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Southeast Asia

Former mining exec sez he paid off Abu Sayyaf

2004-04-17

Before his company sent him overseas, Allan Laird, a former Denver-based mining executive, had never heard of Abu Sayyaf. As Laird quickly learned when he arrived in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf is one of the world's most-feared terrorist organizations, closely connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Laird said he also soon discovered the company for whom he formerly worked, Echo Bay, was regularly paying Abu Sayyaf and other terror groups in the Philippines in exchange for protection of its gold-mining operations. Laird calls the practice "corporate support of terrorism."

Rather than mere protection money...

Thursday, in a moral victory for Laird, the Department of Justice reversed course and reactivated the investigation into Echo Bay's business practices. "My company was dealing directly with terrorists. It must have been close to $2 million [U.S. dollars]. Maybe more," Laird said. Laird said he believes that the funding provided by his former company cost American lives. That funding, he says, continued until the company closed its mining operations in 1997. Laird was sent to the Philippines in 1996 by Echo Bay as project manager of a start-up gold mine on the island of Mindanao, home turf for the terrorists, who demanded what Echo Bay called "revolutionary taxes."

"Youse gotta pay revolutionary taxes every week, or Big Reynaldo torches yer stuff. Got it?"

By paying off the terrorists, Laird said, the company was "buying safety for the people inside and for the project." But the price was high. In addition to the cash, Laird said the company provided the terrorists with weapons, medical treatment for the wounded, and access at times to a beachfront company guest house used to hide key terror leaders. "[The company's security personnel] hid them from the search of the authorities, when there was a military operation going through the region where the site was situated, to prevent them from being captured and caught by government forces," Laird said.

"Udderwise Big Reynaldo maybe torches yer car. Maybe while youse are in it!"

Laird claims his story is supported by the meticulous records he kept, which include signed receipts he says are from terror leaders and security reports detailing weapons deliveries. "The security group was close enough, and most intimately involved, with these groups that they knew when external shipments of arms, illegal arms, were being made," said Laird. "And my people knew that. The military didn't know that." In repeated e-mails and reports he said he sent to top company executives in Denver, Laird spelled out what he called illegal activity. In one report, he states flatly the company was paying off "terror groups connected to Osama bin Laden.

"Elwood, who's Osama bin Laden?"
"I dunno, sir. Does he work for Consolidated?"

Laird said he received one message from an executive in Denver, which was quite clear: "You need to be more discreet in some of your observations regarding Corrupt Practices Act, et cetera. The distribution of such a report could be incriminating under certain circumstances."

"Really, you have to be careful with your paper trail!"

"He's saying, 'Shut up, don't say anything. Don't do anything. Just be quiet,'" Laird told ABCNEWS. But Laird was in for another surprise when he took his allegations and documents last year to both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. "About four, five months after I'd met with Homeland Security, I contacted the agent that I'd met earlier and asked him what was happening. And he said, 'well, we've decided not to pursue this,'" said Laird. But in e-mails from the Homeland Security agent, Laird was told that federal prosecutors in Denver had no interest in pursuing the case because they believed the statute of limitations had expired. Today, in response to inquiries by ABCNEWS, the Justice Department said that was incorrect, and the investigation was reactivated.

"Jone! Get this underway before the teevee cameras get here!"

The former chairman of Echo Bay, Robert LeClerc, who now lives in Las Vegas, told ABCNEWS that Laird never raised the allegations until he and others were laid off in the take-over by ~~Consolidated~~ Kinross. "I think it's the world of illusion according to Mr. Laird," LeClerc said. "And I suppose the biggest comment I could make is that he really initiated all of this by trying to extract some money from the company when he and others were terminated."

"It's certainly not something I knew anything about. I made sure of that!"

But Laird's documents tell another story â that he raised the issue within weeks of arriving in the Philippines in 1996.

Posted by:Dan Darling

#2 Laird was told that federal prosecutors in Denver had no interest in pursuing the case because they believed the statute of limitations had expired.

Ummm ... I don't recall there being a "statute of limitations" on murder.

The Abu Sayyaf, said by the U.S. government to be the smallest and most radical of Islamic separatist groups in the Philippines, claimed earlier today to have beheaded Guillermo Sobero, one of three Americans it has been holding since last month.

... The Abu Sayyaf, which split off from another group in 1991 and operates generally in the southern Philippines, has kidnapped more than 30 foreigners in its history. But it has never before killed a foreign hostage despite many threats to do so, though it has engaged in bombings and assassinations.

The claim by the group that it beheaded Sobero, a 40-year-old California native, has attracted widespread condemnation in the international community.

Sobero, from Corona, Calif., along with Martin and Gracia Burnham, two missionaries from Wichita, Kan., and 17 others were taken from a posh resort on the Sulu Sea on May 27.

Guillermo Sobero's family and Gracia Burnham might have a rather different take on this matter. However much multinational corporations might regard bribery as a necessary nuisance while conducting business overseas, I don't recall providing weapons, safe houses or medical treatment to wounded terrorists falling under that heading.

Echo executives who were at the helm during this
escapade should be arraigned on accessory to homicide charges. Murder is a fairly predictable outcome of indiscriminately handing out weapons to violent terrorists, especially when sheltering their operations and leadership at the same time. Stroking the hand of mammon with blood soaked money strikes me as a poor way of doing business.

Should these allegations prove true, we owe the Philippine government a massive apology. They have been one of our few steadfast Asian allies in the war on terror. Such corporate undermining of legitimate efforts to suppress terrorism are egrigious violations of international law. America needs to send a strong and unambiguous message that this sort of activity will result in vigorous prosecution and little else.

Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-17 8:02:38 PM

#1 Laird was told that federal prosecutors in Denver had no interest in pursuing the case because they believed the statute of limitations had expired.

Sigh.

Posted by: B 2004-04-17 9:03:09 AM

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