Is the Colombian Government Conspiring with Drummond to Silence Francisco Ramírez?
Francisco Ramírez Cuellar is no stranger to death threats. The President of SINTRAMINERCOL, the union representing the workers of Colombia’s now privatized and disbanded state mining company, has had his office bombed and has survived numerous attempts on his life. In 2004, after Ramírez and his two young nieces barely escaped being shot by a gunman on a motorcycle, the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States ordered Minercol Ltd. and the Colombian government to provide the union leader with protection in the form of an armored car and two armed bodyguards. But through his work exposing how multinational mining companies are exploiting workers and displacing communities, Ramírez has made himself some powerful enemies – foremost among them, Drummond Coal, the Alabama-based company that his union is suing in a U.S. court for conspiring with right-wing paramilitaries to murder and torture two labor organizers. Drummond has friends in high places. On
