Glencore ‘linked to Colombian terrorist group’
Glencore ‘linked to Colombian terrorist group’
by Santiago Villa, July 13 2014, 08:27
GLENCORE, the largest mining company listed on the JSE and headed by South African Ivan Glasenberg, has been accused in a new 245-page report of mining and exporting “blood coal” from Colombia.
The report, “The Dark Side of Coal”, published by Dutch nongovernmental organisation PAX in Germany last week, says that Glencore’s Colombian arm, Prodeco, secretly supported the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC) during that country’s bloody civil war.
The AUC was listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation in 2005 and demobilised in 2006 after peace negotiations with the Colombian government. Colombia has not resolved its problems yet and the government is still negotiating with left-wing FARC guerrillas in Cuba.
Although the accusations against Glencore date back more than a decade, the report is likely to heighten scrutiny of the way it operates in some of its coal markets.
More:
http://www.bdlive.co.za/businesstimes/2014/07/13/glencore-linked-to-colombian-terrorist-group
