Economic stability and improved security are fostering the conditions for NGO-corporate dialogue in Colombia, where mining continues to be the biggest source of civil society unrest
Colombian civil society has proved itself to be remarkably resilient. Despite marked improvements in the past few years, Colombia is still considered to be one of the most dangerous countries in which to be a trade unionist or human rights defender.
Human rights organisations still largely dominate Colombia’s NGO sector. Domestic grassroots pressure groups typically plug into the operations of the large international human rights NGOs based in Bogota. Environmental pressure groups certainly exist, but in Colombia environmental issues are deeply interwoven with complex human rights issues.
This may, in part, explain why NGOs operating in Colombia have had limited success in engaging with the corporate sector. Levels of NGO-corporate dialogue – particularly in the style now common in developed markets such as the UK and North America – are notably low.
“Ordered, structured dialogue between government, NGOs and the private sector tends not to happen in Colombia,” says Thomas Mortensen, Christian Aid’s Colombia representative.
Quite simply, this is because corporate engagement with non-governmental organisations in Colombia is perceived as risky. Domestic NGO corruption scandals, mistrust, and a culture of suspicion around Colombia’s domestic pressure groups have typically left companies reluctant to enter into dialogue and partnership. It is with good reason that many Colombian companies prefer to set up their own charities in order to deliver their social investments.
Companies to account
The focus of Colombia’s human rights NGO activity is also largely governmental. While a number of international NGOs including Christian Aid, AB Colombia and Amnesty International increasingly scrutinise the activities of business in Colombia, for them the buck stops with the Colombian state. Amnesty International states: “We make sure that companies that abuse human rights are investigated. But this is about improving mechanisms to bring companies to account.”
There are signs that, like much in Colombia, this situation is changing. Increased economic stability, security and a heightened interest in environmental sustainability are opening up a new middle ground for corporate-NGO interaction. In this middle ground have emerged a growing number of young, dynamic corporate-NGO tie-ups such as Bavaria’s partnership with the Bogota Municipal Water Company and The Nature Conservancy to protect the quality of Bogota’s municipal water supply.
The Colombian government is playing its role too. Both its 2010 national development plan and various iterations of its extreme poverty reduction strategy have encouraged multi-stakeholder intervention as a component of Colombia’s poverty reduction mix. While the full impacts of these policies are yet to be determined, they are helping to legitimise interaction between NGOs, businesses and local government.
Rural complexity
Corporate-NGO interaction may be on the rise, but there is still space for things to go wrong. Operating in rural Colombia is notoriously difficult and a number of large multinational companies have found themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, caught up in complex human rights issues.
In 2007, Chiquita became one of the first companies to admit it had paid protection money to Colombian paramilitary groups operating in and around its banana plantations. It was found guilty in March 2007 and now faces a number of new lawsuits in the United States.
In March 2012, Raúl Hasbun, a paramilitary commander involved in the Chiquita case, broke his silence in an interview with Colombia’s Semana magazine, revealing in brazen detail the financial models employed by the paramilitaries in their relationship with the private sector.
The palm oil sector has faced its share of problems too. Christian Aid’s investigation into palm oil producer Daabon in 2010 resulted in the Body Shop publicly dropping the company as its major palm oil supplier. Christian Aid accused Daabon of forcibly displacing local farmers to make way for a palm oil plantation, an accusation denied by the company. An ongoing court case is investigating the land entitlement claim brought by the local farmers.
The case, like many others in Colombia, serves to highlight the complexities of doing business in rural Colombia. “As a first step to investment, companies must inform themselves from different sources before getting involved. Your business partners may tell you everything is OK. Your papers may be in place. But there may still be hidden underlying issues that remain unresolved,” says Christian Aid’s Mortensen.
Economics and land restitution
The source of much of Colombia’s civil society-corporate conflict is best understood within the wider context of the country’s economic policies and its steady progress towards peace and land restitution. These two parallel forces have brought economic interests into conflict with local communities at a particularly sensitive period in the country’s development.
Colombia’s rural security situation has improved dramatically in recent years. A direct result of Colombia’s anti-narcotics and insurgency aid programme, an increasing amount of Colombia’s vast rural territory has been liberated from left-wing guerrilla movements and paramilitary outfits.
This has enabled the government to initiate a complex land restitution and reparations programme involving the return of internally displaced people (reckoned to be around five million). At the same time it has also opened up vast swathes of land for private investment into which has been flooding a sea of money, both foreign and domestic.
For its part the Colombian government has seen the exploitation of its natural resources as the key to export-driven growth. Economic and tax incentives have been employed to attract foreign direct investment, most notably in the mining sector. Agriculture is also being promoted through production output targets in strategic sectors such as palm oil, beef, textiles, fruit and vegetables.
The result has been corporate investment into rural areas that are not only undergoing complex land restitution processes, but are also under weak state control and still subject to the rule of illegal armed groups.
These rural pressures will become more acute as Colombia’s mining and agricultural sectors expand. And expand they will. In May 2012 the keenly awaited US-Colombia free trade agreement was finally signed.
Mining – a national debate
The impact of Colombia’s mining boom on public consciousness should not be underestimated. It has sparked an intense national debate about the economic benefits and environmental impacts of the mining sector. Civil society protests against the activities of large foreign mining companies are increasingly common and effective.
National pressure groups have shown themselves capable of complementing direct action with sophisticated campaigning. In December 2011, Recalca, a national network of pressure groups, released a 60-page study examining the economic benefits of foreign direct investment in the mining sector. The study concluded that once tax exemptions and social and environmental externalities were taken into account, economic returns to the Colombian government were negative.
“The policy of ‘investor confidence’ that both the former and current governments have pursued, requires virtually no [labour or environmental] performance requirements on the part of domestic and foreign private companies,” says Enrique Daza, co-author of the study. Daza confirms that planning is under way for a national anti-mining and energy mobilisation day at some point in 2013.
The mining boom has been generating political friction too. In June 2012, the minister of agriculture, Juan Camilo Restrepo Salazar, publicly criticised the frenetic pace at which the former and current governments have been approving mining licences. Salazar suggested this has the potential to complicate Colombia’s rural land restitution process, generate conflict with the agricultural and livestock sectors, and present food security issues.