or is transported through the country.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, said he agreed that it was important to move the legislation forward as soon as possible.
``I would hope that we move it quicker and not later. I think it's important for the stability of the nation,'' he said after the meeting with Clinton.
Hastert said he and Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott spoke to Pastrana and both agreed on the need to help Colombia fight drugs and so-called narco-guerrillas.
``You know, the fact is, there's 14,000 people that are killed either by drugs or drug violence in this country every year -- most of them young people,'' Hastert said. ``And the problem is most of those drugs come from Colombia. So we need to work together to make sure that we can staunch that flow.''
Most of the Colombian aid package, which must be approved by the Republican-controlled Congress, will be military hardware, including weapons, radar and intelligence equipment. About a third of the package is for helicopter gunships and to help train two special battalions of Colombian anti-drug troops.
FOCUS-Colombia rebels hit two main oil pipelines
BOGOTA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Marxist rebels bombed two of Colombia's main crude export pipelines and vowed Tuesday to continue sabotage attacks on electricity infrastructure.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), the country's second largest guerrilla force, has routinely targeted energy infrastructure in protest at what it sees as the excessive involvement of foreign multinationals in the sector.
ELN fighters blew up the Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline, which pumps some 105,000 barrels per day of crude from the Cano Limon field operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY - news) in northeast Arauca province.
State-run oil company Ecopetrol, reported the attack Tuesday but said it occurred late Monday.
That explosion, at least the eighth this year, holed the pipeline 43 miles (69 km) west of the field. It was already out of action following a previous blast Saturday.
Shortly after midday Tuesday, another suspected ELN unit bombed the Oleoducto de Colombia pipeline, which pumps about 110,000 barrels of crude per day from a storage center at Vasconia in central Colombia to the Caribbean coast.
Vasconia serves as a storage center for much of the crude produced in the oil-rich eastern plains region.
The Cano Limon-Covenas tube is Colombia's second largest oil pipeline and the Oleoducto de Colombia is the third.
Last year, guerrillas, chiefly the ELN, attacked the Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline a record 79 times.
In an interview with Colombian radio networks Tuesday, ELN leader Nicolas Rodriguez defended the rebel force's tactics.
He said the guerrillas would continue their campaign to sabotage electricity infrastructure. Over the last year the ELN has downed more than 250 power pylons in the northwest causing blackouts in the main industrial hub of Medellin.
The ELN has said the attacks are aimed at preventing the privatization of state-run power grid ISA.
``This is a strategic decision...The solution is not to sell or hand over national patrimony,'' Rodriguez said.
Occidental lobbies for U.S. military aid to Colombia
BOGOTA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp., (NYSE:OXY - news) whose operations in Colombia are plagued by rebel sabotage, is lobbying the U.S. Congress to approve $1.6 billion in mostly military aid to this war-torn Andean nation, a top executive said in comments published on Monday.
The record aid package to fight narco-trafficking and Marxist guerrillas was proposed by President Bill Clinton last month and is currently being debated in the U.S. Congress.
The two-year plan has generated fierce controversy, with critics saying such assistance could drag the United States deep into Colombia's long-running civil conflict that has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the last 10 years.
``Occidental, like many U.S. firms has lobbied in Washington in favor of the aid package that is currently being studied in Congress. The package is of vital importance,'' Guimer Dominguez, head of Occidental's Colombia unit, said in an interview with the leading El Tiempo newspaper.
Occidental operates Colombia's second largest oil field, Cano Limon in northeast Arauca province, with output of some 130,000 barrels per day. Since it came on stream in the mid-1980s the field and the pipeline that pumps crude has suffered hundreds of guerrilla attacks.
Last year alone, the 230,000 barrel per day capacity Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline was bombed a record 79 times by rebels opposed to what they see as the excessive involvement of foreign multinationals in Colombia's oil industry.
Dominguez did not, however, spell out how he thought the U.S. aid package may improve the security situation around the field in northeast Arauca.
The bulk of the aid, including scores of helicopters, is destined for what U.S. officials have dubbed the ``campaign into the south'', to destroy drug plantations in rebel-held regions of southern Colombia.
In the El Tiempo interview, Dominguez also accused the guerrillas of stepping up attacks on Occidental amid a dispute between the U.S. multinational and militant U'wa Indians over an oil exploration project close to tribal lands.
The U'wa Indians have opposed Occidental plans to drill in the disputed Samore block, also in northeast Colombia, for the last eight years.
But last year, the company won government permission to press ahead with the project and has already begun building access routes to the proposed drill site, just outside the U'was officially recognized reservation.
The U'was have tried to block the work, claiming the drill site is still within an area they claim as ancient ancestral lands. Three Indian children died when police evicted hundreds of protesters earlier this month -- and National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels also sabotaged construction equipment.
``Occidental doesn't consider that the Indians are being manipulated by the guerrillas,'' Dominguez said.
``But we believe the guerrillas have abused the genuine interests of the Indians (as a pretext) to step up their military actions,'' he added.
* Yeah right
The dumbed down taxpayers don't know the difference. Send money and vote republicrat. Go Pat Go.
nothin like other peoples money , even chinese.
I'm going to put this in because of Colombia and because when I saw the 'announcement' several months ago, it struck me as very odd:
|
From The Iran Press Service
By Safa Haeri LONDON-BOGOTA FIRST OF JANUARY 2000 (IPS) The Iranian embassy in Bogota announced that the Islamic Republic has decided to suspend construction of a 3 millions US Dollars, 22 millions tons per year meat-packing plant and slaughterhouse in Colombia's cocaine producing jungle controlled by leftist rebels. The Surprise announcement came after Iran Press Service had revealed,
earlier in December, that the factory
According to the Spain's EFE press agency, the embassy had blamed the Iranian decision to abandon the project on "incorrect interpretations of some authorities of the Government o Colombia" which "have created conditions in which there could not be any guarantees for the security of the investment." Contacted by IPS, the Iranian Embassy in Bogota would not be more specific nor give more details, but it was clear that the announcement was a direct reference to a statement by the Colombian Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez alleging that Iranian military advisers were part of the group installing the slaughterhouse. According to Mr. Ramirez, the Iranians engineers and experts who had come to Colombia to supervise the construction of the meat-packing and slaughterhouse were in fact military experts connected with the leftist and anti-U.S. FARC which controls the jungle area. The Defence Minister made the accusations after the last Iranian team that arrived in Bogota refused their luggage to be inspected, rising the suspicion of the Airport Custom authorities, particularly because not only the area where the Iranians had considered for the factory was in a jungle area controlled by the FARC, but also not suitable for meat production. Hamid Reza Asefi, the senior spokesman if the Iranian Foreign Ministry had immediately dismissed Mr. Ramirez's comments, saying the project was discussed and concluded by a private Iranian firm having nothing to do with the government. But Iranian Ambassador to Colombia, Hussein Sheikh Zeineddin had revealed that area was chosen because Tehran wanted to contribute to the Colombian peace process and facilitate negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian authorities. He did not explain why the Islamic Republic of Iran, a central Asian nation that has no connection with Latin America wanted to mediate between a Marxist revolutionary group and the Colombian government. When the first Iranian delegation visited the area in June 1999 and signed an agreement with the local authorities four months latter on 21 October, Jorge Visbal, head of the Colombian National Cattlemen's Association told the weekly "Semana" that building such a high-capacity facility in an area that cannot fulfill export requirements "does not make sense", adding that most of Colombia's beef production occurs on the other side of the Andes Mountains. Visbal also wondered why there was such a rush to conclude an agreement, when other negotiations last years to fulfil. Sources contacted by IPS said considering the fact that the site Iran wanted to build the factory is in the centre of a cocaine production region controlled by FARC that in turn has extensive ties to narcotics traffickers, the Iranians might have been looking to benefit from narcotics trade while giving a hand to FARC to better fight the Americans by bringing closer the Colombian terrorist group with the Tehran-backed,Shi'a-based Hezbollah organisation that operates from one of the world's largest smuggled goods bazaar situated in the triangle made by Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, Foz de Yguazu, Brazil, and Puerto Yguazu, Argentina. ENDS IRAN COLOMBIA 1100 |
Hehehe.
Tuesday February 15, 8:34 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
ADVISORY/Occidental Exec Goes on Record Regarding Subversive and Narcotics Activity in Colombia
Occidental Exec Goes on Record Regarding Subversive and Narcotics Activity in Colombia
(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Lawrence Meriage provides first-hand private industry perspective among national leaders Gen. McCaffery, Amb. Peter Romero, Amb. McNamara and others
Washington--February 15, 2000--Lawrence P. Meriage, vice president executive services and public affairs for Occidental Petroleum will be speaking before the Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources at the public hearing, ``The U.S. Response to the Crisis in Colombia.'' Based on nearly thirty years of business experience in the country, Meriage will provide private sector perspective on the explosive situation in Colombia. He will underscore:
Foreign and domestic economic benefits of Colombian oil
extraction
Explosive growth of subversive groups and drug
trafficking
Hidden agenda behind opposition to Colombian oil
development
Oxy's position on the Administration's $1.6
Billion aid package
Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000
Time: Hearing begins at 10:00am (Meriage is expected to testify after 11:30am)
Location: Rayburn House Office Building
Hearing Room 2247
Participants:
General Barry R. McCaffrey, Director Office of National Drug
Control Policy
Amb. Peter Romero, State Department Representative
Mr. William Ledwith, Drug Enforcement Administration
Ana Maria Salazar, Departmentof Defense Representative
General Charles Wilhelm, Commander U.S. Southern Command
Ambassador Morris Busby, Former US Ambassador to Colombia
Mr. Lawrence Meriage, Vice President Occidental Oil & Gas
Corporation
Ambassador Ted Mc Namara, Former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia
Mr. Meriage recently returned from Colombia and will be available for individual briefings prior to and following his testimony. Please contact Didi Blackwood (202) 494-6464 to speak with Meriage.
The Klintoon administration is the most corrupt since Grant. Now, just like Grant, Klintoon can have an opportunity to use the army to exterminate Indians
Office of the Press Secretary
(Grand Canyon, Arizona)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 11, 2000
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today I am announcing an urgently needed, two-year funding package to assist Colombia in vital counter-drug efforts aimed at keeping illegal drugs off our shores. It will also help Colombia promote peace and prosperity and deepen its democracy. Building on our current efforts, over this year and next our resulting support would total over $1.6 billion.
President Pastrana's inauguration in August 1998 brought to Colombia a new spirit of hope -- for deeper democracy, for broader prosperity, for an end to that country's long civil conflict. But, increased drug production and trafficking, coupled with a serious economic recession and sustained violence, have put that progress in peril.
President Pastrana has responded with a bold agenda -- Plan Colombia. It provides a solid, multifaceted strategy that the United States should support with substantial assistance. We have a compelling national interest in reducing the flow of cocaine and heroin to our shores, and in promoting peace, democracy and economic growth in Colombia and the region. Given the magnitude of the drug trafficking problem and their current economic difficulties, neither the Government of Colombia nor its neighbors can carry the full burden alone.
In Fiscal Year 2000, much of our support will be focused on a one-time infusion of funds to help boost Colombia's interdiction and eradication capabilities, particularly in the south.
The package will also include assistance for economic development, protection of human rights*, and judicial reform.
Our bilateral aid to Colombia will be supplemented by multilateral agencies. The World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank are considering hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for Colombia next year**. The IMF has already pledged a $2.7 billion Extended Fund facility to help jumpstart the economy. And we will also continue to encourage our allies to assist Colombia.
The obstacles to a better future for Colombia are substantial. We expect it will require years before the full benefits of Plan Colombia are felt. But I believe that with our support and that of other donors, Plan Colombia can soon accelerate Colombia's nascent economic recovery. Over the longer haul, we can expect to see more effective drug eradication and increased interdiction of illicit drug shipments.
Strengthening stability and democracy in Colombia, and fighting the drug trade there, is in our fundamental national interest. So, with President Pastrana and with our Congress, we must and we will intensify this vital work.
Q Mr. President, on the Colombian money, are you satisfied that there is enough non-military funds that are going there, enough economic development, or is it -- would you like to see a different mix?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me answer you in this way. I think we should get as much economic development and democracy preservation and human rights support funding as we can. I think it's important that most of the money go to helping Colombia deal with its drug problems and its other political problems and working with its neighbors to prevent the export of drugs.
The mix in the package I have announced today is the one that I believe has the right balance of good policy and likelihood of passage in the Congress. We consulted extensively with Congress. I called the Speaker of the House yesterday because I know he cares very deeply about the conditions in Colombia, wants the country to survive and do well, understands the historic importance of Colombia as a democracy in South America. And we want to do this together.
So I've tried to put together a package that I thought was good on the merits, while being very sensitive to the most interested members of Congress in what their priorities are, and I'm really hopeful about it. But this is very, very important to the United States, to our long-term ability to protect our borders from drugs and to our long-term commitment to having all of our neighbors south of the border be democracies and be good partners with us. And so I hope that this proposal will find a ready reception in Congress from members of both parties.
Q Mr. President, people say that the $1.3 billion just won't stop the drug trafficking. Are they wrong?
THE PRESIDENT: No, they're right, but that's not -- but that's a misleading statement. It will make it better if the money is well-spent, and it will dramatically strengthen and solidify the Colombian government in its struggle to preserve democracy, preserve economic growth and preserve order in the country, and be a good neighbor to all of its partners -- not just the United States, but the neighboring countries there that are threatened with destabilization.
So, will it solve all the problems? Of course not. Will it make a big difference? It certainly will. I talked to President Pastrano last night; he certainly thinks it will make a difference. And as I said, this is something I believe both Republicans and Democrats in Congress who know about Colombia care a lot about*, and I hope it will pass quickly.
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 9, 2000
PRESS BRIEFING BY
JOE LOCKHART
Q Joe, has the President been warned that we're approaching the area where this could trigger higher inflation, that oil prices are high enough about at this point that this is a real danger?
MR. LOCKHART: I think, obviously, oil prices get factored into our inflation; both the main rate and the court rate excludes energy prices. I think, overall, the inflation picture in this country remains in check, but this is something we will watch from month to month.
Q Joe, the Colombian Vice President is in Washington lobbying the Hill on the aid to Columbia package, and it looks like the legislation may be voted on in the House next week. Is the administration confident it has the votes to get it through?
MR. LOCKHART: Well, we're making a strong case for our own national interests, as far as the supplemental bill that includes the aid to Colombia. We think President Pastrana has moved forward and put together a very comprehensive program that both Colombia will contribute to, the European Union countries will contribute to, and the United States will. We think there is enormous concern in Congress about the drug trafficking in this country, and we expect at the end of the day that we'll have the votes to pass this legislation.
* Uh Huh
** That money will come in handy when Oxy needs to buy some new equipment
From IRNA
russia to boost trade with colombia
moscow, march 8 irna-itar-tass-acsna -- russia has hailed the trade agreement with colombia which became effective on march 6. the trade agreement between the russian and colombian governments signed in 1995, is expected to boost trade with this latin american country, the foreign ministry said in a press release on tuesday.
the foreign ministry said this important framework document will create the most favorable conditions for promoting new cooperation projects and serve as a basis for concluding other trade agreements, currently at the coordination stage.
another big step has been made toward the strengthening of various mutually beneficial relations which link russia with this latin american country, the foreign ministry said.
BTTT
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