RIGHTS-COLOMBIA:
Workers of the World
Unite - in
Anti-Paramilitary Vigil
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA (IPS)
- The world’s largest
trade union federation
has called a Mar. 6
global demonstration to
pay homage to victims of
Colombia’s far-right
paramilitary militias
and their allies in the
state, political
establishment and
business community.
The International Trade
Union Confederation (ITUC),
which represents 168
million workers in 155
countries "has called on
all of the countries
where its member unions
are located to hold
demonstrations outside
of Colombian consulates
and embassies," said
Carlos Rodríguez,
president of the Central
Unitaria de Trabajadores
(CUT), Colombia’s main
labour union federation.
The global protests will
demand "the truth about
the 2,574 trade
unionists killed in
Colombia" in the last 22
years, he told IPS.
The demonstration "for
the disappeared, the
displaced and the
victims of massacres and
other killings" began to
be organised in October
2007 to coincide with
the Mar. 6 start in
Bogota of the fourth
meeting of the Movement
of Victims of State
Crimes (MOVICE), which
will be attended by more
than 1,500 delegates
from throughout
Colombia.
But the planned
demonstration has taken
on a higher profile
since the huge Feb. 4
global protests against
the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC),
the country’s biggest
rebel group.
The worldwide anti-FARC
demonstrations had the
full backing of the
rightwing government of
Álvaro Uribe, which
instructed its embassies
and consulates to invite
Colombians abroad to
participate in the
protests.
Many companies in
Colombia gave their
employees the day off to
take part in the march,
in which hundreds of
thousands of protesters
filled the streets
wearing t-shirts saying
"No More Kidnappings",
"No More FARC" and "I Am
Colombia".
However, government and
business support will
not be seen on Mar. 6,
although officials in
Colombia said they would
provide security for the
demonstrators.
The president’s main
adviser, José Obdulio
Gaviria, even alleged
that the planned
demonstration was
organised by the FARC,
because a web site that
supports the rebels
declared its backing for
the Mar. 6 event.
In the civil war-torn
southeastern province of
Nariño, on the border
with Ecuador,
organisations promoting
the demonstration have
been declared "military
objectives" by a
paramilitary group
active in the area.
And while the partially
privatised ECOPETROL oil
company gave its workers
the day off to take part
in the Feb. 4 march, it
plans to take punitive
measures against anyone
who misses work on Mar.
6, the oil workers trade
union reported.
The central march that
day will end in Bolívar
Plaza in Bogota, where
Colombian poet William
Ospina will read out a
proclamation and MOVICE
activists will read a
communiqué.
As in the case of the
Feb. 4 march, which
emerged from the
Facebook social
networking site, there
are groups on that site
that both support and
reject the demonstration
by the victims of
paramilitaries and their
military allies.
The symbols proposed by
MOVICE for the Mar. 6
global protests would
appear to be aimed at
neutralising the growing
polarisation in the
country: the
demonstrators are simply
invited to carry photos
of victims, and the
theme will be "We Are
All Colombia".
The slogan was decided
on in meetings of
organisations of
indigenous people,
blacks, trade unionists,
human rights defenders
and relatives of
murdered government
opponents or activists.
"Saying ‘I Am Colombia’,
the slogan of the
previous march, is to
say that the Colombia
that I accept is the
Colombia that thinks
like I do," psychologist
Claudia Girón, a member
of MOVICE, told IPS.
"We believe pluralism
and diversity are
important. It is more
important to say that we
are all Colombia,
whether or not we think
alike," she said.
In MOVICE "we don't turn
a blind eye to the
crimes committed by
guerrilla groups. But a
state that violates
human rights is a
problem at another
level, because it is not
just any actor -- it
supposedly guarantees
respect for those
rights," said Girón.
"That doesn't mean that
the pain of the
insurgent groups’
victims isn't the same
as our pain," she added.
"We profoundly take into
consideration their pain
as human beings and
repudiate the crimes
committed against them."
Some 90,000 victims of
the paramilitaries have
been documented by the
Attorney General’s
Office.
But in addition, nearly
four million people,
mainly peasant farmers,
have been forcibly
displaced from their
homes and their land.
Furthermore, more than
1,700 members of
indigenous communities
(who number around one
million people in this
country of 43 million)
have been murdered, and
an entire left-wing
opposition party, the
Patriotic Union, was
wiped out when hundreds
or even thousands of its
members and supporters
were killed off.
On their own, or in
collaboration with the
security forces, the
paramilitaries have
forcibly disappeared at
least 15,000 people.
Between the 1982
emergence of the
far-right paramilitary
groups in their present
shape and form and 2005,
they committed more than
3,500 massacres, and
have been blamed by
United Nations experts
and leading
international human
rights groups for at
least 80 percent of the
crimes against humanity
committed in Colombia’s
civil war.
As a result of
negotiations with the
government, they
declared a unilateral
ceasefire in December
2002 and partially
demobilised. But since
then, they have killed
an average of 600 people
a year, according to
MOVICE.
A multidisciplinary
study carried out in
2007 found that since
2002, when an all-out
military offensive
against the FARC was
launched with heavy U.S.
support, members of the
army have killed more
than 950 people, most of
whom were reported as
guerrillas killed in
combat.
That practice should
supposedly decline as a
result of a recent
government measure which
stipulates that an
expert on international
humanitarian law must
accompany all military
units on the ground.
The paramilitary chiefs
themselves, many of whom
are drug lords, have
themselves boasted that
at one point they
controlled a full 35
percent of parliament.
In addition, the civil
intelligence service
(DAS) was heavily
infiltrated by
paramilitaries during
Uribe’s first term
(2002-2006).
Around 75 legislators
and other politicians
allied with Uribe --
including the
president’s cousin Mario
Uribe, who resigned from
the Senate -- have been
arrested or are under
investigation for their
links with the
paramilitaries in the
so-called "parapolitics"
scandal that broke out
in late 2006.
"Everyone investigating
the scandal has received
threats," said Luz
Marina Hache, vice
president of the
National Association of
Judicial Branch
Employees (Asonal
Judicial), which will
take part in the Mar. 6
demonstration.
"On Nov. 15, 2007,
Judith Faride, who was
investigating the
parapolitics scandal,
was murdered in Santa
Marta (the capital of
the northern province of
Magdalena), and the
paramilitaries claimed
responsibility for the
murder," she told IPS.
"There have been victims
of all of the different
armed groups, but only
the paramilitaries have
forcibly disappeared
members of the judicial
branch, against which
they have openly
launched attacks," said
Hache.
She said Asonal Judicial
is seeking truth,
justice, reparations for
victims and survivors
and a halt to the
violence. "The judicial
branch is calling for
support for the Supreme
Court and for its
courage in blowing the
lid off" the
parapolitics scandal,
she added.
Asonal Judicial reports
that 345 judicial branch
employees have been
killed, 37 have been
"disappeared" and 55
have been forced into
exile since 1987.
In a recent statement to
the Colombia Support
Network, which is
organising an
international vigil as
part of the Mar. 6
activities,
world-renowned U.S.
linguist, author and
political activist Noam
Chomsky said "Please
join them in any way you
can, and help to bring
to this wonderful
country the justice and
peace that its people
richly deserve." "For
far too long, Colombians
have suffered torture,
displacement,
disappearance, and
general misery under the
dark shadow of
paramilitary and
military terror,
constantly taking new
and more menacing forms.
"The vigil on March 6 is
a courageous stand by
the victims and their
supporters, in Colombia
and around the world, a
passionate plea for this
savagery to be brought
to a final end," added
the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
professor in his
message. |
