Chairman and CEO
Occidental Petroleum Corporation
10889 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA. 90024-4201
Fax: 310-443-6977

Dear Dr. Irani,

As you are aware, Human Rights Watch has been studying the human rights implications of your collaboration with Colombia’s Defense Ministry. Throughout this research, your corporation has shown great openness in meeting repeatedly with our staff and discussing openly your policies. It is in the spirit of this constructive dialogue that we write now to express concerns over human rights issues related to your security arrangements. Our research has raised concerns that Occidental Oil & Gas Corporation, as operator of the Cravo Norte Associational Contract in Arauca, Colombia, has not taken adequate measures to address serious human rights violations allegedly committed by forces protecting the company’s interests and to prevent their recurrence.

We recognize that oil extraction in Colombia is extremely hazardous. Guerrilla forces in Arauca and Casanare use deadly tactics in their effort to extort money from transnational corporations or drive them out of the country. To that end, guerrillas regularly kidnap and murder company personnel in violation of international humanitarian law, and subject your facilities to regular attack.

This danger has led your company to rely on the Colombian military, an institution with one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere, to provide security. Serious allegations of human rights violations by Colombia’s military in Arauca have yet to be addressed by your company. To the best of our knowledge, Oxy has not taken steps to prevent further abuses or to address those that have occurred.

We understand that the terms and conditions of your relationship with Colombia’s security forces have recently been renegotiated, devolving upon the state

petroleum company,Ecopetrol, responsibility for communications with the military.41 While this new arrangement provides distance between your company and the security forces, it does not relieve the company of moral responsibility for human rights violations committed by those forces engaged in your defense. We urge you to design and implement a proactive human rights policy with the goal of preventing a situation in which security forces defending your interests engage in human rights violations.

As a basic principle, we urge you to insert a clause into any security agreement signed with the government or a state entity that requires, as a condition of contract, that state security forces operating in the area of company installations conform to the human rights obligations the State Party has assumed under the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as other international human rights and humanitarian norms. Such a clause is notably absent from the associational contracts Oxy has signed with the Defense Ministry to date. Furthermore, in the spirit of transparency, your contract should be open to public scrutiny, with the sole exception of operative details that could put individuals' lives in jeopardy.

Moreover, because of the pattern of gross violations of human rights attributed to the Colombian military and paramilitary groups that operate with military tolerance, we urge you to adopt the following recommendations. We are presenting a similar letter, with comparable recommendations, to the partners involved in exploitation of the Cusiana-Cupiagua fields.

I. Personnel

A. Screening

1. The military and police should provide your company with the names and military biographies of each policeman and soldier who will form part of the units employed to protect the companies, including the entire roster of the XVIII Brigade. You should insist that the military first screen the individuals to ensure that there are no credible accusations of human rights violations pending against any officer or soldier.

2. Oxy should dedicate a task force of employees to further screen this list. The company should actively seek out information on officers and soldiers from the three institutions of the Colombian state that investigate rights violations — the Fiscalía General de la Nación, the Procuraduría General de la República, and the Defensoría del Pueblo — to confirm that the individuals who defend the company’s interests do not have credible accusations pending against them. The companies should welcome information from other reliable sources as well, including non-governmental organizations that monitor human rights. Any credible allegation of human rights violation should be cause for the company to reject the service of an individual soldier or policeman.

3. Oxy should also screen the records of former police or military officers who work as private contractors or part of Oxy’s regular security staff. If the company finds credible allegations of human rights violations or activity in paramilitary organizations, the individuals should not be hired. Those already on the payroll should be suspended immediately, and any relevant information forwarded to the proper authorities for investigation.

B. Discouraging Human Rights Abuse

The companies must make absolutely clear to the police and military defending them — as well as to company staff and sub-contracted personnel — that human rights violations will not be tolerated, and that the companies will be the first to press for investigation and prosecution if any abuses occur. This message should be widely distributed amongst the ranks in writing, as well as in regular meetings with officers and soldiers. This message should explicitly demand respect for international humanitarian law as well as human rights and should exhibit a policy of zero tolerance for torture, extrajudicial executions, and “disappearances.” The company should emphasize that those engaged in peaceful protest against company policies should not be subjected to human rights violations or labelled subversives because of their political views.

II. When Abuses Occur

Whenever credible allegations of human rights abuses surface, your corporation should insist that the soldiers and officer implicated be immediately suspended and the appropriate internal and criminal investigations launched.

The company should actively monitor the status of the investigations and press for resolution of the cases. If the investigations or prosecutions are unduly stalled, the company should publicly condemn the failure to conduct or complete the investigations.

III. Auditing Assistance

The non-lethal character of the companies’ assistance to the security forces should be the subject of external auditing on a regular basis by a company of unquestionable reputation. Those audits should be made public.

HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS RAISED BY OUR INVESTIGATION

Several cases of serious human rights violations in Arauca have yet to be resolved by Colombian authorities. Oxy should strongly urge the Colombian government to undertake serious and sustained efforts to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for these violent abuses.

· On January 10, 1997, soldiers of the Army’s General Rebeiz Pizarro Mechanized Cavalry Group based in Saravena reportedly executed Oscar Orlando Bueno Bonnet, Jefferson Dario González Oqendo, Ramírez, and Jhon Jairo Cabarique in the Modelo neighborhood of Saravena.42 The authorities have yet to seriously investigate these killings, portrayed by the army as guerrillas killed in combat and portrayed by a relative of one of the victims and a group of residents as extrajudicial executions.

· Soldiers reportedly detained Bori de Jesús Ortiz Herrera, a construction worker from Brisas del Caranal, Arauquita municipality, on October 16, 1996. At the time of his detention, Ortiz Herrera was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing, according to residents who filed a complaint with the office of the departmental prosecutor (procurador departamental). According to the complaint, the solders searched Ortiz Herrera, beat him and carried him from town. Nonetheless, the military publicized his death as resulting from combat with the guerrillas, asserting that he was carrying a revolver, grenades, and subversive material. Communitymembers denied the accusations and alleged that the military refused to permit a civilian inspection of the corpse.43

· On September 28, 1996, Abimelec Parra, a thirty-three-year-old banana industry worker from La Horqueta, Tame municipality, was reportedly shot dead by soldiers stationed at Fortul, as was his companion José Beyer. Parra and Beyer were traveling together on a motorbike when soldiers allegedly opened fire with machine guns, later dumping the bodies along the road in Malacay, between Saravena and Tame. Parra, along with his brothers, was rumored to be on a military “black list.”44

Radio news broadcasts subsequently reported that the two were guerrillas killed in combat. Family members denounced the case to the Tame personería, and a complaint was lodged before the military base in Fortul. We are aware of no progress in this case.

· Luis Joaquín Bello Mendivelso, a thirty-year-old peasant from Caranal, Arauca, was the victim of an extrajudicial execution by soldiers on September 8, 1996.45 On that date at about 2:45 a.m., soldiers came to his house looking for him by name. The soldiers were wearing ski masks and handkerchiefs to cover their faces. They handcuffed Bello Mendivelso, searched his house, and asked, “Where are the arms?” When Bello Mendivelso asked why he was being handcuffed they responded that it was for security precautions. The soldiers accused Bello Mendivelso of collaborating with the guerrillas, and took him away. When asked where he was being taken, the soldiers replied to the military base at Tame or the city of Arauca. Bello Mendivelso’s wife, pregnant with their child, was ordered not to leave her house until 7:00 a.m. Shortly afterwards, residents heard significant gun fire, so much that it sounded like a battle about one kilometer away. Residents found Bello Mendivelso’s corpse, apparently bearing signs of torture, on a bridge about one kilometer away from Caranal.

Bello Mendivelso’s widow went to military installations in Fortul to attempt to identify the soldiers responsible for her husband’s detention. Over the course of half a day, approximately fifteen soldiers passed in front of her some half dozen times. She did not recognize any of the soldiers. Col. Mario Montoya Uribe, Operative Command No. 2 commander, announced that military criminal judge No. 124 would investigate the case.46 We are aware of no progress in this case.

· Soldiers extrajudicially executed another man from Caranal, twenty-year-old driver Luis Evelio Morales, that same night. About five soldiers, faces uncovered, arrived at his house and informed family members that they were detaining Morales. They handcuffed him, telling his family to remain calm, that they were only taking care of an official act (diligencia), and that they had three more houses to search. They refused to allow the family to turn on any lights in the house. They asked if Morales had a brother. Morales’s family members asked why he was being detained, and where they could find him. The soldiers replied that they were taking him to either Tame or Yopal.

After Morales’s body was found, relatives lodged a complaint at the Fortul personería and before military authorities. A community protest took place about a month after the killing.47 We are aware of no progress in this case.

Notice of his death aired publicly, together with that of Bello Mendivelso. Local press cited Operative Command No. 2 stating that soldiers of the Heroes of Pisba Counter-guerrilla Battalion No. 24 had engaged in armed combat with the Comrade Tomás of the guerrilla National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN).48

· Yolián Octavio Quinchía Mazo, a 22-year-old peasant, was murdered early in the morning of June 4, 1996, as he slept in La Ceiba community, Arauquita, near the La Esmeralda military base. At about 1:40 a.m. family members heard four shots fired in the community. When they went to Quinchía Mazo’s house about four hours later, his family found his lifeless body in his bed, soaked in blood. About two months before his death, army soldiers had detained Quinchía Mazo along with other young men from his community, accusing them of being guerrillas and bombing the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline. A lieutenant stated that they should be careful because they were under surveillance. He told Quinchía Mazo that the next time a killing occurred in the area, or the next time the pipeline was attacked, he would know that Quinchía Mazo was responsible. Quinchía Mazo was also offered money to collaborate with the Army.49

Puerto Lleras Massacre

The military was responsible for a number of serious human rights violations in 1994-1995, before Occidental formalized its collaboration with the Defense Ministry. During that period, Occidental did not have a formal contract with the Defense Ministry, but relied on the army and police nonetheless to protect its installations. The cases which occurred in 1994-1995 should have alerted the company to the dangers of relying on an abusive military institution for security without establishing safeguards to prevent complicity in human rights abuse. Among these most egregious cases to occur in 1994-95 was the massacre of ten civilians by the army in the hamlet of Puerto Lleras, Saravena.

On January 3, 1994, a grenade exploded in the installations of the Rebeiz Pizarro Mechanized Group based in Saravena, killing at least three soldiers.50 Hours later, the military detained an estimated one thousand people in Saravena’s town square. According to the Andean Commission of Jurists, a major in the Army led this mass detention, in which the Army utilized hooded individuals to point out suspects. No one was formally arrested during this procedure.51

That same day, members of the Army’s Rebeiz Pizarro Battalion assaulted the hamlet of Puerto Lleras, Saravena municipality, producing what is now known as the Puerto Lleras massacre. According to the “Interinstitutional Commission” formed by several government bodies, ten civilians were killed in the assault. Some were later dressed in military uniforms and photographed; all were reported by the Army as guerrillas killed in combat.52 Autopsies for a majority of the victims revealed that they had sustained “massive destruction of brain tissue produced by multiple firearms projectiles” and “multiple firearms wounds.”53 The victims included José del Carmen Salcedo (or Balcedo), Iván (or Juan) Lozano González, Ezequiel Tovar Salazar, Fructuoso Rincón Páez, Ciro Blanco Cáceres, José Alexis Fuentes Guerrero, Elisabeth Tabares, Iván Londoño, Luis Hernando Vargas and Adolfo Calderón Flórez.54 The Interinstitutional Commission reported that a number of complaints indicated that all Puerto Lleras residents had been made to lie face down in a local soccer field, and were deprived of food and water for twenty-four hours. Some individuals complained that soldiers also had sacked a number of homes and made off with money and valuables worth at the time some eleven million pesos.55

After the special investigations unit of the National Procurator’s Office conducted its own investigations, the office lodged charges against six officials and three soldiers who presumably participated in the assault.56 Special Investigations also recommended that a special prosecutor be assigned to the military penal case assigned to military court No. 124 of Saravena.57 However, the men were acquitted by the military court, a decision affirmed on appeal in November 1996, leaving the case in total impunity.58

We look forward to a productive dialogue with your company regarding these extremely serious issues.

Sincerely,

Dr. José Miguel Vivanco
Executive Director
Americas Division
Human Rights Watch

cc: Roger Abel, President

Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Lawewncw Meriage
Vice President for Public and Government Relations
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Ernest Rosenberg
Vice President for Health, Environment, and Safety
Occidental Petroleum Corp.

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BRUSSELS HONG KONG LONDON LOS ANGELES MOSCOW NEW YORK RIO DE JANEIRO WASHINGTONhuman rights watchamericasHUMAN RIGHTS WATCHWebsite: http://www.hrw.org
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Washington, D.C., April 17, 1998