|
(Page 4 of 5)
Within three months of the Control Risks report, Echo Bay's security team contacted the terrorists and started developing "information sources." The conduit was Kingking's own Filipino security personnel, most of whom were ex-military. Chief of security Eul Baltazar was a former colonel who had been involved in an attempted coup against President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980s. When the coup failed, he and other military men fled into the hills of Mindanao. Over time they developed ties with the insurgent groups operating there. Baltazar and others took the amnesty offered by the government in 1994 and came on board the Echo Bay operation in 1995. "They could get doors opened," Gilroy says.
In March 1996, Gilroy quit ("It was time to pursue new opportunities," he says), and was replaced by Mervyn Hempenstall, who had run a catering service prior to being hired as a consultant by Echo Bay, and who had no mining experience. According to records discovered by Laird in a closet at the mine site, Kingking security met repeatedly with and provided money and supplies to every major terrorist group operating in the area.
One Kingking security report, containing information given to Laird by his Philippine staff several months into his tenure, hinted at the extent of the relationship. Between March and Laird's arrival in August-a period in which Hempenstall was project manager-there were no fewer than 23 meetings between terrorists and mine security personnel. For example, the security records state: "4/09/96-NPA/Abu Sayyef-meeting/supplies/money"; "4/30/96-MILF-meeting/supplies/money"; "5/25/96-MILF/Abu Sayyef-meetings with leaders/money."
According to these reports, on April 24, 1996, Echo Bay security personnel even attended, along with foreign-trained MNLF fighters, a joint "graduation" of "new recruits" hosted by the MNLF and MILF at an undisclosed location.
Hempenstall, who stayed on as a consultant and de facto security director for five months after Laird's arrival, acknowledges and defends the liaisons, but denies that money or guns ever changed hands. "All we ever gave [the insurgents] was rice and sardines," he says.
Laird counters that responses to "requests for food and 'humanitarian assistance' were always provided to security personnel in cash. There was no control after the cash was given. It was entirely up to security how it was disbursed." He adds that he did what he could while project manager to shift funds into legitimate community-development projects, including rudimentary healthcare, flood relief, and school repairs. "But I was being told by security that we needed to make payments," Laird says. "I said no, but then they'd come back later and tell me that they had made the payments anyway." In February 1997, for example, there were "security donation expenses" to insurgent groups that amounted to $29,804. For September 1997 the amount was $116,914.
For comparison purposes, the bombing in Bali, Indonesia, cost the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiya $35,000 (the group is thought to have links to both Al Qaeda and the MILF), according to terrorism expert Zachary Abuza. The September 11 attacks ran Al Qaeda $500,000. Laird estimates that over the course of the project, Echo Bay paid in excess of $1.7 million to terrorist groups on Mindanao.
Laird says that he submitted activity reports outlining the payments and meetings with insurgent groups to department heads throughout the company-and sent far more explicit e-mails to superiors in Denver-because he wanted help in stopping the payments. Less than a month into his job as project manager, for instance, he wrote Echo Bay's corporate controller: "We are significantly overspent in areas not related to exploration...The practice of large non-liquidated expenses is being investigated. By and large the bigger amounts, outstanding for the longest period, are related to
'Security Expenditures,' which are money, supplies and in many instances weapons for insurgents...There is no doubt that this project needs strong community support for its operations and overall security, but it should not be at the expense of operating outside the law."
He also wanted to leave a paper trail. "My plan was to say, 'I'm not hiding any of this; I'm getting this in front of people who are responsible for making ultimate decisions and can recognize what's taking place.' "
The response? "No one denied this was happening," Laird says. But they either didn't respond or asked him to be more circumspect.
"I don't believe there's many shades of gray in this war. You're either with us or against us; you're either evil or you're good."
— President George W. Bush on the war on terror, February 2002
ALLAN LAIRD WAS BORN TO SCOTTISH PARENTS in an industrial north England town, but in 1999 he became a U.S. citizen. In his first presidential election, he enthusiastically voted for George W. Bush. Now 62, Laird has a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, a lilting accent, and time on his hands. He was laid off in 2003, when Echo Bay merged with Kinross Gold (which assumed Echo Bay's liability). During a recent visit with Laird and his wife, Arneille, at their comfortable two-story home in south Denver, I noted a clicking sound coming from their heating system. Like a typical engineer, Laird took many minutes to explain the function of an electrostatic thingamajig that zaps dust particles from the air.
The couple's gray cat is distrustful of strangers and named Lovely, after Laird's secretary at Kingking. The cat isn't the only piece of the Philippines that stays with him. He provides me with documents-internal memos, security reports, e-mail exchanges between him and his superiors in Denver-and talks about his 14-month ordeal as Kingking's project manager, which ended in September 1997, a few days after the third credible kidnapping threat against him was discovered. The entire project came crashing down shortly thereafter: Echo Bay took a $50 million loss and abandoned the Philippines. (It topped USA Today's "10 Worst Stocks" list for 1997.)
When Laird returned to Denver that fall, he wrote an end-project report that he says he hand-delivered to Robert Leclerc, Echo Bay's chairman and CEO. "There was little or no control over community development funds and inappropriate payments were made to regional terrorist organizations, including those supported by Osama bin Laden," he wrote.
Leclerc did not comment on the report but Laird's immediate supervisor, John Antony, did. "I received and understood completely your [Kingking] Project 'Observations,'" the e-mail said. "However, you need to be more discreet in some of your observations...and [in] the distribution of such a report which could be incriminating under certain scenarios."
That defensive mindset was underscored after the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "Shortly after September 11, 2001, I met with Robert Leclerc and again reviewed the acts we committed in the Philippines," Laird says. "I believed the information should have been provided to the U.S. government to help in dealing with terrorism.
However, he declined to take any action." Laird adds that before he left the meeting, Leclerc said that he expected Laird to turn over all the information he had on the Philippines. Several months passed-employees were caught up in preparations for the merger with Kinross-but in April 2002 Laird handed over the originals of Kingking documents to Echo Bay's corporate secretary, who was a close ally of Leclerc's. In response, the secretary wrote Laird: "On April 12 you sent me an email with respect to Kingking files and then forwarded me an envelope of materials. Bob [Leclerc] and I discussed the materials and I have disposed of them. I think the files were thoroughly purged."
Continued
< Previous|1|2|3|4|5|Next >
Article Sidebar: The Resource Curse
Photo above copyright A.P./Wide World Photos; used with permission.
Up to Top
|
