Here we go?
The Colombian Connection: Al Gore & Big Oil
NewsMax.com
Friday, May 12, 2000
It?s a major scandal waiting to break, the story of a Colombian tribe of Indians, a major oil company and the vice president of the United States.
In a startling expose in the current issue of The Nation, writer Ken Silverstein uncovers the shocking tale of Gore?s historical super-close connection to the giant Occidental Petroleum company, its ongoing attempts to despoil the U?wa tribal ancestral homeland, and the shady role the Clinton administration is playing behind the scenes.
And the expose is given more weight in view of the fact that it appears in an ultra left-wing publication one would expect to be backing ultra liberal Al Gore?s presidential bid to the hilt.
Briefly, the dispute, which turned violent when Colombian security forces used tear gas against members of the tribe demonstrating against Occidental?s drilling plans, resulting in the subsequent death of three children who drowned when fleeing the melee, involves the company?s plan to drill on U?wa tribal land, which the company believes holds 1.4 billion barrels of oil worth about $35 billion in today?s prices.
Interestingly, in view of Gore?s pretensions to be a dedicated environmentalist, one of the principal objections to Occidental?s drilling is its record of disastrous oil spills from its Ca¤o Limon pipeline, just north of U'wa land and repeatedly bombed by guerrillas. The spills, Silverstein reports, have badly polluted rivers and lakes.
"The Colombian Oil Workers' Union published a report in 1997 saying that Ca¤o Limon is ?the best example that petroleum exploitation should not be permitted [on the U?wa reservation] at any price,?" he wrote.
Silverstein says the U?wa opposition to Occidental?s plans represents something of a last stand. "A 1998 report by Terry Freitas ? one of three U'wa supporters from the United States killed by leftist guerrillas while visiting the tribe's territory last year ? says that the Colombian government stripped the tribe of 85 percent of its land between 1940 and 1970,? he explained.
He quotes Roberto Perez, president of the Traditional Authority of the U'wa People, as saying: "The key issue for indigenous groups is defending our territory ... The Occidental project is an affront to our livelihood, our lives and our culture."
Gore has repeatedly refused pleas from fellow Democrats to meet with Perez.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, for example, told Silverstein she wrote to Gore and asked him to meet with U'wa leader Perez and to support an immediate suspension of the Occidental project.
"I am concerned that the operations of oil companies, and in particular Occidental Petroleum, are exacerbating an already explosive situation, with disastrous consequences for the local indigenous people," she wrote. "I am contacting you because you have remained silent on this issue despite your strong financial interests and family ties with Occidental."
She wrote to Gore again on March 30 to complain about his failure to answer her previous letter. Finally Gore sent her a note saying he simply didn?t have the time to meet with Perez.
Most fascinating is the historical connection between the Gore family and Occidental Petroleum, in which Gore holds about a quarter of a million dollars worth of stock in trust for his mother. The connection goes back to Gore?s father?s close relationship with the late Armand Hammer, Occidental?s founder and the son of Julius Hammer, the man who founded the U.S. Communist Party. For all of his life, Armand Hammer remained close to the murderous Joseph Stalin, his successors and the entire Soviet leadership during the Cold War.
He also remained close to Albert Gore Sr., and later to Al Jr., bestowing his largesse lavishly on both.
Hammer, Silverstein notes, liked to brag that he had Gore Sr. "in my back pocket."
When Gore Sr. retired from the Senate in 1970, he got a $500,000-a-year job at a subsidiary of Occidental as well as a company directorship. When the elder Gore died, his estate included hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of Occidental stock.
In the 1960s, Silverstein reports, the Gores discovered zinc ore near land they owned in Tennessee. "Through a company subsidiary Hammer bought the land for $160,000 - twice the amount offered by the only other bidder. He swiftly sold the land back to Al Gore Sr. and agreed to pay him $20,000 a year for mining rights.?
Gore Sr. then sold the property for $140,000 to Al Jr., who has gotten a $20,000 check just about every year since, although Occidental has never mined an ounce of zinc or anything else on the property.
In 1985, Al Jr. leased the property to Union Zinc, a competitor of Occidental.
In his book, "Witness to History," Neil Lyndon, an employee on Hammer's personal staff and the ghost writer of his memoirs, revealed that whenever Hammer he came to Washington he met with Al Gore for lunch or dinner.
"They would often eat together in the company of Occidental's Washington lobbyists and fixers who, on Hammer's behest, hosed tens of millions of dollars in bribes and favours into the political world," Lyndon revealed.
The ties between Gore and Occidental outlived Hammer. In 1992 the company lent the Presidential Inauguration Committee $100,000. In 1996, the company gave $50,000 in soft money to the Democrats in response to a phone call from Gore.
"All told, Occidental has donated nearly half a million dollars in soft money to Democratic committees and causes since Gore joined the ticket in 1992,? Silverstein wrote. In the current presidential campaign Occidental is his No. 2 oil industry donor with company executives and their wives kicking in $10,000 to Gore's campaign.
It?s paid off handsomely. In 1997 Gore, the fanatical opponent of vehicles powered by fossil fuels such as oil, supported the $3.65 billion sale to the company of the government's interest in the Elk Hills oilfield in Bakersfield, Calif., the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history.
"On the very day the deal was sealed Gore gave a speech lamenting the growing threat of global warming,? Silverstein reports.
For a full account of the Gore-Occidental relationship, see "The Buying of the President 2000," by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity.
You can read Silverstein?s blockbuster report in The Nation by going to: thenation.com
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