LABOUR-COLOMBIA:
Foreign Firms Urged to
Help Prevent Rights
Abuses
By
Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, (IPS) -
Amnesty International is
calling on foreign
companies operating in
Colombia to use their
influence on the
government "to end and
prevent human rights
abuses against trade
unionists."
In its report,
"Killings, Arbitrary
Detentions and Death
Threats -- The Reality
of Trade Unionism in
Colombia", the
London-based rights
watchdog warns that
Colombia’s decades-long
armed conflict "provides
a useful cover for those
seeking to expand and
protect economic
interests."
The report, released
Tuesday, provides a long
list of case studies of
labour activists who
have been the target of
attacks in the health,
education, public
services, agricultural,
mining, oil, gas, energy
and food sectors.
According to Colombia's
National Trade Union
School (Escuela Nacional
Sindical, ENS), 2,245
trade unionists were
killed between January
1991 and December 2006,
while 138 fell victim to
forced disappearance and
3,400 were the targets
of threats, making
Colombia "one of the
most dangerous places in
the world for trade
unionists," says
Amnesty.
Another leading
international human
rights group, the New
York-based Human Rights
Watch, says 75 percent
of the attacks were
committed by the
far-right paramilitary
groups that are allied
with government forces
and which partially
demobilised as a result
of controversial
negotiations with the
government of right-wing
President Álvaro Uribe.
The army is also blamed
for a significant
proportion of the
killings.
The Amnesty report,
meanwhile, says leftist
guerrillas are
responsible for a small
portion of the killings,
targeting "those they
consider to be siding
with their enemies or
who oppose their
interests -- including
trade unionists."
Amnesty describes a
pattern of systematic
attacks against trade
unionists involved in
labour disputes and in
campaigns against
privatisation and in
favour of workers'
rights in some areas
where extractive
industries operate.
The message is clear.
"Don't complain about
your labour conditions
or campaign to protect
your rights because you
will be silenced, at any
cost," said Susan Lee,
Amnesty International's
Americas Programme
Director.
Pointing out that over
90 percent of the cases
reported by the ENS have
gone unpunished, Amnesty
says "Substantive
improvement in the human
rights situation faced
by trade unionists will
not be secured without
decisive action to end
the impunity enjoyed by
the vast majority of
perpetrators of human
rights abuses against
trade unionists."
"This report is a
wake-up call for any
multinational company
operating in an
environment in which
human rights are
systematically violated.
Inaction is no longer an
option," said Lee.
The U.S. mining company
Drummond is facing
charges in a federal
court in the state of
Alabama in connection
with the 2001 murders of
three Colombian trade
union leaders.
Two of the unionists,
Víctor Orcasita and
Valmore Locarno, were
killed while the
Drummond miners union
was negotiating labour
contracts with the coal
mining company.
The firm’s profits in
Colombia rose eight
percent in 2006, and
since 2001 the amount of
coal it mines in
Colombia has more than
doubled.
Edwin Guzmán, a former
Colombian army sergeant
who later became a
member of a paramilitary
group, testified last
Thursday before a U.S.
congressional panel that
Drummond and other U.S.
companies provided
financial and material
support to the
paramilitaries.
Guzmán said his troops
were in charge of
guarding the property of
the Alabama-based mining
company, which operates
the largest open cast
mine in Colombia and one
of the largest in the
world -- El Cerrejon in
the northeastern
province of La Guajira
-- among other mines.
The military and
paramilitaries jointly
protected the firm’s
installations and coal
shipments, said Guzmán.
He also said that
Colombian army training
"tells us that we have
to attack the leftists
in any way we can, and
that unions are
guerrilla groups and we
have to attack them by
legal and illegal
means."
Shortly before the
murders of Orcasita and
Locarno, pamphlets that
circulated in Drummond’s
coal mine in La Loma, in
the northeastern
province of Cesar,
lashed out at "the
guerrillas’ union" and
accused the two union
leaders of backing the
insurgents.
Seven months after the
two men were pulled off
a company bus on their
way home from work and
killed by
paramilitaries, Gustavo
Soler, who replaced
Locarno as president of
the union, was murdered
in a similar fashion.
According to Guzmán, who
will also testify in the
Alabama court this
month, the paramilitary
groups and the Colombian
army see the Drummond
miners union as
representing "a
subversive organisation
and consequently a
legitimate military
target."
He also said the murders
were considered
"military victories."
The day that Guzmán was
testifying before the
U.S. congressional
panel, representatives
of the Colombian
government agreed to
labour and environmental
amendments to the free
trade agreement (FTA)
signed with the U.S.
government.
But on Friday, Democrats
in the
Democrat-controlled
lower house of Congress,
led by Representative
Nancy Pelosi, said "we
cannot support the
Colombia FTA at this
time."
"There is widespread
concern in Congress
about the level of
violence in Colombia,
the impunity, the lack
of investigations and
prosecutions, and the
role of the
paramilitary," said the
lawmakers. "Issues of
this nature cannot
solely be resolved
through language in a
trade agreement."
Approval of the FTA will
depend on concrete
progress in combating
the impunity surrounding
abuses against trade
unionists, and in
investigating and
prosecuting the
paramilitaries and their
political accomplices
who have been arrested
for their ties to the
ultra-right-wing groups.
Speaking live on
television, the
president said angrily
on Saturday that "This
has to be a relationship
of allies, as we
deserve, and not of
domination by the United
States over a servile
Colombia."
"They are going to
punish Uribe by
postponing the FTA,"
Enrique Daza with the
Colombian Action Network
Against Free Trade told
IPS.
Daza said "the FTA is
dead, at least for this
year," because Uribe
"has not shown any
willingness" to resolve
the question of the
trade unionists, and
because "new scandals
are emerging every day"
in the so-called "parapolitics"
scandal.
"The Democrats are thus
forcing the government
to come up with results"
on both fronts, said the
activist.
Dozens of legislators
and other politicians
allied with Uribe have
been thrown in jail for
their links with the
paramilitaries in the "parapolitics"
scandal since the first
arrests in late 2006.
But to judge by
Amnesty’s assessment,
solving both problems
would imply major
changes in the way the
Colombian government has
been handling the war.
Amnesty says there are
"concerns that a
coordinated security
force-paramilitary
strategy exists to
undermine the work of
trade unionists" by
physically eliminating
labour activists and
through attempts to
discredit the legitimacy
of trade unionism.
"The security forces
have covered up their
involvement by using
paramilitary groups to
carry out their ‘dirty
war’ tactics and have
sought to improve their
human rights image by
denying that
paramilitaries operate
with their acquiescence,
support or, as is often
the case, under their
coordination," says the
report.
"Terror tactics are also
used to enable powerful
economic elites to
protect, expand and
consolidate their
interests," it adds.
On May 2, paramilitary
chief Rodrigo Tovar,
better known as "Jorge
40", was charged with
involvement in the
murders of Locarno and
Orcasita.
Tovar, who is among the
thousands of demobilised
members of paramilitary
groups, was to begin
confessing to his crimes
this week. In order to
qualify for the legal
benefits offered as part
of the demobilisation
negotiations, such as a
maximum prison sentence
of eight years, he must
make a full confession
of his human rights
crimes.
Since Uribe first took
office in 2002, the
number of murders of
trade unionists has gone
down. His administration
has provided union
leaders with
cell-phones, armoured
vehicles and bodyguards,
depending on the level
of risk they face.
But the ENS reports that
the proportion of
unionised workers has
steadily declined in
Colombia since 1996. |
