Colombia: death threats against the president of the oil company Ecopetrol

The president of the Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, received death threats after denouncing the alleged financing of the country’s main company to paramilitary groups, AFP learned this Tuesday.

“Roa”received a threat and Ecopetrol immediately informed the authorities about the issue“said a company official, without giving more details.

The oil manager, one of the men closest to President Gustavo Petro, received a box containing pamphlets, two bullets and a bottle with soil at his home, according to images released by local media.

Some crosses and the message “REST IN PEACE” were printed on the papers.

For several years, Petro has denounced the oil company’s alleged financing of far-right paramilitary groups that committed thousands of massacres of civilians in the midst of their war against guerrillas in the 1990s and early this century.

In May, Roa assured that they are “many complaints” that you have received about those “events associated with the presence of groups outside the law in Ecopetrol’s own activities”. Petro maintains that his government is collaborating to clarify these alleged alliances.

Ecopetrol achieved a net profit of 19.1 billion pesos (about US$ 4.6 billion) in 2023 and produced an average of 737,000 barrels per day.

A strong defender of the environment, Petro stopped the signing of new contracts for the exploration of oil wells and wants Ecopetrol to become a company that produces clean energy.

Before being named head of the company, Roa was manager of Petro’s presidential campaign in 2022. He now faces an investigation for alleged violations of the limits established by the electoral authority.

In 2022, Sibares Lamprea, leader of the main organization of oil industry workers in a region where the Clan del Golfo drug group, of paramilitary origin, and the ELN guerrilla operate, were shot dead.