Podcast
Did an Alabama coal company have three union leaders killed?
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The Crisis is an investigation into a deadly fight over labor rights and fossil fuels. In Season 1, we unravel a decades-long saga of bribery, scandal and civil war across two countries.
VALLEDUPAR, Colombia - On the evening of March 12, 2001, two pickup trucks driven by Colombian paramilitaries stopped a bus of workers traveling home from their shift at a coal mine owned by Alabama-based Drummond Company. The paramilitaries ordered the workers off the bus, confiscated their IDs, and told them to line up on their knees.
Then they pulled Valmore Locarno, the president of the mineworkers’ union, out of the line and shot him in the back of the head.
Prologue: Victor and Valmore
Two coal miners are murdered, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the lives of people in Colombia and the U.S.
Chapter 1: The Union
A coal company from Alabama opens a mine in Colombia’s Cesar Province, decades into the country’s civil war. Then, members of the union start receiving death threats.
Chapter 2: Witnesses
A third miner is murdered. An American lawyer decides to bring a civil case against the coal company for aiding and abetting war crimes. But he needs to find people willing to testify.