PERMANENT PEOPLES' TRIBUNAL, SESSION ON COLOMBIA ...

PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL, SESSION ON COLOMBIA
Hearing on Oil Companies, August 3 and 4, 2007, Bogotá, Colombia

PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL, SESSION ON COLOMBIA
Hearing on Oil Companies
August 3 and 4, 2007
Bogotá, Colombia
JURY’S DECISION
1. INTRODUCTION
Founded in 1979 as a successor to the Russell Tribunals on Vietnam (1966-1967)
and on the dictatorships in Latin America (1974-1976), the Permanent Peoples’
Tribunal is charged with giving visibility and clarification in legal terms to all
those situations in which the massive violation of fundamental rights is not
institutionally recognized, be they at the national or international level. Spanning
its more than 25-year history and 33 sessions, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal
has accompanied, anticipated, and supported peoples’ struggles against the
spectre of violations to their fundamental rights, including being denied selfdetermination,
foreign invasions, environmental destruction, and new kinds of
economic dictatorships and slavery.
In August 2007, the trial began of transnationals implicated in the violation of
human rights in Colombia.
To date, hearings have been undertaken on the food and beverage sector (Bogotá,
April 1 and 2, 2006), mining (Medellín, November 10 and 11, 2006), and

iodiversity (Humanitarian Zone of Nueva Esperanza en Dios in the Cacarica
River Basin, Lower Atrato, department of Chocó, February 24 to 27, 2007).
The hearing was preceded by six preliminary hearings, which took place in
Saravena (December 11, 12 and 13, 2006), Barrancabermeja (March 22, 2007), El
Tarra (May 19 and 20, 2007), Cartagena (May 25, 2007), Madrid, Spain (June 15
and 16, 2007) and Glasgow, Scotland (June 21 and 22, 2007). These preliminary
hearings allowed the communities most affected by the acts described herein to
participate directly in the research and testimony gathering process.
The hearing took place in the head offices of the Asociación Distrital de
Educadores, ADE, District Association of Educators, Southern Office, in
accordance with the program detailed in Annex 1. Approximately 1,000 persons,
principally coming from the regions affected by oil transnationals, attended the
hearing. It also had the presence of representatives from the international
network Enlazando Alternativas, Linking Alternatives, which comprises more
than 80 NGOs from Europe and Latin America.
In accordance with the agreement defined with the international foundation Lelio
Basso and the General Secretariat of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, this fourth
hearing has relied on the collaboration of the Observatorio de Trasnacionales,
Megaproyectos y Derechos Humanos, Observatory of Transnationals,
Megaprojects and Human Rights, in the preparation of the indictment’s material
and documentation.
The jury appointed by the PPT included the following judges:
• DALMO DE ABREU DALLARI, professor of Law at the Universidad of Sao
Paulo, member of the International Commission of Jurists, member of the
Defence Council for the Rights of Human Persons (Presidency of the
Republic of Brazil).

• MARCELO FERREIRA, professor of Human Rights at the Faculty of
Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
• ANTONIO PIGRAU SOLÉ, professor of International Public Law at the
University Roviria and Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), author of numerous
writings on international law, and member of various academic circles on
the subject.
And the following joint judges:
• NATIVIDAD ALMÁRCEGUI, secondary teacher, member of the
Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT, General Labour Confederation
(Spain), and coordinator for the Political Solidarity Seminar at the
Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain).
• DOMINGO ANKWASH, president of the Confederación de las
Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, CONFENAIE,
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities from the Ecuadorean Amazon.
• DEIRDRE GRISWOLD, journalist, representative from the International
Action Centre, and member of the Secretariat for the Bertrand Russell
Tribunal on War Crimes in 1967.
• RALF HÃUSSLER-EBERT, theologian and reverend from the German
Lutheran Church, member of the Board of Directors of the Ecumenical
Initiative for Central America.
• IVONNE YANEZ, Ecuadorian ecologist, South America Coordinator for
OILWATCH Network (a network for resistance to oil exploitation in
tropical countries).
Father Javier Giraldo and Gianni Tognoni, Secretary General of the PPT in Italy,
also attended the hearing.

The Accusations
Given the responsibility of the named companies, it was indicated Occidental,
British Petroleum, and Repsol have adopted common policies in Colombia.
Specifically, these policies have resulted in the ravaging of natural resources and
systematic violence perpetrated against the population. Consequently, this has
entailed the destruction of the social fabric, the carrying out of murders, the
persecution of social leaders, generalised human rights violations, and the
destruction of indigenous groups.
According to the accusations, these enterprises commit violations to gain the
control of the population and shut down all resistance to their activities. In this
regard, several strategies have been combined, including pressure exerted over
the State to implement policies beneficial to these enterprises (for instance, the
minimization of regular work contracts, the broadening of freelance work
contracts, the privatization of energy companies, the granting of fiscal
advantages, and the handing over of additional oil and gas reserves to these
enterprises). Moreover, the life of society has been militarised, which has only
increased through encouraging corruption, the application of Plan Colombia, and
the direct support provided by the oil enterprises to the legal and illegal armed
forces.
According to those experts who back the accusations, these three oil
transnationals share similar objectives, which are based on imperialist policies
that have plundered Colombian oil reserves. Moreover, these enterprises employ
such diverse strategies as the concealing of production test results, signing
contracts on unfavourable terms for the nation, carrying out fraudulent
transactions to evade taxes, using the national budget to provide infrastructure
for exploration and construction, invading the ancestral territories of indigenous
groups, entering into security agreements with private security companies and
the military forces, and –through the effective cooperation of the Stateamending
the legal framework regulating this activity in Colombia. Concerning

the last point, this behaviour is symbolized by the more than 605 million dollars
in profits obtained in 2005.
According to the accusation, these enterprises must first remove their enemies in
order to get the oil, no matter if they are environmentalists, workers, campesinos
or indigenous persons opposing these policies and, in keeping with the words of
neoliberals, “creating restrictions to the efficient functioning of markets.”
As is known, oil and gas are non-renewable natural resources. Therefore, their
extraction is definitive. A country, which depletes its reserves, will not recover
them, unless new deposits are found. If the export of oil is carried out irrationally,
as has been done in Caño Limón, Cusiana, and Cupiagua (oil fields with total
reserves reaching 3.5 billion barrels), then these mega-reserves will finish in less
than fifteen years. For instance, the life of Colombia’s biggest oil reserves will not
last more than 30 years. The exploitation of Cira Infantas, another major drilling
project, presently run by Occidental, could last 100 years.
The rate of extraction has been high. In fact, according to ECOPETROL, up to
2002, Occidental had extracted 750 million barrels of oil from Caño Limón, while
British Petroleum had removed 806 million barrels in Cusiana and Cupiaga. To
date, more than 2.5 billion barrels had been taken from both oil fields with a total
value of more than 60 billion dollars, a sum almost equivalent to Colombia’s
combined national and foreign public and private debt.
The following specific accusations were presented against the oil enterprises and
the Colombian State:
Occidental and Repsol are partners in different business activities. Repsol has
become a complement for Occidental’s activities in Colombia. As has been its
practice, the US multinational, Occidental, sold part of its share to the Caño
Limón oil field to Repsol, a Spanish transnational. After reacquiring Shell’s share,
through the purchase of Colcito, which became Occidental Andina, Occidental

sold, through Oxycol, 6.25% of its shares to the transnational Repsol YPF. That
transaction was reported to be worth 150 million dollars. With this agreement,
Repsol began to participate as a minority shareholder in Cravo Norte, made up of
ECOPETROL, holding 50%, and Occidental, represented by its subsidiaries,
Occidental Andina, holding 25%, and Occidental de Colombia, holding 18.75%.
The principal shareholders of Repsol are Spanish financial conglomerates,
including La Caixa, which holds 31%, followed by the Basque-based Bilbao
Vizcaya Argentaria, which holds 9%, and the Castilian energy company Iberdrola,
with 3.5% of the shares. Nonetheless, an increasing amount of US capital is being
invested. One of these US shareholders is an investment firm called Brandes,
which controls 9.4% of the shares. Furthermore, the Spanish oil company has
been developing its partnership with the Occidental Petroleum Corporation.
Repsol, whose principal shareholders are Spanish financial conglomerates
(starting with La Caixa, which controls 31%, followed by the Basque-based Bank,
Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, with 9%, and the Castilian energy company, Iberdrola,
with 3.5% of shares), has a growing amount of investment from US capital. One
of this company’s US-based shareholders is the Brandes Investment Fund, which
controls 9.4% of its ownership. Furthermore, the Spanish-based petroleum
company is developing a growing association with the Occidental Petroleum
Corporation.
After acquiring part ownership of Caño Limón in 2003, Repsol assumed an
enormous responsibility in the genocide committed by the US multinational
against the population in the department of Arauca. Moreover, Repsol became
implicated in the ethnocide perpetrated against the Guahíbos and U’wa
indigenous peoples due the environmental destruction caused from oil
exploitation and the brutal plundering of Colombian natural resources by
multinational corporations. Additionally, a counter-insurgent project has been
developed to wage an extremely aggressive war on the civilian population.

Repsol YPF possesses mining rights over eight blocks in Colombia, seven of
which are for exploration. It has under its control an area of 7,863 square
kilometres. By way of the enterprise Gas Natural, Repsol is also the principal
provider of home heating fuel in the country. This company monopolises the
distribution of natural gas in Bogotá, the Cundinamarca and Boyacá Inter-
Andean Valley, and the Eastern Colombia, to approximately 1.5 million clients.
In the case of Arauca, Repsol has established a strategic alliance with Occidental
and its militarization project. It has also consistently aided in intensifying
conflicts in Arauca. For instance, Repsol’s arrival coincided with the initial
paramilitary actions against the population of Tame (located in Capachos I Block
and one of the municipalities subjected to oil exploration and exploitation) and
the intensification of the armed conflict in the region. In the areas of the Lower
and Middle Atrato and San Juan Rivers (Northwest Colombia), there is also a
significant paramilitary presence where Repsol carries out oil exploration and
exploitation.
Some of its activities are being carried out in the ancestral territory of the U’wa
people. Three drilling operations -Capachos, Caño Limón, and Catleya- are
located very close to indigenous territory, lands divided up by the Colombian
government with the purpose of removing these lands from the reservations in
order to allow these multinationals to carry out the exploitation activities.
1. The Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos, ECOPETROL, Colombian Oil
Enterprise, and the COLOMBIAN STATE.
2. OCCIDENTAL, REPSOL, ECOPETROL, and the Colombian State, for the
plundering of natural resources, the destruction of ecosystems, the
contamination of the environment, the destruction of the territory and
culture of the U’wa and Guahiba indigenous communities, and the
genocide against communities and social organizations in the department
of Arauca. Insofar as the latter, this crime is represented by the following

specific cases: the massacres in Santo Domingo, La Cabuya, Tame (the
rural communities of Flor Amarillo, Piñalito, and Cravo Charo), Cravo
Norte, Caño Seco, the murder of Hugo Horacio Hurtado, and the strategy
of systematically implementing the criminal investigation of the region’s
social leaders.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is a US enterprise founded in 1920. It is
based in the State of California and has operations in several countries
throughout the world, principally in the Middle East and the Americas.
In Colombia, Occidental is accused of encouraging the extermination of
the Unión Sindical Obrera, USO, oil workers trade union for Ecopetrol. In
particular, Occidental is held responsible for the murders of Manuel
Gustavo Chacón, Jorge Orlando Higuita, Auri Sara Marrugo, Enrique
Arellano, and Rafael Jaimes Torra.
In its attempt to hold harmless its exploitation, and with the collusion of
the Colombian State, Occidental has resorted to the most extreme
repressive measures in Arauca, including the mass expulsion of the rural
population through pressure exerted by the military, police, and other
security agencies; directly supporting military actions and encouraging
and waging war to ensure its strategic interests and guarantee the amount
of profit and ongoing flow abroad; US military intervention through Plan
Colombia; the creation of war operation theatres through the
implementation of special legislation (states of internal commotion, states
of exception, states of emergency, areas of recovery and consolidation); the
generalised militarization of Arauca, which involves part of the civilian
population in military programs, institutionalising paramilitary groups
and adapting the judicial system to the interests of the transnational
enterprises; and the breaking up of the social movement.

3. To the British Petroleum Company and the Colombian State, for the
dismemberment of social and campesino movements, the extermination of
the Asociación de Veredas de Cunamá, ASOVEC, Association of Rural
Communities from Cunamá, the Asociación Comunitaria para el
Desarrollo Agroindustrial y Social del Morro, ACDAINSO, Community
Association for Agroindustrial and Social Development in Morro, and the
Asociación Departamental de Usuarios Campesinos, ADUC,
Departmental Association of Campesino Workers, specifically the murders
of Carlos Mesías Arriguí, Daniel Torres, Roque Julio Torres Torres,
Oswaldo Vargas, and Carlos Hernando Vargas Suárez.
The Evidence
Documentary, testimonial and expert-witness evidence was provided to the
Tribunal during the hearing. The amount and wealth of the documentary
evidence was so immense its assessment exceeds the strict margins of this ruling.
Nonetheless, it is annexed separately so it may be included in the deliberative
hearing to be carried out in July 2008.
Testimonial evidence was provided by many persons who were first-hand
witnesses as well as by relatives of the victims who witnessed the murder of their
loved ones. In this respect, as a whole, the testimony was emotional and
unnerving. Some of the witnesses also expressed the chance of reprisals being
carried out after they return to their places of origin due to their testimony.
The expert witness testimony provided a general approach to the situation in
Colombia with respect to the economy, politics, and the social and armed conflict,
and especially the impact of US military policy in the region.

ASSESTMENT OF THE ACTS
The Different Aspects
SPECIFICITY OF THE OIL INDUSTRY
It is important to mention that the oil industry follows a dynamic of capitalist
accumulation and national security for countries highly dependent on energy.
First, due to the strategic character of the hydrocarbon, the most powerful
economic groups in all of history –oil corporations- have been able to consolidate
due to the enormous economic surplus generated by oil activity over the last
decades.
Second, it is publicly known world oil reserves are diminishing in a fast and
irreversible manner, which has made these resources an ever more prized asset.
Access to these reserves has also become a matter of national security for
industrialized nations, especially European states and the United States,
principle consumer and country most dependent on fossil fuels in the world.
In all phases -exploitation, extraction, transport, refining, or consumption-, oil
activities cause catastrophic and irreparable social and environmental impact on
a local and global level. Nonetheless, corporate greed and the increasing demand
for energy has forced the expansion of oil activities into areas of high biodiversity
as well as indigenous territories.
The strategies of oil industry multinationals have no limits. For instance, they
collude with the international financial system, forcing producer countries to
become indebted in order to perpetuate the extraction and exportation of natural
resources. These corporations also pressure governments to ease environmental,
labour and fiscal legislation in order to be able to act more freely and obtain more
revenue. Moreover, oil enterprises force the dismemberment and privatization of

state-owned enterprises. They also reach agreements with international
organisations in order to clean up their image socially and environmentally.
Lastly, they create alliances with local mafias, the regular army, and paramilitary
forces -accused of murdering, torturing, persecuting, or disappearing community
leaders- in order to undertake their operations with total security.
These and other strategies allow them to act with an aura of supposed corporate
social responsibility and respect for human rights. However, public accusations
and evidence continually come to light, describing their direct responsibility for
environmental crimes in polluting land, rivers, and oceans; for the loss of forests
and biodiversity; for attacks on economic, social and cultural rights of the
population where operations are undertaken; for provoking displacement and
thousands of social and environmental refugees; and for destroying sources of
subsistence, affecting their food security, and putting at risk the survival of entire
cultures and peoples.
These oil enterprises violate fundamental, collective and environmental rights.
Furthermore, they become covert or overt assassins and act under a systematic
impunity by distorting the rule of law and benefiting from the armed conflict.
The governments of the countries where these oil enterprises are based are
equally responsible for allowing the impunity of these enterprises. These
governments are also responsible for encouraging the repression and
militarization of these oil rich areas and for creating conditions encouraging
ongoing fear, invasion and war against persons living in these areas or opposing
the resulting social and environmental impact.
In Colombia, transnational oil enterprises obtain real profits of over 80%. This is
only possible under the militarization of the production facilities. Even though
this hearing has focused only on the previously cited enterprises, all of the major
oil enterprises in the world currently operate in Colombia.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
Given the previously indicated conditions and the context of the social and armed
conflict faced by the Colombian people, and considering the documents and
testimonials gathered, the existence of generalised and systematic violations to
human rights is evident.
First of all, grave violations to the right to life and the physical integrity of many
persons were made clear with cases of murders, massacres (the bombardment of
Santo Domingo, as well as the massacres at Caño Seco, Tame-Piñalito, Flor
Amarillo, Cravo Charo, La Cabuya, and Cravo Norte), torture, and death threats.
During the hearings, several witnesses also provided testimony on the crimes
committed against their family members (mothers, father, siblings, children, and
cousins).
Moreover, an ongoing persecution has been verified against trade union leaders,
to the point it may be claimed Colombia is the country with the greatest risk for
carrying out said activity. More than three thousand trade unionists have been
murdered over the last twenty years. An exemplary case is the persecution
subjected upon the leaders and rank and file members of the Unión Sindical
Obrera, which over the last twenty years has witnessed the murder of 105
members, in addition to other cases of forced disappearances, kidnappings,
physical attacks, internal displacement, and exile.
CRIMINALISATION OF SOCIAL PROTEST
Furthermore, the evidence provided confirms a panorama of systematic
persecution against all forms of opposition to the interests of the implicated oil
enterprises. Operationally, this persecution is ensured through the
criminalisation of social protest, arbitrary criminal investigations, and mass
detentions, as has occurred on different occasions in Saravena. In some cases,
these proceedings have even convicted the persecuted persons. In this respect,

when a witness, who had been detained and convicted for rebellion, referred to
the moment of her capture, she said: “as an educator, I was worried we were
running out of students since the government required a minimum number of
students […]. We met in spite of the plan announced by the government to close
the schools.” Then, “they came into the room where I was resting and screamed:
Where are the weapons”
RESTRICTIONS TO THE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
The Tribunal was also able to verify the violation to the right to the freedom of
movement, recognised in the Colombian constitution and international
legislation (which is a part of the Colombian legislation). Specifically, according
to a witness, so called areas of exclusion have been established in which a virtual
state of war reigns under the direct control of the armed forces and private
security companies at the service of the oil enterprises. The disproportionate
militarization of these areas is demonstrated by the following testimony provided
by a mother describing the murder of her underage child: “my son went to a lake
with a friend to hunt some chigüiros for the festivities and a watchman saw
them and called the army at Caño Limón.” Later, the child was found dead. It is
noteworthy the witness identifies the armed forces as an army belonging to the
transnational enterprise.
Testimony and documents also demonstrated this situation worsened from the
arbitrary nature of the military checkpoints on the roads and the restrictions on
the circulation of food, medicine and other essential goods, bearing in mind the
poverty of these rural communities. According to one witness, “if we were
carrying foodstuff worth more than 150 thousand pesos [approximately 50
euros], it was taken from us, since they said it was meant for the guerrilla […].
We weren’t allowed to have cement or food or nothing of any worth.”

VIOLATION OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
The oil exploration and exploitation has meant internal displacement, expulsion,
or near extinction for a large portion of indigenous communities (U’wa, Sikuane,
Macaguan, Cuiba, Guahibo, Betoye, Bari, Cofan, Nasa, Inga, Embera Chamí,
Siona, Awá, Pasto, Camsá, Yanacona, and Camentzá) through the invasion and
subsequent destruction of their ancestral territories. Likewise, since oil
exploration and exploitation began in these different regions, indigenous persons
have been the victims of murder, massacres, detentions, and torture at the hands
of State or para-State agents, as these enterprises and the State consider these
communities to be an obstacle to oil extraction.
Frequently, these peoples are accused of being terrorists, guerrilla members,
rebels, or subversives, which is meant to weaken indigenous resistance and
encourage them to abandon their land. Paradoxically, these cultures are
traditionally peaceful and have lived and worked the land for thousands of years.
The process of the gradual abandonment of indigenous lands has been carried
out in violation of the ILO Convention No. 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples,
which expressly establishes the right to consultation on the transfer of their lands
and prescribes said peoples should not be removed from the lands they occupy.
This was recently recognised by Constitutional Court ruling T-880 in relation to
the Barí people, but also extending to all indigenous peoples.
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERIORATION
Petroleum exploration and exploitation activities carried out by transnational
companies and the Colombian government have required a significant amount of
infrastructure, including communication routes, buildings, crude oil transport
systems, oil wells, water treatment facilities, stabilisation ponds, military bases,
and airports and heliports. These projects have destroyed vast expanses of forest

and have affected marshes, wetlands, streams, and rivers within the Orinoco
River Basin, which has gravely altered the natural cycles of the ecosystem.
The surrounding plant and animal population –as well as the health of humanshas
been adversely affected by the following: contamination of different bodies of
water, perforation of oil wells, felling of trees, generation of heavy metallic and
gas waste, alteration of water temperature, emission of carbon monoxide and
carbon dioxide, oxidization of nitrogen and sulphur, uncontrolled burning of
petroleum waste, and spilling of oil waste in pools near oil wells (which
contaminates the water table).
Repression has also been carried out against environmental defence work,
including against State environmental officials as is the case of the murder of
Carlos Hernando Vargas Suarez, director of CORPORINOQUÍA.
IMPUNITY
The right to justice forms a part of the obligation of guarantee. In this respect, the
State must organise the entire State structure to bring about and truly make
effective the achievement of all liberties and rights consecrated in international
human rights treaties. Moreover, this obligation entails the duty of the State to
investigate, try, and punish the responsible parties for the human rights
violations recognised in these treaties.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has defined impunity in the
following manner: “the total lack of investigation, prosecution, capture, trial,
and conviction of those responsible for violations of the rights protected by the
American Convention.” Likewise, the Court has indicated “the State has the
obligation to use all the legal means at its disposal to combat impunity because
it fosters chronic recidivism of such violations, and total defencelessness of
victims and their relatives.”

The Colombian State has not complied with all of said obligations. In this
respect, the few independent judicial investigations have not completed or passed
the stage of the preliminary investigation, since all investigations are usually
blocked –in the best of cases- by a gagged and inoperative administration of
justice. For instance, the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office is headquartered inside
the installations of the 18th Brigade and has even participated in military
operations. In the same sense, it has been demonstrated judicial cases are
arbitrarily transferred to settings other than with the natural judge (as in the
creation of ad-hoc judges established after the fact and specifically for certain
acts).
In this context, it is timely to make reference to the phenomenon of
paramilitarism in Colombia and its relation with politics. According to one expert
witness, “they dress as senators in the morning, traffic cocaine in the afternoon,
and give orders to the paramilitaries in the evening.”
Paramilitarism concerns the development of a State strategy reaching far beyond
a counter-insurgency policy or a purely military response. In fact, this strategy
reaches deeply into the political, economic and social order. Paramilitarism has
been functional to major financial interests, multinationals, the violent
plundering of property, and drug trafficking. It also concerns a clearly defined
model of society and state. In order to achieve this, paramilitarism has counted
on the unrestricted support of the political and economic elite. Fundamentally, its
actions have targeted the civilian population. In particular, its victims have been
communities (especially women, children, and youth), taking on a critical stance
or opposition to the State policies ignoring their rights. To reach their objectives,
paramilitaries have perpetrated massacres, ethnocides, genocides, magnicides,
murder, torture, forced disappearance, and forced displacement. In other words,
there has been an endless chain of crimes against humanity.
Nevertheless, this massive amount of crimes has been covered up by the
impunity of a policy oriented to protecting the victimizers as well as disregarding

the rights of society and victims to know the truth, achieve justice, and receive
comprehensive reparation. Even though international bodies have repeatedly
recommended for concrete and effective actions to be taken to overcome
impunity, the State has yet to comply.
DETERMINATION OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Due to the preceding, the Tribunal accuses:
1. The transnational oil enterprises British Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum
Corporation, Repsol YSP, and ECOPETROL:
• For oil exploration and exploitation policies, which result in the
forced displacement of the local populations.
• For oil exploration and exploitation policies lacking any evaluation
of the environmental impact and entailing the destruction of forests
and other natural spaces. (These policies have also resulted in the
grave and increasing contamination of water sources, such as the
Arauca River, which presumes a forced restriction on the ways of
living of the affected population.)
• For the creation of authentic areas of exclusion, which deny citizens
access to large areas surrounding the fields being exploited (areas
characterized by a virtual state of war and a disproportionate
militarization), This has been accomplished by resorting to regular
armed forces, private security companies, and even paramilitary
groups.
• For tolerance of -as well as collusion and coordination with- these
armed groups, directly through subcontracted enterprises, in the
persecution of those persons or collectives showing any kind of
opposition to oil industry activity or the conditions in which these
activities are carried out. This persecution is carried out through
false accusations, death threats, kidnappings, physical aggression,

torture, and even murder, as has been widely documented before
this Tribunal.
• In particular, for the systematic and generalised persecution of
trade unionists, as is the case of the leaders and rank and file
members of the Unión Sindical Obrera, USO, in violation of labour
rights recognised internationally and constitutionally.
2. The Colombian Government:
The Colombian State has not fulfilled its legal obligations with action and /
or omission in at least the following most important aspects:
• The State did not provide the necessary protection to political
activists, social organisers, and trade unionists, who were victims of
threats due to their work carried out peacefully and in favour of the
achievement of human rights and respect for human dignity.
• The State did not carry out the necessary investigations or impose
the due punishment for the murders and other acts of grave
violence perpetrated against persons and human groups, even
though many of the authors could have been easily identified and in
many cases were even members of the armed forces.
• In the use of the public force in the repression of supposed
insurgent groups, the State did not make the necessary distinction
between combatant persons and groups and the peaceful civilian
population, which was respectful of the current legal order.
• In non-compliance with the obligations acquired in ILO Convention
169 concerning the rights of the indigenous populations, by
imposing the exploitation of natural resources within the lands of
said communities without their consent.
• In non-compliance with its obligation to prosecute crimes against
humanity and in particular the violation of the right to effective
legal recourse and the rights internationally recognised for the

victims of said crimes, due to the absence of a truly independent
judicial power.
3. The Governments of the States whose nationals possess significant capital
in the previously mentioned enterprises:
• For allowing said enterprises to not comply with international
standards relating to human rights and the environment (which in
their countries of origin they would be obliged to respect) as regards
their economic activity in other countries, as in the case of
Colombia.
4. In particular, the government of the United States:
• For defending a supposed right to intervene in any country in order
to preserve US security interests, including access to oil resources,
and decisively contributing to the extreme militarization
surrounding oil exploitation in Colombia (through specific plans,
human resources, training, and financing), as it has done in other
parts of the world and with atrocious consequences for the civilian
population.
5. The Tribunal considers there to be reasonable grounds to classify a huge
amount of specific acts of murder, massacre, torture, persecution, and the
forced displacement of persons, as has been presented, as crimes against
humanity, in as much as they have been committed in a systematic and
generalised manner against a civilian population. In this context, the
Tribunal wants to recognise the fact that, notwithstanding the previously
stated and without exception, all persons, with or without the
consideration of a State agency, also bear individual criminal
responsibility for the crimes against humanity in which they may have
participated as an author or accomplice. Furthermore, this responsibility

may be made effective through the Colombian court system or through
other national tribunals operating with universal jurisdiction or, for crimes
committed in Colombia after November 2, 2002, through the
International Criminal Court.
CONCLUSIONS
Given the aforementioned reasons, appealing to the Algiers Declaration on the
Rights of Peoples, considering proven the totality of accusations against all and
everyone of the enterprises as well as the responsibility of the Colombian State,
and with the conviction that the violation of their rights constitutes an attack on
the common conscience of humanity and concerns all peoples, the Tribunal
resolves:
1. To send the accusations and evidence produced to the final deliberative
hearing of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, session on Colombia.
2. To disseminate the ruling to labour organisations, indigenous peoples, and
urban and rural communities, who have suffered from the impact of the
destructive actions of these transnationals, and to organisations in
solidarity with the former, as well as to academic and student
organisations, the Office of the Prosecutor General, the High Courts,
Colombian Control Agencies, Alternative and Mass Media Outlets, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, the United Nations Special Representative on Human Rights, the
International Criminal Court, the Accused Enterprises, their corporate
head offices, and the governments of their home states.
3. To express the Tribunal’s solidarity and recognition of the victims’ pain.

4. To actively support the struggle for truth, justice, and comprehensive
reparation, the reestablishment of the violated rights, and the guarantee
these crimes will not be repeated.
RECOMMENDATIONS
At the conclusion of this hearing, the delegates present for Permanent Peoples
Tribunal –as well as the joint judges participating in the jury- express their utter
admiration for the profoundness and courage of the work relating to cultural
resistance and the defence of their dignity and right to a life with justice. In this
regard, we appreciate the representatives and witnesses from the communities
who have come before this hearing. These women and men have suffered so
much –yet continue on the path for the construction of a future with peace and
self-determination- not only deserve our solidarity, but also our equally
important and coherent commitment to a just society. The following
recommendations mean to be an expression of this commitment and one more
way to accompany the communities we have come to know and will remain in our
memory and actions.
1. The jury calls upon intellectuals and members of social organisations from
Latin America -and other parts of the world- to devise proposals for the
regulatory legislation of transnational enterprises and the classification of
their economic and environmental crimes within effective coercive
frameworks. Moreover, the United Nations should be pressured to adopt
this in order to safeguard the rights of peoples.
2. The jury also calls upon the shareholders of the oil transnational
enterprises in their countries of origin in order for them learn about the
behaviour of their subsidiaries and subject them to an ethical control.
3. The jury also calls upon the international community to be critical of the
information produced daily on Colombia. In country where so many

atrocities have occurred as has been presented before this and previous
hearings, it should be remembered official sources -or those allowing to
silence these crimes- cannot be considered reliable.
4. Likewise, as the jury, we call upon social organisations and movements
from Latin America, which share the same problems and suffer from
similar acts of aggression by oil enterprises so we may become ever more
supportive of each other in speaking out and searching for solutions.
5. We address the International Criminal Court so it does not further delay
its decision to admit the case of Colombia, since the different hearings of
the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal have proven the existence of several
crimes against humanity.
6. The Tribunal also considers it necessary and timely to urge Colombian
lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and magistrates to take on an active role in
the search for real justice, which is a prerequisite for peace. In this regard,
we also consider it important to stress that, in addition to recognising the
protection of an independent judicial power as indispensable in making
effective human rights, the humanist concept of the right is becoming
more universal. In modern jurisprudence, there is no place for the
overcome legal positivism, which, conceiving right as a mere formalism,
allowed the degradation of legal institutions and the perverse use of law as
a shield for procedures contrary to ethics, for the use of violence to favour
immoral privileges and give the appearance of legitimacy to acts of
aggression against life, fundamental rights, and the dignity of the weakest
and most fragile human beings. Humanism and right must complement
each other and, in the practice, jurists are responsible for promoting this
complementation.
7. Lastly, we express our profound concern for the unprotected situation of
those fighting for human rights in Colombia and in particular for those

who have appeared as witnesses in this and other PPT hearings. The jury
considers all acts affecting the representatives and witnesses in these
hearings to be the direct responsibility of the Colombian government.
DALMO ABREU DALLARI (President)
MARCELO FERREIRA
ANTONI PIGRAU
NATIVIDAD ALMÁRCEGUI
DOMINGO ANKWASH
DEIRDRE GRISWOLD
RALF HÄUSSLER-EBERT
IVONNE YÁÑEZ
Presented in Bogotá D.C. on August 4, 2007.