Post by anenro on Sept 10, 2019 14:44:33 GMT 4
When the Cost of Doing Business Means Funding Terror Groups
When Lafarge, one of the world’s leading producers of building materials, acquired a cement plant in the north Syrian town of Jalabiya in 2007, it was with the hope of expanding into the Middle Eastern markets. The French company—which became LafargeHolcim after merging with a Swiss firm in 2015—spent over a billion dollars renovating the factory, one of the largest foreign investments in Syria’s history and, at the time, a notable example of the political rapprochement between the country and France after years of severed diplomatic ties during Jacques Chirac’s presidency. Inaugurated with great pomp in the presence of Eric Chevallier, the French ambassador to Syria, the plant began operations in 2010.
The next year, the country descended into civil war. Other multinationals, such as French oil and gas giant Total, pulled out of Syria to ensure compliance with European sanctions. Lafarge decided to tough it out. Five years later, following revelations by Syrian news site Zaman Al Wasl in February 2016, the French newspaper Le Monde published my investigation showing that, to secure the passage of trucks carrying employees, cement, fuel, and raw materials to and from the factory, the multinational had allegedly paid “taxes” to a number of armed groups from 2013 to 2014, including the Islamic State organization—or ISIS.
Faustian bargains with unsavory groups aren’t unusual for international companies desperate to keep goods flowing in a conflict (cellphone makers in Africa have been accused of striking deals with armed groups for access to mines). But “L’affaire Lafarge,” as it is known in France, might be one of the rare times when, as the cost of doing business, a corporation found itself indirectly funding international terrorism.
Lafarge’s troubles in Syria began in 2013 when armed groups started to close in around the cement plant. Checkpoints appeared on the road connecting the plant to the border town of Kobani, then taken over by Kurdish fighters of People’s Protection Units, the armed wing of Syria’s Democratic Union Party. Raqqa, located less than ninety kilometers from the factory, fell into the hands of rebels of the Free Syrian Army and allied Islamist groups. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of the city later that summer; in January 2014, it reached Manbij, a town sixty-five kilometers east of the plant, where most Lafarge employees were housed. The plant was finally evacuated in September 2014, after it was seized by ISIS jihadists.
An independent internal inquiry commissioned by the company found that payments were made through third parties “in order to maintain operations and ensure the safe passage of employees and supplies to and from the plant.” Lafarge also made at least one payment to release kidnapped employees, as I reported in Le Monde in June 2016. As a consequence of the inquiry into these allegations, Eric Olsen resigned as chief executive of LafargeHolcim in April 2017. Nine months later, the Paris prosecutor placed Lafarge’s former CEO Bruno Lafont under formal investigation for a terrorist offense—a first for a company listed in the CAC 40, the French stock market index.
While the judicial investigation is still ongoing, Lafarge was indicted last June for financing a terrorist enterprise, endangering lives, and breaching an embargo. In a memorandum to the investigative judges, the initiators of the criminal complaint against Lafarge—Sherpa, a law association devoted to fighting financial crimes; the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights; and eleven former employees—argued that, if the actions committed by ISIS in northeastern Syria between 2012 and 2015 are considered crimes against humanity, then the French company “acted as an accomplice.” According to Sherpa, Lafarge paid out more than $19 million in protection money. Prosecutors are today investigating the possibility that some of that cash may have financed the 2015 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded. The “amount and duration” of Lafarge’s payments, according to investigators, likely helped perpetuate ISIS’s existence in Syria, allowing it to “plan and carry out violent operations in the area and abroad, including in France.”
Bruno Pescheux, CEO of Lafarge Cement Syria during the war, admitted that up to $100,000 (US) a month was funneled to armed groups by go-between Firas Tlas, a Syrian businessman and former shareholder in the plant. Pescheux explained to the judges that Tlass “talked with the rebel factions and paid a small contribution so that our employees [did] not get into trouble at the checkpoints.” The name of “Daesh”—as ISIS is also known—surfaced for the first time on payment lists in November 2013. Pescheux estimated that it would have received around $20,000 (US) per month.
When Lafarge, one of the world’s leading producers of building materials, acquired a cement plant in the north Syrian town of Jalabiya in 2007, it was with the hope of expanding into the Middle Eastern markets. The French company—which became LafargeHolcim after merging with a Swiss firm in 2015—spent over a billion dollars renovating the factory, one of the largest foreign investments in Syria’s history and, at the time, a notable example of the political rapprochement between the country and France after years of severed diplomatic ties during Jacques Chirac’s presidency. Inaugurated with great pomp in the presence of Eric Chevallier, the French ambassador to Syria, the plant began operations in 2010.
The next year, the country descended into civil war. Other multinationals, such as French oil and gas giant Total, pulled out of Syria to ensure compliance with European sanctions. Lafarge decided to tough it out. Five years later, following revelations by Syrian news site Zaman Al Wasl in February 2016, the French newspaper Le Monde published my investigation showing that, to secure the passage of trucks carrying employees, cement, fuel, and raw materials to and from the factory, the multinational had allegedly paid “taxes” to a number of armed groups from 2013 to 2014, including the Islamic State organization—or ISIS.
Faustian bargains with unsavory groups aren’t unusual for international companies desperate to keep goods flowing in a conflict (cellphone makers in Africa have been accused of striking deals with armed groups for access to mines). But “L’affaire Lafarge,” as it is known in France, might be one of the rare times when, as the cost of doing business, a corporation found itself indirectly funding international terrorism.
Lafarge’s troubles in Syria began in 2013 when armed groups started to close in around the cement plant. Checkpoints appeared on the road connecting the plant to the border town of Kobani, then taken over by Kurdish fighters of People’s Protection Units, the armed wing of Syria’s Democratic Union Party. Raqqa, located less than ninety kilometers from the factory, fell into the hands of rebels of the Free Syrian Army and allied Islamist groups. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of the city later that summer; in January 2014, it reached Manbij, a town sixty-five kilometers east of the plant, where most Lafarge employees were housed. The plant was finally evacuated in September 2014, after it was seized by ISIS jihadists.
An independent internal inquiry commissioned by the company found that payments were made through third parties “in order to maintain operations and ensure the safe passage of employees and supplies to and from the plant.” Lafarge also made at least one payment to release kidnapped employees, as I reported in Le Monde in June 2016. As a consequence of the inquiry into these allegations, Eric Olsen resigned as chief executive of LafargeHolcim in April 2017. Nine months later, the Paris prosecutor placed Lafarge’s former CEO Bruno Lafont under formal investigation for a terrorist offense—a first for a company listed in the CAC 40, the French stock market index.
While the judicial investigation is still ongoing, Lafarge was indicted last June for financing a terrorist enterprise, endangering lives, and breaching an embargo. In a memorandum to the investigative judges, the initiators of the criminal complaint against Lafarge—Sherpa, a law association devoted to fighting financial crimes; the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights; and eleven former employees—argued that, if the actions committed by ISIS in northeastern Syria between 2012 and 2015 are considered crimes against humanity, then the French company “acted as an accomplice.” According to Sherpa, Lafarge paid out more than $19 million in protection money. Prosecutors are today investigating the possibility that some of that cash may have financed the 2015 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded. The “amount and duration” of Lafarge’s payments, according to investigators, likely helped perpetuate ISIS’s existence in Syria, allowing it to “plan and carry out violent operations in the area and abroad, including in France.”
Bruno Pescheux, CEO of Lafarge Cement Syria during the war, admitted that up to $100,000 (US) a month was funneled to armed groups by go-between Firas Tlas, a Syrian businessman and former shareholder in the plant. Pescheux explained to the judges that Tlass “talked with the rebel factions and paid a small contribution so that our employees [did] not get into trouble at the checkpoints.” The name of “Daesh”—as ISIS is also known—surfaced for the first time on payment lists in November 2013. Pescheux estimated that it would have received around $20,000 (US) per month.