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Bush Plan to Push Colombia Deal: ‘Outrageous Disregard for Human Rights’ |
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President Bush’s decision to send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to Congress over the strong objections of the leadership of both the House and the Senate “shows an outrageous disregard for basic human and workers’ rights,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says.
In a statement, Sweeney says:
Workers in Colombia are terrorized every day for standing up for their economic freedom, and union supporters are routinely murdered. Our government should not reward the Colombian government for such callous indifference to the rights and lives of Colombian workers.
The AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Colombia in opposition to violence against trade unionists. We stand for the rights of workers in both Colombia and the United States to organize and bargain collectively without fear of firing, retribution or bodily harm. The AFL-CIO is strongly opposed to the Colombia FTA and will mobilize with all of our might to defeat it.
Bush signed the agreement today, and it will be introduced in Congress tomorrow. Once the agreement is submitted, Congress has 90 days to act under the Fast Track trade authority rules that expired in July 2007, but still apply to deals pending at that time. (Click here to tell your representative to oppose a trade deal with Colombia until their government makes real progress in protecting the lives and rights of union members.)
In short, says United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, no one but Bush
wants a deal with a corrupt regime that continues to rule over the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a trade unionist.
With just nine months left in his term, Bush has made the Colombia FTA a priority. But working people in the United States and Colombia are strongly opposed to the deal.
The agreement is another in a series of bad trade pacts negotiated by the Bush White House, deals that have contributed to a U.S. trade deficit of $712 billion in 2007, massive job loss and shrinking paychecks. Such trade deals have contributed to the loss of 3 million good manufacturing jobs in the United States alone since 2001.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) says the Colombia FTA is a “betrayal of the middle class.” In a statement, Brown says:
The proposed Colombia FTA betrays small businesses, it betrays workers, and it betrays consumers. Colombian workers earn little more than $600 a month. This FTA is much less about finding new markets for American goods than it is a continuation of this administration’s failed trade policy—a policy that exploits workers in developing nations, fosters unsafe working conditions, and allows unsafe products and food into our country.
Colombia remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade union member. Thirty-nine trade unionists were murdered in 2007, and another 17 have been killed in 2008–a rate of more than one a week. Of the more than 2,500 murders of trade unionists since 1986, the government has successfully prosecuted less than 3 percent of these cases.
Congressional leaders say the deal will not pass. In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) say:
President Bush’s statement today regarding his unprecedented decision to send a free trade agreement to Congress without following established protocols of congressional consultation is counter-productive, jeopardizing prospects for its passage. Under present circumstances, we cannot support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
The Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over the trade agreement.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says:
By sending up the Colombia FTA legislation under circumstances that maximize the chances it will fail, he will be adding one more mistake to his legacy and one more mess for the next president to clean up.
In February, a delegation of AFL-CIO leaders to Colombia wound up a fact-finding trip by telling Colombian President Alvaro Uribe the U.S. union movement cannot support the FTA until real progress is made to protect the lives and rights of trade union members. During the trip, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen and USW counsel Dan Kovalik met with Colombian union leaders, International Labor Organization representatives in Colombia and elected leaders.
Leaders of the major Colombian labor federations told the delegation they oppose any free trade deal between the United States and Colombia until the government takes strong action to stop the violence against union members and ends assaults on union rights. They emphasized that the agreement in its current form will create more economic insecurity in their country and hurt workers more.
The Colombian union leaders also detailed a government policy of “busting unions.” As an example, they pointed to Uribe’s refusal to follow a court order to reinstate and give back pay to members of the oil workers union who struck recently.
The delegation also found the Colombian government had repeatedly failed to bring its labor laws into compliance with international norms, has in many cases failed to enforce its laws protecting workers from anti-union discrimination and has erected bureaucratic and legal obstacles to union registration and collective bargaining rights.
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I don’t know why you still insist that Colombia, the only country in Latin America that is not anti-USA, does not deserve the tlc?. Do not hide behind human rights because we have made a lot of progress in this aspect and we need the tlc to put an end to violence. Don’t be hypocrites and think for once in your neighbours. And i’m writing from Colombia.
Not just the workingman, but every person in America should be upset that Bush has presented the Colombia FTA to congress. There is not one claim the Whitehouse has made for its passage that stands up to scrutiny. So, let me provide some insight as an American currently residing in Colombia with the common people and not among the rich, elite or those secured by the embassy. The contention that the FTA will show support for an ally is ridiculous. To begin with this is about trade that is good for the citizens of the USA and not about who we want to be our friend. But Colombia is a friend only because it is the 3rd largest recipient of US taxpayer money in the world. And the only ally type thing it has done is be the only South American country to agree with Bush about invading Iraq. Heck, when Colombia decided to purchase 25 new warplanes, it did not award the contract to an American company but to a country that has not given it any money. A deep discussion of what kind of ally Colombia is can be found here:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=376701&rel_no=1&isPrint=print
Bush says that Colombia is a democratic ally. To begin with most of the recently murdered union members are in the teachers union. And news reports state that many of those teachers were teaching democracy. And what about that wonderful approval rate they say that President Uribe has in his country. Did Bush also happen to mention that the largest media in the country is owned by the family of the Colombian vice president? The mayor of Bogotá is considered the second most powerful man in the country as the capital city has 1/6 of the country’s population. In the last election the person elected was the man that President Uribe personally went on TV and told the people to NOT vote for.
Bush says we need this FTA to help stimulate the American economy. When he took office there were two FTAs with countries that had viable markets for American goods. Today there are 14 FTA’s mostly with countries that have cheap labor. Now the American economy is much worse off. Since bad FTAs have already helped make things worse, another bad one is definitely not going to make things better. Consider that while there are 44 million supposed potential customers for US goods in Colombian, that somewhere between 55% and 60% of the population lives below the poverty level. The actual market is closer to only 8 million people.
Bush likes to state that Colombia has made progress. With constant military checkpoints with soldiers at the ready with automatic weapons, the roads are safer for travel. Union deaths are down, but the country still leads the world in them. Improvement would be becoming maybe #2 or #3 in the world, but not remaining #1. They changed the way that kidnappings are counted and numbers show them down. However a government report says that kidnappings remain a “serious problem.” Murders are down, but forced disappearances are up. They say the paramilitary has demobilized, but since 99.8% serve no jail time, new criminal groups with members made of demobilized paramilitary are forming at alarming rates. Two years ago 52 congressmen were identified as having paramilitary connections, almost all are President Uribe supporters. Only 18 are in jail and in two years only one has been convicted. Report after report has shown that since 2004 there has been an increase of torture and murder of innocent citizens by the Colombian security forces has increased significantly. When the office of the Inspector General investigated killings of people who had been presented as enemies of the state they found that 78% of them were unlawful extrajudicial killings. Imagine that 78% of the people the military said were enemies of the state, upon investigation by the Colombian government were found to be innocent citizens.
This info is not coming from questionable NGO reports or human rights people, but government reports from the same people who are saying we should pass the FTA. For those so interested, one State Department report can be found at:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100633.htm
And how the press is manipulated about it in Colombia here is an article titled, “Victims in Colombia are Gagged, the Public Misinformed,” written by a well known and respected priest in the country.
http://www.humanrightsblog.org/archives/003707.html
Most troubling and perhaps one of the main reasons to not only defeat the FTA but seriously look at the Plan Colombia money is the massive corruption that infects the Colombian Government and the private sector. The last two State Department reports have mentioned how bad it is. I have seen as much as 80% of a project’s money seemingly go into political pockets. That money could have been used to purchase more products and pay more workers. But instead it fueled political greed. Many Colombians state they do not want American money because it fuels the drug trade to keep going because politicians are making so much money from it that they don’t want it to stop. But it is that unchecked corruption that keeps labor laws (even those written into the FTA) from being enforced.
The Bush administration talks about the over $1 billion that American will gain in exports to Colombia with the FTA. But more likely it will be like the FTA with Viet Nam where we did export that much more, but they sent to us ten times as much creating a huge deficit with trade. And sometimes the stupidity of what administration employees believe to be products shipped is highly questionable. In a Detroit news opinion piece US Trade Representative John K. Vernou wrote that Michigan would benefit by sales of car parts and cherries to Colombia. Michigan, a state that has lost over 350,000 jobs because of free trade agreements, has seen as 10% decrease in household income while trying to absorb a 40% increase in health care is going to benefit. Well, many of those lost jobs are car parts factories closing. Most cars sold in Colombia are not American and even then most of the parts come from Venezuela. So really there is little to no market for those car parts. Colombia is home to over 150 fruits all sold very inexpensively in stores. So the market for expensive Michigan cherries is even smaller. But then even consider how much a auto factory worker makes versus what a person picking cherries makes.
Passing the FTA will not help curb these abuses. It will not help the common working person or the poor. In fact it is most likely to condone the actions of a corrupt government and continue the abuses. President Bush has done a discourtesy to the Colombian people and the people of the USA by presenting it at this time where it must be voted on in 90 days. For either if it passes or fails it will hurt workers in both countries. Bush likes to say that those not wanting it passed are for protectionism. In light of the facts as presented by reliable agencies and authorities not passing the FTA is common-sense-ism.
Free trade is beneficial if people don’t abuse it. If there is anyone that is interested in coming onto my radio show as a guest to discuss the validity of unions in modern society, let me know at missy_missy16@yahoo.com! My co-host and I are both in favor of corporate rights so opposing views are a refreshing welcome!
The murder rate among Colombian trade unionists fell to 5 per 100,000 in 2007. By comparison, the U.S. murder rate was approximately 5.6 per 100,000 last year, and the murder rate in U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, and Philadelphia was higher (13, 24, and 14 per 100,000, respectively). The homicide rate among trade unionists in Colombia is approximately one-seventh the rate among Colombians generally.
uschamber.com/colombia
cindy wrote: “Free trade is beneficial if people don’t abuse it.”
I really don’t think you will get much of an argument there with the strict sense of economic theory about it. That is perhaps why union members prefer the word “Fair” trade. Unfortunately, unlike physics and mathematics economic theory is not as much of an absolute science and the Colombian FTA is abuse and is not Fair trade. Please understand, most people are not against trade that improves the USA economy and workers. Note that those opposed to voting on the FTA with Colombia are not opposed to trading with Colombia, they are opposed about it until Colombia is a viable trading partner for the USA and one in which both countries will benefit from the trade. President Bush has created a situation where both countries tend to loose whether it is passed or not.
Sjseo298 – From your spelling of the word, “neighbours” most likely you are not North American. From your grammar and calling it the TLC as they do in Colombia, most likely English is not your first language and you are Colombian. From the fact that you do speak English, most likely you are among the small percentage of rich and elite controlling the country that can gain from the FTA at the expense of workers.
As an American I am somewhat offended by your comment of, “Don’t be hypocrites and think for once in your neighbours”
Colombia is already the largest recipient of hard-earned US taxpayer money outside of the Middle East. Rather than just beg for more American hand-outs, you could help gain much more by working to make Colombia a viable market for USA products and a FAIR trading partner. America has already proven its willingness to help (over $5 billion so far) and wants to help more, but to make the help effective Colombia must also help by creating a safe environment for workers and aggressively attacking corruption.
JParker,
“From the fact that you do speak English, most likely you are among the small percentage of rich and elite controlling the country that can gain from the FTA at the expense of workers. ”
Or perhaps she studied in class. My Colombian wife speaks English, and she grew up far from “rich and elite.” And your idea that the FTA will somehow hurt the “workers” is absurd. But then your idea of “worker” is probably only someone that pays union dues.
“Rather than just beg for more American hand-outs, you could help gain much more by working to make Colombia a viable market for USA products and a FAIR trading partner.”
Colombia suffers the ramifications in blood of America’s drug problem. Much of that money selfish Americans pay for cocaine goes to fund guerilla groups like the FARC, ELN, and the paramilitaries. We owe Colombia our help.
Golden boy – I do not discount the possibility that she may have learned her English in class. That is a possibility, but so far I have not found any Colombian public school really doing a good job of teaching English. A teacher in a private bilingual school receives approximately 3 times the pay of a teacher in a public school. It is therefore not difficult to see where an English speaking teacher will go. Bilingual schools are very expensive and most places that teach English like Berlitz are way beyond the wage of the average citizen This is not to say public schools do not want to teach English and indeed they are designing books and lessons for teachers who do not speak English to teach English. So far the results I have seen are less than impressive.
I am hurt by your comment that my idea of a worker is anyone who pays union dues. Actually I spent much time in management negotiating against the union. However I have worked on the auto assembly line in Michigan and picked fruit in California in 100 degree heat with immigrants. What I learned from being on both sides of the fence is the important role that unions play in creating a viable flourishing economic society. Many workers not in a union owe their wage and benefits to those in a union. When plant workers receive a fair wage secretaries in the office and the non-union worker at the small shop down the street does also. And it is unions and their results that help prevent the large disparity between rich and poor that currently exists in Colombia.
I am fully aware of your concept that if the USA (and Europe) did not create a demand for drugs that Colombia would not be in the supply business. Possibly the over $5 billion already given in US aid to Colombia should have been put into reducing the demand in the USA. Perhaps it should have been put into isolating Colombia. Americans chose to try and help Colombia help itself. But Colombia must do its part. Unfortunately as you pointed out the paramilitary is also involved in drug business. It is also firmly shown that the paramilitary is linked to the Colombian government on many levels. And as reported by not only US State Department reports but also those of many NGOs around the world there still exists impunity from the law for many paramilitary members and elite. Many organizations have called The Justice and Peace Law that demobilized the paramilitary a failure. But because of the corruption in the country and the impunity from the law, if it were not drugs then it would be something else. It is already reported that 75% of the counterfeit US dollars and European Euros are made in Colombia. And Colombia would still have the same problem.
I agree with you that we owe Colombia help. It is just that the FTA does not help, it does the opposite and entrench the problems especially corruption. And it is not a one-way street, Colombia must also do its part. More seriously attacking corruption at all levels and ending impunity is a good start. Congress Woman Nancy Pelosi realizes that as well and instead of taking a chance on flatly shutting Colombia out, she is giving them more time to change things. Perhaps The USA needs to focus less of our aid on the military side and more on social projects and the Colombian judicial system which by Colombia’s own admission as well as US reports states is greatly understaffed and under-funded. But we must also know that our money is getting the most bang for the buck and not lining the pockets of corrupt politicians.
The Columbia FTA, as it will stand today, if passed, will not help Columbia any more than it will help the US. Rather, passage of the FTA will further promote economic decline in both countries. One cannot have trade with a nation that has unspeakable corruption without it having extremely negative consequences for the other nation. Politics, economics and social issues are intricately woven into a much larger picture of a government and a nation’s health. The FTA will promote poverty, corruption and social decline, because Colombia at this time is a nation plagued by all three. Without proper guidelines in place and responsible governance, the FTA cannot and will not be able to fix Columbia’s problems. However, it goes even deeper than that. The United States is on the verge of a massive recession, and has done things that are also suspect, and is not in a position to give or owe any other country anything unless it fixes it’s own problems. Bush has blinders on and cannot see how desperately the US MUST fix its problems here at home. He is willing to do anything for the sake of a few lousy dollars and for what he believes will give this country more credibility, while at the same time knowing full well that he is more than willing to leave this entire mess to the next president. It goes beyond whether he really sees the big picture or not, which I don’t believe he does, but by promoting back door economics, he leaves the door wide open for front door conspiracies. Many knowledgeable Americans understand this fact, but most of us are helpless to change things, and no matter how hard we try to voice our opinions, even with the help of Unions, it all falls on deaf ears. The many, many problems that other nation’s are faced with troubles me deeply, but the inactivity of our own government to really make a positive difference for these nations is even more upsetting. Bush wants the FTA in place without even bothering to address the extreme hardships and difficulties of Columbia. He is just looking the other way, and many of his henchmen in government know very well EXACTLY what is going on. And all of them are just biding their time and watching the clock, knowing that in a few short months they will not have to worry about the repercussions of their actions. What an embarrassment!