Sunday, May 11, 2008

May 7, 2008
President Alvaro Uribe
Republic of Colombia


Dear Sir,

We write you today in the hope that you will intercede on behalf of the integrity of Colombia's institutions and the most minimum standards of Due Process for our 25 year old odyssey in the Colombian judicial system, by making the Colombian government's impartial support clear to the Tribunal Superior de Antioquia even if they rule in our favor and against your government. We believe Magistrate Estrada, and the other two Magistrates studying the case, are hesitant to rule against the Colombian government entities sued by us because of the quantity of the damages involved. Clause 23 of the Charter Party Agreement stipulated a 0.9% interest compounded daily for any delay in paying the bill: the freight charges were US$32,000.00 (payable in pesos) and US$154,000.00 worth for 154 lay days, during which we paid for all the expenses of having our ship immobilized, at the contractually stipulated rate of US$1,000.00 per day, all of it compounded at 0.9% daily until payment of the invoice, which as we know has not been made.

This daily 0.9% interest rate stipulated in the contract is the fundamental reason for the miscarriage of justice committed by Colombian government officials against our enterprise and later compounded into infamy by the Eigth Judge Civil del Circuito de Bogota when, in his ruling against us, he denied that anybody, not the Caja Agraria which originated and paid for the whole transaction, while giving our freight charges to the manufacturer in the US; not the Caja Agraria's purchasing agent, Petrofert Limitada, which signed a fraudulent Charter Party Agreement with us; not the Caja Agraria's port agent, Almagrario SA, which paid us with a check subsequently denied due to insufficient funds, none of them, nobody owed us anything for our services. So,nobody owes us anything for sending our ship from Honduras to Tampa, bringing their own cargo to Barranquilla where due to non-payment of the freight charges the ship becomes immobilized for 154 days, at our expense, until we were forced to go out into the credit market to borrow the money to unload, store, and auction off the cargo and according to this judge, 13 years after this unjust drama and damage is perpetrated against the way we earn our living, nobody owes us anything and to add insult to injury he orders us to pay court fees. Ridiculous. Criminal. Corrupt.

Contrast this absurd situation with the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act of 1936, under whose jurisdiction this whole situations falls because:(1) the voyage commenced at the Port of Tampa, (2) our contract included the USA Clause Paramount and (3) the Caja Agraria acted in American jurisdiction when it purchased the fertilizer:

§ 1304. Rights and immunities of carrier and ship
Neither the carrier nor the ship shall be responsible for loss or damage arising or resulting from--
i. Act or omission of the shipper or owner of the goods, his agent or representative

This law, like any good law, states the obvious: if there is a problem which results from or is caused by "the shipper or owner of the goods, his agent or representative" then the ship owner is not responsible. We believe it might seem superfluous, to some, to point out the direct contradiction between the letter and spirit of a fair law and that judge's cruel ruling, but we'll do so anyways. Aside from the ludicrous decision by that judge, the following observations spell out a pattern of official misconduct: (1) the fact that it has been 25 years since we began fighting this injustice;(2) the fact that the Caja Agraria initially tried to explain away their fraudulent check with the lie that the cargo was not theirs;(3) the fact that Mr. Ospina then claimed that we were attempting to obtain payment twice thereby using the judicial system to intimidate us into silence because implicit in this knowingly false accusation, confirmed by the required removal of my husband's diplomatic immunity, was the threat of imprisonment; (4) the fact that Colombian regulation of foreign currency, in effect at the time, prohibited the Caja Agraria, or its Colombian purchasing agent, from paying for the freight charges in dollars and then hiring a Colombian ship owner which could only be paid legally in pesos, yet that's exactly how the Caja Agraria and its agent illegally proceeded; (5) the bounced check which proves that at least the Caja Agraria's agent at the Port of Barranquilla, Almagrario SA, knew they had an obligation to us (not mentioned by the judge in his decision); (6) the fact that even in 1986 Mr. Ospina would not authorize us to collect the freight charges from the manufacturer, Amax Chemical, to whom the Caja Agraria (via First Milwaukee Bank Letter of Credit #5276 US$170,000.00 whose sole beneficiary was Amax Chemical), by their own admission, themselves had given our freight charges to; (7) the fact that the fertilizer was of a lower grade than that which was stated on its documentation; (8) the fact that we were lied to in October of 2004 by the Magistrate which suppressed justice for 12 years, Magistrate Luz Magdalena Mojica of the Tribunal Superior de Bogota;(9) and finally the fact that an old family friend, a retired Colombian Supreme Court Justice, promised to inquire about our case on one of his regular trips to Bogotá and then refused to ever speak to us again. The government's continuing impunity, for its acts against us, is clear and it is logical to conclude that we are the victims of one of the constant acts of corruption which the Caja Agraria became infamous for as reported by the Contraloría, Procuraduría, Fiscalía and the Superintendencias de Valores y Bancaria in the Truth Commission report and the Colombian judicial system has been misused in order to deny justice.

This last part is most important. As mentioned before, and as can be viewed online, Clause XXIII of the contract stated, "a 0.9% daily interest rate will be added to the invoice" should delays occur. Demurrage began accruing on December 2, 1982 and ended on May 6, 1983, when the ship was finally unloaded for a total of 154 days; the rate stipulated by contract was US$1,000.00 per day for delays. By May 6, 1983, a total of Colombian $31.988.010,00 was owed or US $447,509.94, at the ASONAV rate of the day which stood at 71.48 pesos per US dollar. At this chronological point in the calculation of damages, we are willing to dispense with the 0.9% interest rate and we welcome the application of the 20% rate stipulated by court investigators in their 1994 study for the court which determined the Don Julio's profitability at the time. To be absolutely clear, at 0.9% daily while the ship was immobilized and then the 20% APR commencing May 6th, 1983, will total, on June 4th, 2008, US $64,797,262.90. This is the same bill we first presented
November 29th, 1982.

We know that as a Harvard and Oxford trained attorney, the magnitude of injustice in this situation must be obvious to you. This is the only fair outcome we will countenance keeping in mind that, legally, the Colombian government owes us a figure which contains 40 digits. Copies of all the evidence, in Spanish and English, may be viewed http://www.maritimasjustice.blogspot.com

Sincerely,

Yolanda de Zakzuk Sylvia Zakzuk Nicholas Zakzuk

US citizens
Agents and majority stockholders
Maritimas Internacionales Ltda.

cc Magistrate Dario Estrada
Congresswoman Wasserman
Senator Bill Nelson
Speaker Pelosi
Chairman Rangel
Professor John I. Laun, Esq.
Consul Ronald Packowitz (US Embassy Bogota)
Francisco de Paula Estupinan
USTR Susan Schwab