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Two More Trade Union Members Killed in Colombia
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Two trade unionists were killed in Colombia last month, a grim reminder to free-trade-at-all-cost supporters in the White House and Congress it’s a bad idea to sign a trade deal with the deadliest country in the world for union members.
Nelson Camacho González, a member of the oil industry union USO, and Ibio Efrén Caicedo, an activist from the Antioquia teachers’ association ADIDA, were killed in separate incidents in June. Of the 101 trade unionists murdered last year, nearly half (48) were in Colombia. So far this year, 29 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. If murders continue at the same rate through the end of this year, it will mark a substantial increase in violence. While there have been some prosecutions of those responsible for carrying out these crimes, the rate of impunity remains sky-high.
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its affiliates in Colombia sent protest letters to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe demanding his government immediately launch a full investigation to identify and bring to justice those responsible for these latest two murders.
According to the ITUC, Caicedo, who had a strong track record as a trade union activist, was assassinated June 19, one day before the presidential elections. His murder is the seventh killing of a union teacher in Antioquia this year alone.
Three days earlier, González died after being shot repeatedly at the bus stop on his way to work. His murder is another in a series of systematic attacks and threats against members of the oil workers’ union, which is in conflict with several oil and pipeline companies in the country.
The murders come as the Obama administration is pledging “an intensive effort” to pass the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement last month that the administration should instead
undertake a “very intensive effort” to promote labor and human rights and an end to violence in Colombia, rather than a trade agreement that, according to even the U.S. International Trade Commission, will do very little to create good jobs here at home.
The United States needs to put into place a comprehensive strategy to address the still alarming human rights situation in Colombia, Trumka said.
It is premature to talk of passing the trade agreement before there is evidence of sustained and substantial advancement on labor and human rights, implementation of needed labor law reform, significant progress to halt the violence against trade unionists and to end the impunity surrounding the true authors of aggression against Colombian workers and union leaders.
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The news in Colombia stated that President Obama now supported the FTA because it would create American jobs. But it was Obama who, with a secret deal, took away American jobs. He did it doing exactly the opposite of what he stated when campaigning in that there would be transparency in government. A report by a think tank in 2004 stated that American bases in South America should be done not only with transparency, but with approval of congress. Going completely against what he campaigned about, Obama signed a secret deal for seven bases in Colombia and it did not get approval from congress in either country. Bases are said to be for fighting drugs, but research reports previously stated even the one base we had in Ecuador previously was not worth the money. American taxpayers are paying $46 million just to upgrade a base that we are leasing. Only one Latin American country agreed with the bases. Many demanded transparency in the agreement and because of the secret agreement many Latin American countries purposely stopped purchasing some goods from the USA and started buying them from China, thereby reducing jobs in the USA. Now Obama wants the people who elected him to believe that American jobs will be created with sales to Colombia, a country with one of the most unequal distribuions of income in the world and with 50% of the people living below the poverty level. Not to mention that Owens Illinois already put many Americans out of work to move production to Colombia. Transparency in government and no FTA with Colombia – two things Obama campaigned on, two things people elected him because of and two things he obviously lied about. When it comes to Colombia it seems that President Obama is constantly working against the American worker and American jobs, not for them.