Petro-violence as a way of life

In this time of grasping for oil in far-off deserts, I think of Colombia. Their oil in “our” back yard is the paramount reason why Bush has extended his war on terror to include this Latin American country. And just in time to take over for the paradoxical war on drugs, which targets the most impoverished for persecution while allowing drug production to continually increase.

In the wake of 9-11, Bush intensified the war in Colombia, freeing up almost $2 billion to wage a counterinsurgency battle against the hemisphere’s largest guerrilla army – the FARC.

Bush seeks $95 million to support Colombian army battalions to protect an oil pipeline, not people. Occidental Petroleum virtually controls the 500-mile Canon Limon pipeline; the aid would subsidize the corporation with taxpayer dollars. More terrifying, local people have to deal with “the flute,” the name given to the pipeline with thousands of holes in it due to guerrilla sabotage. The ecological havoc over the last decade equals 10 Exxon Valdez oil spills that devastated the Alaskan coast in the 1990s.

Hector Madrugon, a Colombian human rights activist, told a jam-packed auditorium at Colby College two years ago about oil and its consequences for the poor of his country. When he mentioned the big “O” word, I thought to myself, oil, now what else is new? But when he accompanied it with the word massacre, a reality familiar to most Colombians, my body began to tremble.

Separating the politics of oil and the reality of human massacre prevents the public from asking questions that emerge when the two issues intersect. The insertion of the word massacre broadens a context out of which to understand Colombia. And it’s not the kind of massacre that goes on with bullets, although there’s more than plenty of that. Indigenous and Afro Colombians die slow deaths from oil-contaminated earth and water. “Black gold” has devastating effects on the poor. They bear the effects of a century built on hydrocarbon capitalism that produced profits off of the extraction of petroleum, coal and gas.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush made millions in Harken Energy, the Texas oil giant that has big stakes in Colombia. It drills in six conflictive areas throughout the country. The corporation even supported Plan Colombia, the huge aid package worth $1.3 billion designed to eliminate guerrilla forces under the pretext of fighting a drug war. Bush utilized an “Enron strategy” while on the board of the company in the early ’90s. He sold stocks based on inside information that company stocks would plummet. He made a small fortune on the illegal sales.

Colombia takes on increased importance in a setting of an Iraq war that would hurl the price of a barrel of oil to more than $40, up $10 from what it sells for now. Colombia is about energy with oil reserves estimated at 2.6 billion barrels. Oil comprises its largest export, surpassing coffee, and it virtually gives it away to big oil firms like Chicago-based Amoco, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, Exxon, Shell and Harken. At one point, Ecopetro, the state-owned oil company, had a 50-50 deal with these giants that came to drill for oil. Now the state gives the oil firms a 30-70 share. If a transnational drills in an area with little likelihood of finding the most sought-after commodity, and they discover it, they leave with 90 percent of the take.

The Andean region, of which Colombia is a part, supplied more oil to the United States between 1995-1997 than did the Persian Gulf countries. And it’s one of the reasons why the Pentagon views the region as a national security issue. Oil provides an explanation as to why we have U.S. troops in the area.

In thinking about Iraq, keep in mind the big “O” word and possible connections in the making when it kicks off conversation. Perhaps we’ll understand why the founder of OPEC declared, “Oil can bring trouble.”

Or we might come to understand why a past Venezulean president could say that oil is like “the devil’s excrement.” And who knows, we’ll perhaps come to the roots as to why petro-violence plays such a huge part in the American way of life.

Jim Harney works with Posibilidad, a Bangor-based nonprofit that deals with issues of globalization. He can be reached at jimharney@posibilidad.org.