VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala.—On Friday evening, a group of protesters gathered at a busy intersection in Liberty Park near the corporate campus of Drummond Company Inc., an Alabama-based coal producer. Their message was clear, painted and printed on signs bearing the green, red and black of the Palestinian flag: “Drummond Fuels Genocide.”
Chris Izor, one of the protesters, said that he and others present wanted to call attention to coal shipments to Israel from Drummond’s Colombian subsidiary, Drummond Ltd., that may violate Colombian law. An August 2024 decree by Colombia’s government ordered the halt of coal shipments to Israel in the wake of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Gaza.
Months before, in May 2024, Colombian President Gustavo Petro had formally announced the end of diplomatic ties with Israel, which he has said is committing genocide through its actions in Gaza.
Despite the presidential decree, some shipments of coal continued to leave Colombia bound for Israel, according to local reports and the Colombian government.
At the protest in Vestavia Hills, a suburb of Birmingham, Izor said that it’s important for Alabamians to know if a company that calls their state home may be complicit in fueling war.
“As members of the community, we feel some responsibility to make sure that companies based in our state aren’t endorsing, supporting, funding or fueling human rights abuses abroad,” Izor told Inside Climate News. “We have a responsibility, particularly in a place that is the heart of the civil rights movement, to call it out and to be part of the movement in opposition to that.”
In a statement posted to its website, Drummond Ltd. said that its shipments comply with Colombian law.
“Coal exports to Israel have been done in conformity with the authorization that the National Government gave,” the July 17 statement said. “Drummond presented the required documentation to a committee comprised of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism; the National Mining Agency, and the National Tax and Customs Directorate (DIAN), as required in Article 3 of Decree 1047 of 2024 issued by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism.”
In a speech posted online by Colombian state-owned news network Radio Nacional de Colombia on July 21, Petro singled out Drummond and Glencore, a Switzerland-based coal producer, for potentially violating the presidential decree, according to a translation of the speech provided by the outlet.
“We are witnessing a genocide. Today there is a genocide that no one can support,” Petro said, according to the translation. “And that is why we will not export coal to Israel; the exporting companies Drummond and Glencore, under investigation, cannot bring in more coal to make bombs in Israel.”
Days later, on July 24, Petro posted on social media alleging that another coal shipment had left for Israel. The Colombian Navy would be ordered to blockade further exports, according to Petro.
“Not a single ton of coal should leave Colombia for Israel,” Petro wrote. “We are not complicit in genocide.”
Petro has also asked the government to begin a sanctions process to penalize Drummond and Glencore, another coal producer, according to reports.
As of 2024, Israel imported more than 50 percent of its coal from Colombia, according to numbers from the American Journal for Transportation cited by the Associated Press. In 2022, Drummond wrote in a press release that it was the top exporter of Colombian coal for the sixth year in a row. Israel was the fifth-largest recipient of the company’s Colombian exports at just under 9 percent.
Izor, a member of Birmingham Democratic Socialists of America, said that while some passersby in Liberty Park—a community developed in partnership with Drummond Company—weren’t necessarily happy to see the protesters, they received a largely positive response.
“We’ve had people bring us cookies. We’ve had people hollering ‘Free Palestine’ out their windows,” he said. “And we don’t always have to be in places that make us comfortable anyway. Ending the genocide is what’s important.”
Izor said that even if Drummond’s Colombian subsidiary was complying with the letter of the law—through a loophole, for example—he would still hope the company would cease its exports for moral reasons.
“They shouldn’t be shipping coal to the state of Israel in the first place, given Israel’s persistent human rights record,” he said. “Drummond should at least feel some minor amount of responsibility not to power this illegal occupation.”
Izor said that the exportation and burning of coal on its own is detrimental to human health, even outside of the Israel-Gaza context.
“In a sense, there is no good coal company,” he said. “There is no good fossil fuel company. But here, in this case, we feel a specific obligation to stand up for Palestine.”
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Lee Hedgepeth
Reporter, Alabama
Lee Hedgepeth is Inside Climate News’ Alabama reporter. Raised in Grand Bay, Alabama, a small town on the Gulf Coast, Lee holds master’s degrees in community journalism and political development from the University of Alabama and Tulane University. Lee is the founder of Tread, a newsletter of Southern journalism, and has also worked for news outlets across Alabama, including CBS 42, Alabama Political Reporter and the Anniston Star. His reporting has focused on issues impacting members of marginalized groups, including homelessness, poverty, and the death penalty. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications across the country and has been cited by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, among others.
