One of the world's richest oil fields
There's no question that this is one of the largest oil finds in Colombia.
Two oil companies with much to lose.
Let's be clear: I was fucking them up.
A man who should be dead.
And his four would be killers.
It's no secret: collect, kill, bury, disappear.
This is the story of how an unlikely survivor is taking on one of the world's biggest oil companies, BP.
They cut his head, his legs and his arms off...
With the help of the men who were sent to kill him.
The most amazing fact was that Gilberto lived to tell the tale.
Over half a million people were affected by the civil war in Colombia, some of it fuelled
by oil money and the battle to protect a multi-million dollar pipeline - owned by Ocensa - in which
BP and the Colombian company Ecopetrol and other multinationals were partners.
Thousands disappeared during that civil war, many from along the pipeline, as entire communities
were displaced.
In 2002, Gilberto Torres, a trade union leader, became one of the victims of paramilitaries
paid to protect the pipeline.
In an abduction he claims was ordered by the oil company Ocensa, in which BP was a stakeholder.
It was the multinational who paid 100 million pesos ($40,000), for my kidnap, disappearance
and murder.
Let's be clear: I was fucking them up. It was obvious that I was being the stone in
their shoe.
Now, 13 years on from Torres's kidnapping, his lawyers will file a case in the British
High Court in London, accusing BP of responsibility in the kidnapping because of its relationship
with Ocensa. They both deny any involvement.
The Guardian has uncovered video archives from the Bogota courtroom where the assassins
testified that they took orders to kill the trade union leader directly from the oil company.
This is the only case I've handled where the victim of the human rights violation actually
survived and could talk about it.
BP, who built the pipeline with Ocensa, say they will fight the case vigorously in London.
It was 7 in the evening when union leader, Gilberto Torres set off home from his work
at the oil pumping station.
While on the road I pass by my colleague’s Ocensa security car. I honk the horn to say hi
And then he rammed into my van. I turned around and I saw a paramilitary pointing his
gun at me. They handcuffed and blindfolded me. Then I heard someone from the van saying:
‘bring him, it is him’.
His kidnappers were from the ACC - one of the most powerful and feared of the country’s
right wing paramilitary brigades.
Torres was thrown into the back of the Ocensa security car and driven away.
We didn’t take any of the normal roads, always going through jungle and plains.
They made me get rid of everything, wallet, watch, necklace. The only thing I asked was
not to take off my glasses.
Torres represented over 400 members along the pipeline.
He had organized a shutdown when another union leader, Aury Sara, had been kidnapped. Sara
was found murdered five days later.
Torres says his kidnappers made it clear to him why he had been abducted
They told me everyone from the union were guerilla motherfuckers, destroying the economy,
and refusing the jobs the multinationals were bringing
I was damaging the profits of the multinationals. That was something they were not prepared
to tolerate.
They also showed him first hand how they do business.
My kidnappers took a supposed guerilla from the Farc. They hit him, they insulted him,
the spat on him, they battered him, until he confessed that he was part of the Farc.
With that admission he sentenced himself to death. They shot him twice in the neck. They
cut his head, his legs and his arms off. And at the end the commander with a machete started
to puncture his corpse.
I understood that this was going to happen to me.
At 5am they woke me up. The Commander said he had received an order from his superior
to dig a hole and put me in it.
We got to the hole they put me in and they covered it over with barbed wire.
I had wounds around my body so the ants and insects started to eat my wounds. This kind
of big red ants that literary were eating my flesh.
The Guardian has obtained the court recording of one of the guards who held Torres during
his kidnap, Carlos Lopez Garay.
The Commander Chanfle said I wasn't allowed to speak to him. But I spoke to him in secret.
Gilberto told me he was grabbed on behalf of the oil company Ecopetrol because he told
me that Ocensa security brought him and they gave him to the Commander.
The paramilitary death squads are believed to be responsible for over 200 murders and
disappearances in 2002 alone...
…the year Torres was abducted.
But, Gilberto Torres was a powerful union leader.
A national strike was organised to try and secure his release with the threat to close
down the pipeline again.
He was released after 42 days.
We got a call saying get Gilberto up and washed. We’re going to hand him back.
They got a call saying: “Send the cattle to be cleaned up, it needs to be sent to the
fair.” So we went to the river, I washed myself and when I was putting on my rags the
Commander said: “Not today engineer, you should wear your nice new clothes, as you
are going to be in the media.”
The army arranged a surreal press conference to claim credit for his release.
Gilberto Torres was finally free.
Terry Collingsworth is a Washington based human rights lawyer. He has spent over 30
years building cases against international oil companies in Indonesia, Burma and Colombia.
One of the ways the companies and the Government of Colombia historically have defended against
these accusations is to deny it, and they know how hard it is to prove the details,
to give the story life.
This is the only case I have handled where the victim of the human rights violation
actually survived and can talk about it.
And in Torres's case it wasn’t just the victim claiming that the oil companies had
a hand in his abduction and torture - his kidnappers and torturers testified to it.
They claimed that it was Ocensa who had ordered the contract hit on the trade union leader.
The court testimony of the paramilitaries - sentenced between them to over 300 years
for dozens of crimes - has never been seen before in public - and reveals the extent
of the relationship that the paramilitaries claimed they had with the oil companies.
ACC Kidnapper Arnovil Beltran Medellin explained how his unit carried out execution orders.
The orders were to collect, kill, bury, ‘disappear’.
(Solicitor): You mentioned that there was a relationship between the oil companies and
the paramilitaries… Could you please also clarify whether this relationship also existed
with the multinational company Ocensa?
Medellin: I heard comments about this but I did not see it directly.
What specific comments did you hear?
Medellin: That the company provided for the company I worked for?
How did they provide?
Medellin: Money
Then came the most compelling testimony of all, from a millionaire paramilitary commander,
already serving more than 100 years for countless murders, kidnaps and extortion.
Jose Dario Orjuela had been one of Torres’ interrogators.
He told the court that it was the Ocensa and Ecopetrol oil companies that wanted Torres dead.
They were the ones that asked us to execute this man - not that we kidnap him but to seize
him., kill him, and make him disappear.
This man held too many shutdowns, too many unions, too many strikes
J: Regarding the participation of Ocensa and Ecopetrol personnel - did you also confirm
that they had collaborated?
JO: Yes, Ms. Judge.
JO: If I’m not mistaken they were the bosses of that station up there, the ones managing
all of the station.
J: Porvenir station? JO: Yes, madame.
The judge then asked whether the oil companies paid the paramilitaries for protection.
JO: I think that, I am not mistaken, this corporation paid a yearly bonus to the organisation.
Ocensa has always denied making payments to the paramilitaries.
But Orjuela claimed in court that the paramilitaries had charged extra for the contracted killing of Torres.
J: And how much was it? JO: It was more than 100 million pesos if
I’m not mistaken.
But even $40,000 couldn’t buy murder in the face of a media outcry.
JO: We couldn’t kill and disappear this man because of the media’s pressure and
our organisation was paying for this.
But they always believed that this man would be disappeared and killed.
In three seperate trails, a total of four men were jailed for their roles in the Torres kidnapping.
One of the judges, Judge Teresa Robles Munar issued the following statement:
‘It can be inferred from the evidence on file that the Ocensa company was complicit
in [Torres’s] loss of freedom’
Torres was, she said: ‘threatening their economic interests’
She called for an official investigation into the ‘alleged conduct of Ocensa’s directors
or members at the time of these events, based on the vehicle used to commit the offence’.
Ocensa say that they have never been indicted or prosecuted for any alleged criminal activities
arising form Torres's kidnapping.
Now a small British law firm, Deighton Pierce Glynn, has this week - filed a case in the
high court in London against giant multinational BP - the British shareholder In Ocensa.
The unusual feature of Gilberto Torres's case is that the evidence linking him to Ocensa,
the company in which BP had a minority shareholding is so strong, that's why we've brought his
case forward.
We're hoping that the British public will agree that BP, as a British company, needs to be brought
to account.
Gilberto's case is one of countless cases where union leaders have been murdered by
paramilitaries acting on behalf of private enterprises, including multinational companies.
Gilberto's case might very well be the tip of the iceberg.
In Yopal, a memorial is being held for some of the thousands of victims who vanished or
were murdered in this oil rich region over the past 40 years.
And I'd like to see a case like this serve as an encouragement to shareholders to ask
questions before they become investors in a company as to whether they might be buying
into a company that has blood on its hands.
BP declined the Guardian’s offer to be interviewed for this programme and said they will “vigorously”
defend themselves against the allegations. They also say they were only a minority shareholder
in the pipeline at the time of the abduction.