------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Dec. 12, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
SOLIDARITY DELEGATION TRAVELS FROM U.S.: BOGOTÁ TRIBUNAL TO EXPOSE COCA-COLA'S CRIMES IN COLOMBIA By John Catalinotto New York Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other supporters of the Colombian union movement held a news conference in front of Coca-Cola Corporation's New York headquarters on Dec. 3 to announce that a solidarity delegation would be traveling to Bogotá to attend an International Tribunal on Dec. 5-7. The U.S. delegation joins others from Latin America and Europe in the capital city for the event, which will put the Coca-Cola bosses on trial for criminal acts against unionists in that country. Teresa Gutierrez of the Committee to Stop U.S. Intervention in Colombia, a subcommittee of the International Action Center (IAC), said her group and the Committee for a New Colombia are sending 22 people. Another six are going from the Committee for Social Justice. Gutierrez said the U.S. delegation is composed of human rights activists, students, labor lawyers, solidarity activists and unionists. "The delegates," Gutierrez explained, "aim to learn about how Coca-Cola officials not only carry out appalling anti-union practices but also take part in the ongoing violations carried out by paramilitary death squads." Sinaltrainal--Colombia's National Union of Food Industry Workers--along with the United Steel Workers and the International Labor Fund have filed a case in U.S. courts accusing Coca-Cola of using paramilitaries to intimidate and assassinate union organizers. The lawsuit focuses on the murder of Isidro Segundo Gil and the intimidation of five of his co-workers at a bottling plant in Carepa. Gutierrez added, "The IAC is also establishing a response network with tens of thousands of activists in the United States and around the world through its web site and e-mail and is asking them to help broaden coverage of the tribunal. The IAC plans to publish daily reports from Colombia on the tribunal hearings and demonstrations against Coca-Cola." The tribunal is sponsored by Sinaltrainal plus the labor umbrella group United Central of Colombian Workers (CUT) and the Campaign Against Impunity. The events will begin with a national protest at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Bogotá on the morning of Dec. 5. In the event of any harassment, repression or obstruction by the Colombian authorities against the Colombian unionists or against the international delegates, Gutierrez said, the IAC's network "will respond with a massive protest campaign." Clark, a founder of the IAC, told media that the U.S. has more troops in Colombia at this time than it had in Central America during the 1980s, when Washington was intervening in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Other speakers included Rev. Luis Barrios, a professor at John Jay College, and a group of Colombian-American high school students who gathered toys to send with the U.S. delegation for Colombian children. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
