BP being sued by Colombian farmers for $15M

Who would ever guess that BP or any other oil company, is not living up to their "corporate social responsibility" to help poor locals who are impacted by Big Oil? Whether we are talking about Nigeria or Colombia the story is always pretty much the same and poor locals, who may or may not know how to read are forced to sign away their rights while Big Oil forces their drilling or pipeline on the local population. Despite all of the touchy-feely advertisements that the industry marketing types crank out, the stories are always the same.

In this case, local farmers are upset that the oil pipeline in Colombia has had a negative impact on their lives and when they have objected, they have been intimidated by the military and para-military forces operating in the region. Lawyers have been killed and names have been added to hit lists. Was BP directly responsible? No, but that's not the point. BP has talked a lot about corporate responsibility but as long as their pipelines are operating, they don't give a damn about the local population and the intimidation by local thugs.

It always makes me laugh that these companies are run by people from the "right background" (in the case of BP, "Lord" Browne) but yet they seem so clueless about what is going on in the real world, or are they? The corporate responsibility policies seem as outdated as his posh title and make me wonder what century are we living in.