SWITZERLAND’S BUSINESS INTERESTS IN COLOMBIA’S FALSE PEACE

Switzerland’s Business Interests in Colombia’s False Peace

Peace and neutrality may be the official explanation for Switzerland’s position. But a deal that would allow drug traffickers and terrorists to avoid jail, keep their dirty money, control territory and obtain unelected seats in Congress could hardly promote peace or be considered neutral. Switzerland’s motivation is more likely the protection of its number one industry — commodities trading — and its dependence on the good will of President Santos’ administration.

By Lia Fowler*
August 2 2016

When Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the narco-terrorist group FARC proposed that a peace agreement being negotiated in Havana be deposited in the Federal Council in Bern as a “special international accord” this May, Switzerland was quick to agree. On its website, the Department of Foreign Affairs lauded FARC and Santos for showing “esteem” for Swiss “neutrality.” But more than 10,000 supporters of democracy in Colombia signed a petition asking Switzerland to reconsider, on grounds that it would be participating in an unconstitutional scheme to ratify an unpopular agreement. In a July 5 letter to me as one of the petition organizers, Didier Burkhalter, Switzerland’s Head of Foreign Affairs, reaffirmed his government’s participation in the scheme, citing his government’s commitment to supporting “peace” (see carta de suiza a lia)

Peace and neutrality may be the official explanation for Switzerland’s position. But a deal that would allow drug traffickers and terrorists to avoid jail, keep their dirty money, control territory and obtain unelected seats in Congress could hardly promote peace or be considered neutral. Switzerland’s motivation is more likely the protection of its number one industry — commodities trading — and its dependence on the good will of President Santos’ administration.

The commodities trading sector generates almost four percent of Switzerland’s GDP, according to Swiss National Bank statistics. In fact, Switzerland accounts for a third of the global trade in oil and metals, and half the world’s trade in coffee. Together, Swiss-based Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor and Glencore have invested billions in Colombia’s oil and coal industries; and in 2013, French company Louis Dreyfus became the top private exporter of Colombia’s coffee, through its Swiss-based trading desk. The success of these ventures has depended on the Santos government, which controls the granting of oil, coal and coffee concessions, sales, and purchases.

Take Trafigura: Through its subsidiary, Impala, the company has invested $1 billion in infrastructure projects in Colombia. Impala was awarded the concession at the river port at Barrancabermeja and has trucking and river-barge operations that are poised to dominate the transport of commodities in the country. Another Trafigura subsidiary, Puma Energy, entered the retail oil market in 2015 with the acquisition of 74 retail sites in the Caribbean region and plans to expand to all regions of the country, according to Puma’s website.

Trafigura also purchases oil from Colombia’s state-run Ecopetrol and sells hydrocarbon mixtures to Colombia. Due to the notorious lack of transparency in the commodities trade, statistics are difficult to come by. But Trafigura’s first-of-its-kind Responsibility Report, published in 2015, disclosed that the company had paid the government of Colombia more than $200 million for oil in 2013. In 2014, Ecopetrol awarded Trafigura a contract for two 310,000-barrel cargoes of naphtha, a petroleum distillate, as reported by Reuters.

Vitol entered the Colombian market in 2010, when it won a four-year lease to move a third of Colombia’s export capacity of coal at Carbosan port in Santa Marta. Glencore established its presence in Colombia through the $2 billion purchase of coal producer Prodeco in 1995.

Gunvor’s interests in Colombia are less transparent. While the rest of the world’s publicly traded oil companies voluntarily disclose payments to governments and state-run companies and officials, Swiss-based traders – with the recent exception of Trafigura — do not. Nor does the Swiss government have any interest in imposing reporting requirements.

It is known, however, that both Gunvor and Trafigura have significant dealings with another major promoter of the Colombian peace deal: Bernard

Aronson. As managing partner of Acon Investments and U.S. special envoy to the FARC-Santos negotiations in Cuba, Aronson’s conflicts of interest in the peace talks have been well-documented (See article). First among these is his company’s controlling interest in Vetra Energia, which has several exploration concessions in Colombia. In 2014, 41 percent of Vetra’s oil was sold to Trafigura and Gunvor – amounting to some $61 million — according to Vetra’s sustainablity report.

Recently, however, Swiss companies have learned that what the Santos Administration awards, it can easily take away. According to a 2016 suit filed by Glencore, the Colombian government is seeking to revoke parts of a 2010 concession, in violation of a Switzerland-Colombia bilateral investment treaty. According to the company, damages could run into billions of dollars. Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis was the victim of similar tactics in May, when the Colombian Ministry of Health threatened to confiscate the company’s property rights if it didn’t lower its prices for one of its patented cancer drugs. It is an ongoing dispute.

It makes economic sense, then, that Switzerland would want to stay in the good graces of an increasingly autocratic regime. But it does so at the expense of democracy and the rule of law in Colombia. During World War II, Switzerland claimed neutrality, even as its banks took in the loot and wealth of Nazi Germany and its victims. Under the same pretext, today it protects its business interests endorsing a deal that legitimizes terrorism — and condemning 47 million Colombians to life in a Venezuela-style narco-dictatorship. The false slogan of “peace” doesn’t change that, and the traditional Swiss neutrality rings hollow.

*Lia Fowler is an American journalist and former FBI Special Agent.