Drummond, Shell Called to US Courts to Answer on Human Rights Charges

Two fresh law suits under America’s Alien Tort Claims Act were filed last week in US federal courtrooms. In the state of Alabama, Drummond Coal was again hauled to the dock for its complicity with right-wing death squads in Colombia, and in New York state, Shell Oil will have to answer to its alleged conspiracy with Nigerian security forces in the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wira.

The Colombian case against Drummond is the second such case against the US-based coal producer. Drummond’s alleged involvement in the 2001 assassinations of union leaders Valmore Lacarno, Victor Oracasita, and Gustavo Soler, all leaders of the mining union Sintramienergética, was the first Alien Tort Claims Act case to reach trial. In 2007, after key Colombian witnesses were prevented from testifying, a federal judge dismissed the case against Drummond and an appeals court failed to reverse that decision in December 2008.

This time Drummond, between 1999 and 2006, is accused of complicity with right-wing paramilitary squads in the murders of 63 men and four women. The suit, filed by a state of Florida law firm on behalf of 252 relatives of the slain, who are entitled to compensatory damages from Drummond if the company is proven guilty. The lawsuit claims Drummond specifically paid millions to the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC), who “terrorised” women and children “in their homes, on their way to and from work, and often murdered” others “on behalf of Drummond.”

Ken Saro-Wiwa is a martyr because, as leader of the non-violent Movement for the Survival of the Ogani People (MOSOP), he was among the first Nigerians to stand up against environmental degradation and human exploitation in the Niger Delta. His strong voice earned him a hasty trial and execution by the repressive regime of General Sani Abacha. The New York suit will attempt to prove that Shell was complicit in a campaign of terror undertaken by Abacha’s security forces.

The Alien Tort Claims Act, on US law books since 1789, allows non-Americans access to US civil court action in order the hold accountable US-based or other corporations to violations of international law. Because of the US’s historic economic power throughout the world, Alien Tory Claims cases are seen as a leading way in which human rights conduct gets heard in America.