Official sources in Colombia told
reporters late on Thursday that the Colombian attorney general issued captures
orders against five people implicated in scheme whereby the Italian-Argentine
oil company Sicim funded the ELN guerrilla group. Implicated in the scandal are
two of the company’s top employees in Colombia, who apparently maintained close
relationships with members of the ELN and the FARC guerrilla groups. According
to the EFE report, Sicim, a specialist in oil pipeline construction, made
multi-million-dollar payoffs to the ELN and several FARC Fronts in northeastern
Colombia, related to the construction of the Bicentenario pipeline.
In news related to Colombia’s mining sector, the focus has
overwhelmingly been on the national mining strike that started on Wednesday.
Colombian Senator Juan Diego Gómez Jiménez called
for the resignation of the president of the Colombian National Mining
Agency. He argued that the lack of decisive action by the director of the
Agency is the main cause of the strike, and thus the director should be
removed.
Meanwhile, the Colombian government has organized
a meeting in Medellín between the government’s representatives and the leaders
of the protesting miners to negotiate an end to the strike. Several
regional opinion pieces
spoke out in favor the of the miners and their grievances, highlighting the long
tradition of small miners in Colombia, and the problems these miners have faced
and the effect they have on their communities.
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