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Colombians Mourn Colleagues Killed in Past Two Months |
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When 14 Colombian trade union members were in the United States for a training program, they were unable to forget just how dangerous it is to support unions in their home country. During the two months they were here, four of their colleagues were assassinated.
In a memorial service at AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., yesterday, we joined the Solidarity Center and the Colombian workers to honor those who were killed and to reaffirm our determination to fight for workers’ and human rights in that country.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told the group:
We want our Colombian sisters and brothers to know that as we fight for basic trade union rights in this country, we are totally dedicated to their struggle to organize and collectively bargain in an atmosphere free of fear, terror and violence.
Shuler noted the AFL-CIO has recognized the courage, strength and valor of the Colombian union movement by presenting the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award to Colombian human rights activist Yessika Hoyos.
The Colombian workers participated in the Trade Union Strengthening program sponsored by the Solidarity Center, with funding and support from the U.S. Department of Labor. As part of the program, the Colombians joined union organizers on the ground for three weeks. They worked with organizers from AFSCME, TCU/IAM, North Shore (Mass.) Labor Council, Sacramento Central Labor Council and the Teamsters. TCU/IAM, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters also provided training for the Colombians.
Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists. At least 34 trade unionists have been killed this year in Colombia, with 10 deaths in the past eight weeks alone.
Jose Diogenes Orjuela Garcia, organizing director of the Colombian CUT union federation, said at the memorial service:
We want to have a country where union rights and human rights are respected. If you add up all the acts of violence [against union members] there have been more than 10,000 in the past 20 years.
Both Shuler and Garcia made it clear that the United States should not sign a free trade agreement with Colombia until the violence against union members ends. Says Shuler:
The AFL-CIO stands with the…entire Colombian labor movement in their continued opposition to the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. We cannot permit a permanent trade instrument that incorporates a labor market based on the literal assassination of workers and their unions.
For us, these struggles are one and the same. We are fighting for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act not only to help end the unchecked violations of organizing and collective bargaining rights by employers in this country, but to set a new standard for the United States and its corporations operating in Colombia and throughout the globe.
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Both the USA and Canada have pending FTA´s with Colombia. The political proponents of these FTA´s in both countries have stated that under Colombia´s president Uribe that progress has been made in decreasing murders of union members. Independent reporter and very knowledgeable writer about Colombia, Gary Leech, shows the numbers a different way. In one of his writings he states, “A review of the numbers shows that the ratio of labor leaders killed relative to the number of unionized workers in Colombia is higher under the Uribe government than it was during the 1990s. Last year, one out of every 6,800 union members was assassinated. This rate of extermination is significantly higher than during the mid-1990s when an average of one out of every 8,100 unionists was killed. Because the level of unionization in Colombia has declined to only four percent of the workforce, the percentage of unionists being killed today is markedly higher than a decade ago.”
That entire article can be read here:
http://colombiajournal.org/colombia268.htm
The sad part is that much of the America media and major media writers like Mary O´Grady of the WSJ and Hugh Bronstein of Reuters fail to investigate into these claims by FTA supporters, or more likely, they purposely refuse to present a balance piece in order to support the desired wishes of specific interests. This breech of journalistic integrity presents the American public with a one-sided view in an apparent attempt to gain their support for something that is detrimental to the workers of both countries.
Mr Leach is not an independent journalist but a person who has very clear identification with movements in Latin America which he doesn’t fully understand. His expressions are naive and manipulative at best. The asassination of colombian Union leaders is related to the Unions involving themselves in the long war that has devastated our moral standards, including the Union’s. So much for the worth of his comments.
I agree with JParker, the more agenda guided (mostly for the benefit of corporate America and the economic elite of Colombia) and far less than balanced reporters are O´Grady, Bronstein and I would even add Juan Fereo to the list. It is not Gary Leech. Leech is a recognized investigative reporter. Here is a link to just one of the stories about him:
http://themediaandcolombia.blogspot.com/2009/03/garry-leech.html
He is also the author of two acclaimed books on Colombia, “Killing Peace: Colombia´s Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention,” and “Beyond Bogota: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia.”
Journalists, academic researchers and priests in Colombia concur with much of Leech´s writings. These people include journalists like Hollman Morris (recipient of the 2007 Human Rights Defender Award by Human Rights Watch), Amy Goodman, Jenny Pearce, Father Javier Giraldo and others. Even former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Myles Frechette, has written similar things in his writings for the Strategic Studies Institute.
I noticed that the numbers used by Mr. Leech were not disputed or other evidence offered to refute his remark. Instead his credibility was attached without substantiation.
This tactic of degrading, or labelling as guerilla, the writing of investigative reporters and human rights activists who report events and facts the Colombian government does not want known is widespread. This frequently makes the individuals targets for the government linked paramilitary terrorist and drug dealing group. Reporters without Borders states that Colombia is the third most dangerous country in the world for reporters. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (which the US and Colombia are both members of) issued a statement criticizing the Colombian government´s efforts to vilify journalists and link them to guerillas when investigative reports run counter to the perception the government wishes to portray.
A U.S. congressional hearing on labor in Colombia resulted in testimony from Colombians that also echoed many of the writings of Mr. Leech. (A broadcast of that hearing can be accessed here:
http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/2009/02/examing-workers-rights-and-vio.shtml
And for conducting that hearing into the truth about the abuses of labor in Colombia The vice president of Colombia, Francisco Santos (a member of the family controlling much of the media in Colombia) called the head of the committee, American Congressional Representative the Honorable George Miller, an enemy of Colombia. http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/3120-us-representative-miller-is-enemy-of-colombia-vice-president.html
Blatant unsubstantiated bashing of the credibility of known investigative reporters, academic researches, priests and members of the US congress does not negate the truth. It only makes Colombia look like it is hiding much more.
The Pentagon appears to be intent on causing further disruption in Colombia by sending more troops & equipment to further escalate the current “war on drugs,” which is again a mere excuse to have tax payers foot the bill for some rich private contractors. It was good when Mr Clinton got 2 of our journalists back from North Korea, however, many more journalists have assassinated in Columbia, than anywhere else. Why isn’t our government doing anything about this? Yet U.S. American mass media reporting on this issue is minimal at best. It would seem that it would be in the interest of mass media to better inform all of us about why this is happening, or to at very least, suggest what must be done about it. There isn’t any military solution to our government’s problems in the region. Who’s running our country’s foreign policy? The federal congress? The people? Or the Pentagon?
Disappointed in our mass media, yes, surprised no. They’ve proven repeatedly that their reporting is not done in pursuit of truth and journalistic excellence but too often on opinions and what sells. Today there are only a few individual journalists brave enough and willing to write these stories and then finding the funding and support to bring them to fruition and getting published. Follow the money… as usual.
NPR is the only news I trust, and of course the Comedy channel.
The murders of journalists and Union leaders are but a fraction of all the killing that derives from our war. They are sad, very sad, as are all the deaths of citizens killed in this conflict. It is not true that the government is not doing anything. Perhaps it is because things are changing that so many criticize their action and try to discredit them. This government has obtained, finally, the independence of the justice system and the US has helped with training programs and judicial education to insure the proficiency of the judiciary institution. The army has recovered control of a great part of the country, again, with the help of the US. But we are far from defeating these terrorists. I do not think that the US is the father of all evils as some bloggers seem to think.
Colombian army in control of more land with the help of US aid sounds like a good thing. But really looking at it raises doubts.
The United Nations has documented the murders of hundreds of innocnent civilians by Colombian security forces including by those troops receiving U.S. aid. U.S. State Department reports have shown an increase over the years in these murders. The Bogota based Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP) shows that under President Uribe human rights violations done by members of the Colombian security forces have increased from 17% to 56%. A research report by a university student in Iowa revealed that 20 years ago a mere 3.200 of the over 40 million Colombians owned 36% of the land. Today 3,200 own 56% of the land. There is documentation and reports of people being removed from their land by governmernt linked drug dealing paramilitary, then the land sold to corporations. This has been documented much in the palm growing region for production of palm oil. Colombia is second in the world for displaced people with some estimates making it close to 10% of the population. According to UN reports that displacement continues today with some sources stating that over 1,000 new displaced people arrive to just Bogota each month. Another UN report shows that through these years that the planting of coca for the making of cocaine has increased from 12 districts to 23 districts.
So with the rich gaining more land, more coca being planted, more innocent civilians being murdered by Colombian security forces, more people being displaced and a large increase in human rights abuses it is really debatable if the occupation of more land by the Colombian military is really something as good as it sounds. And is the US really doing the majority of people of Colombia a favor by contributing to military rather than education and social projects?
Then does the fact that more innocent civilians are killed in Colombia than journalists and union members make the fact that the country is the leader in murders of union members any less worse? When there still exists less than a 5% arrest and conviction rate for union members really mean that US aid to the judicial system is doing little more than contributing to the corruption? And does it negate Colombia´s responsibility to do something about it. Results are needed not words.
Thanks for this article on the Colombian trade Unionists. the action below was taken fter a reception with Yessica Hoyos at the California Federation of Labor:
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF ASSEMBLY JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 27
TO STRONGLY OPPOSE THE COLOMBIA/U.S. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
(Passed by Plumbers and Fitters LOCAL 393, San Jose, California 10/14/2009, and passed unanimously by the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council 10/19/2009.)
WHEREAS Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, representing California’s 20th Assembly District, has introduced Assembly Joint Resolution No. 27, strongly urging the U.S. Congress to oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), citing Colombia’s failure to observe internationally recognized labor standards, detailing the paramilitary assassinations of trade unionists and human rights workers in Colombia, offering evidence of the involvement and collusion of the Colombian government and army in such murders and in the persistent impunity that protects the perpetrators; and
WHEREAS the CFTA can be summed up as a proposal that would formalize U.S. support in Colombia for the assassination of labor union organizers by death squads, impoverishment of workers and the undermining of agricultural security that will leave more landless and unemployed workers with no alternative but to migrate to the United States seeking work, and will support the interests of major U.S. transnational corporations that exploit workers and collude to suppress labor rights in Colombia and which use the superprofits gained there to undermine workers’ rights to union representation, health care and pensions, labor law enforcement, and security here in the United States; and
WHEREAS the CFTA, like NAFTA, would cost us jobs, solely benefit US transnational companies and is opposed by labor, farm and human rights groups, including the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and the three main Colombian labor federations, the Unitary Workers Confederation (CUT), the General Workers Confederation (CGT), and the Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC), together representing 89% of that country’s organized workers; and
WHEREAS Colombian unions have suffered the assassination of more than 2500 trade union leaders and activists in the last two decades, including some 500 victims during the present Alvaro Uribe administration, with 97% of the perpetrators enjoying immunity from prosecution, and receiving proved support for their atrocities from official government sources; and
WHEREAS reports from the International Labor Organization (ILO), show that Colombia’s laws fall far short of minimum core labor rights and that the Uribe administration systematically fails to enforce even those laws; and
WHEREAS in April 2008, Barack Obama said he opposed the CFTA because “the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements” and Colombian unions say the Trade Agreement would make it more difficult to pursue human rights, weaken their industries and cost them many thousands of jobs; and
WHEREAS Carlos Gaviria Diaz, former President of Colombia’s Constitutional Court and labor backed political leader of says President Uribe “has not responded adequately to the violence that plagues Colombians and particularly union leaders and human rights activists…(and) this FTA benefits only a select minority in the United States, not the general population…(T)he destruction of Colombian agriculture caused by the FTA will stimulate the planting of coca in Colombia and more drug dealing in the streets of American cities…”; so therefore be it
RESOLVED that Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 congratulates Assemblymember Torrico for presenting AJR 27 and urge each of our representatives in the California legislature to support AJR 27 by co-sponsoring it, speaking for it and voting for it; and be it further
RESOLVED that Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 sends this resolution with a letter urging support of AJR 27 to the State Assembly members and Senators representing our area, to our representatives in Congress strongly urging their opposition to the proposed Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and send this resolution to the south Bay AFL-CIO Labor council and to our Building and Construction Council for their concurrence, action, and distribution to their affiliates for their concurrence and action.
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It’s probably a safe assumption that the PSUV and their associated and high solidarity Unions are not in the least way responsible for the death of Union members in Columbia.
Au contraire, whatever tension being minded, felt, and experienced between Venezuela and Columbia stems from the basic fundamental paradigm difference of “Free Trade” (i.e. USA and mostly European Lackey Capitalist Corporate dominated) and lack of “Fair Trade” and owner/worker relationships and environmental stewardship concerns (the puppet International Capitalists’ resistance to the popular ALBA Movement).
AFL-CIO has a window of opportunity to align correctly with the signing of a letter of intent between the USW and Mondragon (like the Basque region of Spain the ore and the energy for furnace fires was/is depleted and the heart mind bodies were/need to be dedicated to new solutions which were/will be libertarian cooperative communitarian in design, form and materialism.
The USW acronym needs to be redesignated as United Socialist Workers and become the direction of AFL-CIO and our relation to international with the goal of world unity and cooperation.
Whereas, the “One Big Union” was the slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) so should it be as the Industrious Workers of the World and in transition the International Workers of the World, as resource constraints and humanity moves us more towards the relocalization artisanry opportunities for everybuddy, leaving none behind.
We can unite the now aligned nations or you can hold out for a White House USA Summit of the G(one).
It’s our choice.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Peoples’ Equity Union
I am a worker, a Colombian worker. My heart weeps to read all that is written here about my country as all I see is more manipulation and distortion of the truth about my country, our war of five decades, of the numerous human rights violations that are not mentioned. I see that the AFL-CIO is as misinformed as those in Congress. Ours is a small country that has not been in the highlights of American opinion and therefore ignorance about our problems and the true nature of all the violence is overwhelming.
In a war where drug lords bomb planes, public buildings and malls and those bombs do not make headlines in the US press, the truth tends to become the private highway to introduce personal interests by those connected in one way or another to this violence.
This long introduction to say that Colombia is by far more open and clear about union involvement in the workplace than the US, where you have Wal-Mart and many more that do not even allow workers to sit during long hour shifts; while minimum wages in Colombia have been dynamic for decades, in the US minimum wages are barely more today than twenty years ago. So many more examples, if I were fired in my country, the employer would have to pay a reasonable compensation. Does this sound like a country where our rights are violated as these pseudo union leaders from Colombia seem to imply?
The real problem is that the Union movement, as practically all other interest groups in Colombia has not remained passive in the war that involves everybody. This is a war that includes not only the legally established authority but also AUC (over 15,000 paramilitary fighting against leftist guerrillas), FARC (over 15,000 leftist guerrillas), ELN (other 5,000 leftist guerrillas) and the gangs of former paramilitary who signed a failed peace agreement. All of these illegal armies are drug traffickers and extremely violent actors. They all “sell” protection to corporations, private citizens and yes, Unions. They interfere with Union elections and victors are generally those who pact with these terrorists. This is the real scenario in which the so called “persecution” of Union leaders takes place. Not as described by these occasional visitors who find the opportunity to face a moment of glory backed by US ignorance about our reality. I am prepared to debate this and the whole story in any forum.
My country is not a perfect country, it is not a good country, but we surely do not deserve so much prejudice and our government, with all its flaws, does not deserve to be pinpointed by the actors in this war, most of them guilty in one way or another.
For the first time in history, Colombia is seeing legal inquiries over military misbehavior with sentences against those who have disregarded human rights. For the first time we are able to walk around the country without fear of getting killed.
The people, who these pseudo leaders protect, have planted mines in our country, making it the number one in the world in mined fields. Those same people hold hostages over 700 citizens and some for over ten years in jungle camps where they are being treated worse than beasts.
I would be more than proud to present my views and discuss them to enlighten others before they draw judgment as I see on this blog. The AFL-CIO would do well to investigate more and deeply before making the statements I see here.
My wife and I studied Spanish in Bogotá for three months in 1964. When we had progressed enough to understand the newspapers we would read on a regular basis about the army’s capture or killing of a bandit called Tirofijo. Needless to say the reports were greatly exaggerated. Manuel Marulanda, alias Tirofijo, the leader of FARC, the largest guerilla organization in Colombia only recently died of old age. Yet in 2006 alone, 80% of the $728 million of the aid we spent in Colombia went to the military, which has been singularly unable to accomplish what it set out to do 43 years ago. What it has accomplished is aiding and abetting the paramilitary groups who are responsible for the murder of union and cooperative leaders and their supporters on a regular basis. These murders go back at least to 1928 when the workers for United Fruit formed a union and struggled for an eight hour day and other conditions. Their supporters were massacred by the army in the public square on a Sunday morning, ostensibly to forestall a landing of U.S. troops, coming to aid Americans and protect the interests of United Fruit.
When will we stop deluding ourselves that peace can be attained through military intervention?
James T. Dette
Weehawken, NJ
Former Social Projects Officer
AIFLD/Ecuador
It sounds so Latin to defend a position resting your ideas on history that has long passed. It is true that in the past those events did happen. It is not true that they happen today or that if they do they go unpunished. It has been 65 years since you went to Colombia, it is a completely different country today. The US has helped change for the better but the fight against terrorism is not an overnight theory launched by a happy blogger; it demands much more than perhaps Colombia has. Please let us try and think over objective basis and not over gossip, rumors and hearsay. Forty million Colombians are hoping for an end to this very bloody and long war and extremist, poorly backed positions will not help it happen.
Jtdette, you are right on with your comments and they remain relevant today despite the thoughts of other to the contrary. The media in Colombia is controlled by the economic and political elite. In his writing “Colombia and the United States - The Partnership: But What is the Endgame?”, Myles Frechette states that that group does not represent the majority of Colombians and they refuse to sacrifice to strengthen their own country. To this day I constantly read exaggerated and one-sides reporting by the Colombian media and have caught out-right lies.
The General Accountancy Office (GAO) report released just this year states that Plan Colombia has failed. thereby proving your contention that military action fails. The fact that while less than 5% of the murders of union members have resulted in an arrest of the perpetrator, the U.S. Congressional hearing on labor in Colombia held less than a year ago, revealed more disturbing news. Only the material authors of the crime have been arrested, not one of the intellectual authors (those who hired the murder) has ever been arrested and that continues to this day. Both the United Nation and US reports show that Colombian troops supported with U.S. aid are guilty of not just murdering innocent civilians, but actually luring them to an area with an offer of a non-existent job then killing them and dressing them up in Guerilla outfits. Some are found wearing guerilla outfits that don´t even have a bullet hole in them .
And you are dead on the money when you say that peace cannot be obtained through military intervention. But it goes even beyond that. Our aid, partly because of the massive corruption in the Colombian government, actually contributes to the problem. This is pointed out by Marselha Goncalves Margerin (program officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights) and Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli (Senior associate for Colombia and Haiti at the Washington office on Latin America) in their paper titled “US aid exacerbates abuse in Colombia.”
Now let´s just hope that our congressional members listen more to you and the facts than the rambling rhetoric of others attempting to baffle them with BS that is devoid of concrete proof demonstrating sustained positive results.
It’s probably a safe assumption that the PSUV and their associated and high solidarity Unions are not in the least way responsible for the death of Union members in Columbia.
Au contraire, whatever tension being minded, felt, and experienced between Venezuela and Columbia stems from the basic fundamental paradigm difference of “Free Trade” (i.e. USA and mostly European Lackey Capitalist Corporate dominated) and lack of “Fair Trade” and owner/worker relationships and environmental stewardship concerns (the puppet International Capitalists’ resistance to the popular ALBA Movement).
AFL-CIO has a window of opportunity to align correctly with the signing of a letter of intent between the USW and Mondragon (like the Basque region of Spain the ore and the energy for furnace fires was/is depleted and the heart mind bodies were/need to be dedicated to new solutions which were/will be libertarian cooperative communitarian in design, form and materialism.
The USW acronym needs to be redesignated as United Socialist Workers and become the direction of AFL-CIO and our relation to international with the goal of world unity and cooperation.
Whereas, the “One Big Union” was the slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) so should it be as the Industrious Workers of the World and in transition the International Workers of the World, as resource constraints and humanity moves us more towards the relocalization artisanry opportunities for everybuddy, leaving none behind.
We can unite with the now aligned nations or you can hold out for a White House USA Summit of the G(one).
It’s our choice.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Peoples’ Equity Union
Eugene, OR, USA