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Ignoring Murders of Colombian Unionists, Bush Set to Honor Uribe |
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| President Bush couldn’t reward murder with a trade deal. Now he’s rewarding Colombian President Uribe with a medal. |
In a final flip-off to human rights activists, international trade unionists and Colombian workers, President Bush will award the United States’ highest civilian honor—the Presidential Medal of Freedom—to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Colombia is the deadliest nation in the world for trade unionists.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush was awarding Uribe and two other honorees for:
their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad.
How’s this for Uribe’s work for “human rights and peace”?
Nearly 500 trade unionists have been murdered there since he took office in 2002. Since 1986, more than 2,600 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered: however, only a small fraction of those responsible for the crimes have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
Bush has long sought to win a U.S. Colombia-Free Trade Agreement for his close ally Uribe. But the AFL-CIO and a broad coalition of unions, human rights, environmental, religious and other groups have been able to mobilize enough opposition to derail Bush’s plan to Fast Track the agreement through Congress.
We all agree there should be no trade agreement until real progress is made to protect the rights and lives of trade unionists. In other words: Don’t Reward Murder.
In February, United Steelworkers (USW) Associate General Counsel Dan Kovalik traveled to Colombia with AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson and Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen.
During the fact-finding mission, they met with Colombian workers and union leaders and with Uribe. Kovalik described the meeting:
Our meeting with President Uribe took a chilling turn when I raised our collective concern about the pervasive anti-union culture in the military, companies and even the government in Colombia—a culture which labels those workers attempting to organize and exercise their union rights as “guerrillas” or “terrorists.” In a country where the Colombian military, along with right-wing paramilitaries aligned with the military, are at war with the guerrillas, such labels target those workers for assassination….
…He said that it was his experience as a student (presumably decades ago) that a tactic of the guerrillas was to infiltrate the union movement, the student movement and the press.
Unfortunately, Uribe—and his administration—are still acting on outdated theories and unproven associations, with fatal results for far too many trade unionists.
For that he gets a medal?
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nothing this man does shocks me any more. he is a sick person with no regard for anyone but himself and his biggest donors.
Union assassinations under Uribe have dropped by more than 2/3. How is that not progress? Further, crime statistics in nearly every category have improved, along with the economy. Meanwhile, the guerillas have been pummeled. The rank-and-file are surrendering in droves while their leaders are in hiding or in Venezuelan sanctuary. No honest critique of Uribe’s stewardship could overlook that. his accomplishments translate into an overwhelming approval rating among the Colombian people.
And yeah, it IS a tactic of the guerillas to infiltrate the unions, student movements, and the press. That’s just fact. Raul Reyes, for example, got his start as a trade unionist.
Who are you trying to fool “Golden Boy”? Why don’t you come out and say who you really are and who you work for? Let’s do some math. Since 1986, there have been 2600 murders of union members. By my count that is 22 years. Uribe has been in office since 2002 (6 years) and there have been 500 murders. That is 20% of the murders during 27% of the time. And, according to the ITUC, of the 1,165 documented murders of Colombian trade union members between 1994 and 2006, only 56 perpetrators have been brought to trial, and just 14 have been sentenced. Forgive me for not being impressed by the “progress”.
As for the so-called unions being infiltrated by rebels, so what? We’re not talking about the government ARRESTING union members for illegal activities (what law-abiding countries do). We’re talking about murders of union members by other private individuals in Columbia while the government looks the other way. Why does the government not arrest or prosecute the murderers? Because the government sanctions the killings. Even if you can prove those killed were rebels (which you can’t), you can’t justify their murder by paramilitary organizations. In the civilized world, that is called vigilantism, and it is illegal and immoral.
So, Golden Boy, why don’t you go back to whatever business it is you are involved in that is likely to benefit from a trade deal with Columbia and take your fascist apologia with you.
The day after Obama said he would not sign the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, he was slammed by the Wall St Journal for not supporting free trade with this ally, for the reason Golden Boy mentions. Shortly after that yet another scandal broke out in Colombia when it was reported that the army has a widespread practice of going into poor neighborhoods, kidnapping and murdering residents, taking them into the jungle and dressing them up as guerrillas so they can be added to the “body count”. This was just months after 8 senators allied with Uribe were investigated and in most cases indicted for working with the paramilitary death squads. Uribe himself is widely known as a sponsor of the paramilitaries when he was governor of Antoquia. “No honest critique of Uribe’s stewardship could overlook” all this. The Nazis brought about social order as well, no?
Lets see, as a Colombian I can now travel the country with my family without fearing any harm. The economy is doing well.
But , I guess that means Uribe has don’t a horrible job.
Crime has gone down. FARC number have gone down. I don’t understand how you fix a problem overnight. Please let me and the Colombian people know.
Uribe has done an amazing job. This is coming from a non-Bush supporter.
As American born and raised in Colombia with family throughout Colombia, our family has seen the big difference between Colombia before Uribe and Colombia after Uribe. It is like the difference between night and day and between anarchy and organization. Uribe has brought Colombia from the abysm of the prior administrations where crime/violence/kidnapping was rampant and where the FARC/ELN had their way and even their own territory within Colombia to organized their terrorism and kidnapping. Colombian voters wanted change and had enough with the cowardize of the prior governments in handling of the FARC and elected Uribe to handle the FARC’s terrorism and kidnapping with whatever means. He was so successful beyond imagination. He bought stability, reduced crime, violence/kidnapping by more than 70%, foreign investment shot up from less than $500million per year to almost $10 billion, foreign tourism visiting colombia went up from 200,000 to over 1.5 million, unemployment was reduced from almost 20% to about 10%, number of annual displaced went down from 450,000 under Pastrana’s last year to 100,000 last year, number of union leaders killed went down from an average of 117 per year before Uribe to 47 in 2007, economic growth shot up to 7.5% in 2007 one of the best in Latin America, etc Best of all, he restore hope and security to the great majority of Colombian and that is why he was reelected by 2/3 of Colombian voters. After 6 years in government, Uribe enjoys approval rating of over 80% (in my family it is 100%). Over 5,000,000 Colombian voters have signed a petition asking that Uribe be eligible to be reelected for a third term. Regarding the Union leaders, Human Rights Watch in their website acknowledges that up to 50% of the union leaders are killed by FARC (to foment bad publicity for Uribe’s government) and/or other fellow union members or common criminals. This is the news that AFLCIO does not want to hear and that is that what most of what they say is pure lies. It is us the mayority of Colombians that should be asked our opinion and not only certain Union leaders. So you will know, my grandparents were poor farmers from the rural areas of Colombia and were forced to leave because the communist terrorism of FARC.
Like others, I have also been witness to Colombia before and after Uribe. Indeed many roads (thanks to constant military presence) have become more safe. And I enjoy these safer travels. I spoke with one store owner in a small town that said the safer roads means more travel and people spending money. Colombian people have began to feel better about themselves. However, there are many other things that show that such an award is probably unwarranted. Even as mentioned by American/Colombian above, Uribe did not have a tough act to follow as his predecessors were terrible. As for that approval rating one should remember that that a good share of the media in Colombia is owned by the family of the vice-president and the defense minister, not to mention that many reports have stated that reporters who write against the government suffer a much shortened life span. Consider also that the mayor of Bogota is considered the 2nd most influnential man in the country and in the last election the people elected the man that Uribe told them specifically NOT to vote for. Many other leaders in the world and even South America have done much for their country. The Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has made marvelous progress in his country. And if you look at just certain statistics even Venezulean President Chavez has made improvements for his people. But speaking of statistics let’s hit upon those in Colombia that everyone likes to quote. To begin with during Uribe’s term two government statisticians have left office one fired for wanted to release numbers other than what the government wanted to show and another quit citing administration interference in reporting. And often things are a matter of semantics. They show that murders and kidnappings were down, but forced disappearances were up. Not to mention that there has been much controversy because the way kidnappings were counted actually changed. Kidnapping itself has also changed. An NGO acknowledges the left-wing kidnappings and high profile ones are down, but that group also stated that small lower amount, short term (and unreported) are probably up as much as 400%.
And notice that everyone talks about the left-wing terrorists like FARC, but they don’t mention the right-wing terrorists, the paramilitary. This is the group that has been linked to the government on several levels. Most of the congressmen, including Uribe’s own cousin, under investigation for dealing with the terrorist paramilitary are Uribe supporters. In fact it was Uribe’s former campaign manager who become head of DAS (Colombian version of the FBI) that was giving union member names to the right-wing death squads. Reports show that the paramilitary is still very active despite the so-called demobilization. Two different NGO reports have shown an increase in their ranks recently. But again the government plays it down by calling them “new emerging groups.” Bottom line no matter what their name, they still terrorize the countryside and are still working with the Colombian military, but the difference from the left-wing is the right wing terrorists are said to be doing the bidding of the government and the rich. And I take exception with American/Colombian comments above that the FARC (left-wing terrorists) are responsible for 50% of union deaths. Several reports including ones by the US State Department and a Colombian University show that the right wing terrorists are responsible for over 70% of those murders. Speaking of wealth, Colombia still continues to have one of the most unequal distributions of income in the world and the discrepancy has been shown to increase by some reports. A University of Iowa student after researching it and visiting Colombia stated that 20 years ago, that of the 43 million people in Colombia that only 2,300 owned 36% of the land. Today that same 3,200 own 56% of the land. Colombia has the second largest amount of displaced people in the world and the amount continues. Colombia keeps telling the world all the great things it is doing to protect union members, but in 2008 union murders were actually up over 2007. Minimum wage in Colombia is under $249 a month yet many things cost as much or more than they do in the USA. And for the last two years, despite requests from unions and citizens, Uribe has allowed minimum wage increases that just meets previous year’s inflation. Consider also that under Uribe’s watch, that cocaine plantings have increased by as much as 27%. Plus both Amnesty International and the United Nations have written reports showing that the Colombian military is killing innocent civilians and writing them off as terrorist kills (thereby making those statistics inaccurate as well). Not to mention that even the last two State Department reports on human rights in Colombia have commented about corruption. It remains a considerable problem in both the government and private sectors. A writing by a member of a US union group that visited Colombia mentioned how less than 20% of the aid for people in one project actually reached its end point.
Uribe has made improvements in some areas (especially those that help the rich), however corruption, drugs and human/ worker rights abuses continue to be among the highest in entire world and increasing.