Colombia: 'Carbon credit' scheme a cover for land grab

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia: 'Carbon credit' scheme a cover for land grab
Written by James Bargent
Wednesday, 07 March 2012 09:21
Source: Green Left Weekly

When the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) arrived in San Onofre in northern Colombia in the late 1990s, they came after dark, dragging people from their homes and disappearing into the night.

Soon, they did not need the cover of darkness. People were executed in public plazas in broad daylight. Women and young girls were openly raped and abused.

Since the demobilisation of the local AUC bloc in 2005, 42 mass graves have been discovered in the municipality. Locals say about 3000 people disappeared ands tens of thousands fled their homes and abandoned their land to escape what one survivor called a region of “concentration camps”.

Seven years on from the AUC demobilisation, San Onofre is now the site of thousands of hectares of teak trees belonging to one of Colombia’s five biggest companies, Argos S.A.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3500-colombia-carbon-credit-scheme-a-cover-for-land-grab

[DCKit]

1. Bet they did the same thing to acquire the huge tracts of land....

that fresh-cut flowers are grown on.

Guess I won't be buying any more flowers.

[Peace Patriot]

2. A typical 'free trade for the rich" scheme: murder of the peasants; land grab.

When the creeps on TV extol the glories of "the marketplace," they never tell you what "free trade" is really all about. It's about murder and theft and the rich then trading what has been bloodily stolen--whether land or resources or some other valuable commodity--among themselves. In truth, there is no such thing as "free trade," because it starts with and ends with monopolies and is always--always--premised on violence.

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More of the article:

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"In February last year, Argos’ commercial monocrop plantation was approved for the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon trading scheme. This means it can sell carbon credits to industrialised countries trying to meet Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets.

"The company says the plantation will capture 37,000 tones of CO2 a year for 25 years – worth about $12.5 million in the current carbon market. It also plans to use another teak plantation in the nearby municipalities of El Carmen and Ovejas for the CDM.

"Argos claims the teak plantation is helping fight climate change and contributing to the sustainable development of a conflict scarred region, but the project has proved controversial.

"Survivors from the paramilitary era and land restitution campaigners claim the plantation and its CDM status is not only an attempt to cash in on the lucrative carbon credits market, but also legitimise a mass land grab that followed paramilitary violence, and prevent land restitution to a displaced population.

"The municipalities of San Onofre, El Carmen and Ovejas are in the Caribbean region Montes de Maria. A heavy guerilla presence in the area led to the creation of AUC bloc, the “Heroes of Montes de Maria” in 1997. The paramilitaries soon gained complete social and economic control of the region by murdering, torturing and displacing local farmers with the support of local state security forces.

"Between 1995 and 2005, 54 massacres were reported in the three municipalities of San Onofre, Ovejas and El Carmen and, says government agency Accion Social, 117,097 people have been displaced there since the paramilitaries first arrived.

"The AUC era ended with demobilisation in 2005. However, in 2008 El Espectacor reported a new invasion, of “strange personalities” in bulletproof Hummers.*

A land grab ensued, in which desperate, indebted or frightened people were pressured into selling property. Abandoned land was snapped up by speculators.

Next came big business. What had previously been an area of smallholder and subsistence farming rapidly became dominated by large-scale agro-industrial enterprises ― dairy, timber, African palm and teak.

As the land became more concentrated in fewer hands, the landscape of Montes de Maria began to change. Most of Montes de Maria is now owned by just a handful of large businesses, among them Argos, which owns an estimated 12,500 hectares." --from the OP

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3500-colombia-carbon-credit-scheme-a-cover-for-land-grab

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Given Obama's flip-flop on "free trade for the rich" between Colombia and the U.S., and Diebold's packing of Congress with far rightwing shills to endorse it, these bloodstained products--"dairy, timber, African palm and teak"--will soon be sold here, in the U.S.

The article goes on to chronicle the stories of individual small farmers who were terrorized by paramilitary and state forces. For instance:

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"Juan Carlos’ family owned land close to the El Palmar ranch, headquarters of the infamous local AUC leader known as “Cadena” and site of a mass grave containing 72 tortured and mutilated bodies.

“'We had to sell the land because we were in an unbearable situation,' he said, 'Our lives were in danger.'” --from the OP

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*This paragraph marks the transition of the old paramilitary murderers and thugs to the new ones under the Alvaro Uribe (Bush Jr pal) regime. Uribe ran Colombia as a criminal network, with, in my opinion, the biggest beneficiaries being the big, protected drug lords. He was given the resources of the U.S. "war on drugs," by the Bushwhacks, to consolidate the cocaine trade and better direct its trillion+ dollar revenue stream to certain beneficiaries (U.S. banksters, the Bush Cartel, the CIA). A SECONDARY goal was to benefit to entities like Argos (and also U.S. corps like Monsanto, Drummond Coal, Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Chiquita and others). Additional goals included benefiting U.S. war profiteers (such as Dyncorp and Blackwater), supporting fascist elements in Colombia, and proceeding with a war on Venezuela, including sending the AUC's successors (the Black Eagles) into Venezuela to destabilize that country and topple its leftist government.

It is very important to understand that murder and mayhem are the first premises of "free trade." "Free trade" is NOT some sort of benign exchange of goods in a free and open market. This kind of trade--the kind promoted by U.S. corporate rulers and falsely named "free"--benefits only the rich few and is based on KILLING PEOPLE and threatening and terrorizing them, to gain control of valuable commodities--whether land, or natural resources, or infrastructure, or tax supported government projects--and to seize the levers of power to enable gross profiteering, for instance, by eliminating labor unions and labor protections.

In addition to murdering peasants and driving them from the land, Uribe's thugs, in the Colombian military and its paramilitaries, ALSO murdered thousands of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor, with Uribe running an illegal spying operation--aided by the Bush Junta--that was drawing up "hit lists" of labor and peasant leaders for assassination, as well as spying on judges and prosecutors for smears and blackmail purposes (and in order to anticipate their actions, to protect Uribe's criminal network).

But the FIRST impact of driving peasants from the land, in Colombia, is to allow the big drug lords to move in. The AUC, the Black Eagles and Uribe were supported by the COCAINE TRADE. Peasant farmers may grow a few coca leaf plants for local use (an Indigenous medicine herb) or to sell, to augment poverty incomes, in addition to growing food crops. These small operations had to be shut down and the land "freed" for the really big criminal operations. The U.S. "war on drugs" ($7 BILLION+ in military aid alone) was used, FIRST, to drive FIVE MILLION PEASANTS from their lands, by poisoning their crops and by mass murder.

LEGAL trade--of the "free trade" variety--THEN comes in, and constitutes the SECOND criminal enterprise, though it doesn't have that name. It now owns the government and writes the laws--and, whatever the rich and powerful want to do, they do. Thus, Argos.

Step One: Murder and mayhem in a reversed "war on drugs" (actually a war FOR drugs). Step Two: "free trade."

[Judi Lynn]

5. After reading your comments, I had to find out more about Argos cement company in Colombia:

Wikipedia:

Argos is a leader in the Colombian cement industry, with 51 percent of market participation; it is the fourth largest cement producer in Latin America, and the only producer of white cement in Colombia. Argos has investments in Panama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is the sixth largest concrete producer in the United States and it also exports cement and clinker to 27 countries around the world.

Argos has four ports in the U.S. and four in Colombia as well as two in Venezuela, one in Panama, on in the Dominican Republic and one in Haiti. In Colombia, Argos is the largest transporter of land cargo. Argos has 14 cement producing plants, of which 11 are located in Colombia and the rest are in Panama, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Four of the 11 Colombian plants are located in the northern area of Colombia and are dedicated to exportation, while for domestic demand there are 7 plants located in the Departments of Antioquia, Cundinamarca, Valle, Boyacá, and Santander.

While Colombia is where Argos produces the most cement, the United States is where Argos has its largest concrete production capacity (8.9 million cubic meters per year). There are 134 concrete production plants and 1,350 mixers. Argos' concrete production capacity in Colombia is only 1.7 million cubic meters per year, with 40 plants and 230 mixers.

[edit] Company history

~snip~

Argos purchased Corporación de Cemento Andino in Venezuela, in 1998. Subsequently Argos established alliances to make investments in the Dominican Republic, Panama and Haiti. In 2005, Argos merged all of its cement producing companies in Colombia and purchased Southern Star Concrete and Concrete Express in the U.S. The following year, it purchased Ready Mixed Concrete Company in the US and merged its concrete producing companies in Colombia and then purchased the cement and concrete assets of Cementos Andino and Concrecem in Colombia. In October 2011, Argos purchased the Lafarge operations in the southeastern U.S. adding two cement plants, one clinker grinding, 79 concrete plants and five terminals to the Argos U.S. operation.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(cement_company)

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Argos and their land theft strategy in Montes de María: another reason to mobilize on March 6
MOVICE | Tuesday, 06 March 2012

Bogota, Colombia, February 16, 2012. The National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) supports member of Congress and MOVICE member Ivan Cepeda's actions before the United Nations denouncing human rights violations and the theft of small farmers' lands in Montes de María, in the Carribean coast region of Colombia, by the company "Cementos Argos S.A."

These actions began late last year, when Cepeda delivered a letter to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, explaining the company's responsibility for land theft in the Montes de María region.

The illegitimacy of Argos' purchase of 12,500 hectares of land in Montes de María, bought at absurdly low prices, is exacerbated by the fact that the region was severely battered by paramilitary atrocities in the 1990s.

Furthermore, Argos is part of the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows it to participate in the international carbon trading market. In order to participate in this program, companies must put in place ethics guidelines founded on human rights; Argos has clearly failed to implement these guidelines, as demonstrated by its actions in the Montes de María region.

More:
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/take-action/argos-and-their-land-theft-strategy-in-montes-de-maria-another-reason-to-mobilize-on-march-6.html

[center]~~~~~[/center]
Congressman demands UN expel Colombia's Argos from carbon trading scheme
Wednesday, 26 October 2011 15:16
James Bargent

Congressman Ivan Cepeda has asked the UN Secretary General to expel Colombian cement company Argos from the UN’s carbon trading scheme over allegations it is using land stolen from displaced people.

Cepeda wrote to Ban Ki-Moon claiming Cementos Argos used its links to leaders of the now demobilized paramilitary group the AUC to appropriate land following the paramilitary assault on the Montes de Maria region in north Colombia.

Between 2000 and 2006, paramilitary groups committed an estimated 49 massacres and displaced 140,000 people in their campaign to clear the area of guerrilla groups.

A government report published last week showed that after the assault, 100,000 acres of land left vacant by fleeing locals was snapped up by illegal armed groups, big landowners and private companies with the help of corrupt government officials.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/19971-congressman-demands-un-expel-colombias-argos-from-carbon-trading-scheme.html

[center]

Argos Headquarters, Medellín[/center]
Senator Iván Cepeda has forgotten more about paramilitaries than most people will ever learn: his own father was assassinated by parapoliticians via their murderous henchmen:

Congressman Cepeda accepts govt apology for father's murder
Wednesday, 10 August 2011 06:07
Travis Mannon

Congressman Ivan Cepeda accepted the Colombian government's apology Tuesday for their part in the 1994 murder of his father, Union Patriotica Senator Manuel Cepeda.

Several media reported that the Colombian State, represented by Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras, apologized to the family members of the murdered senator and asked for a pardon. Lleras admitted that the state did not provide good enough protection to Senator Cepeda, a mistake that led to the his assassination.

The interior minister also expressed solidarity with the victims of the violence in that era and explained that the state cannot repeat those vicious acts.

Congressman Cepeda said he forgave the government's formal apology as an act of hope that Colombians can build peace based on democracy and justice.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18211-congressman-cepeda-accepts-govt-apology-for-fathers-murder.html

[Bacchus4.0]

3. what a horrible idea

for a non-native species monoculture to be used as a carbon credit bank. the species is not native to Colombia, the habitat quality would be miniscule. the teak would likely still be harvested on a rotating basis and sold for wood products and the company would receive a large financial reward to boot.

its a horrible idea and precedent even aside from the AUC criminal allegations.

[naaman fletcher]

4. Same thing going on in Central Africa, particularly uganda. nt.