From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 12:22:43 -0500 (CDT)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: AP: Colombian Labor Unions Reeling
============================================
According to a U.N. labor rights envoy who
visited Colombia this week, 30 union members
have been killed so far this year, after 112
died violently in 2000.
____________ ============================================
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, 27 April 2001
Colombian Labor Unions Reeling
------------------------------
By Will Weissert
BOGOTA -- Lying face down on a crowded sidewalk, labor leader Wilson Borja
watched a pool of his own blood forming beneath him and realized he was
one of the lucky ones.
The president of the Federation of State Workers, Colombia's largest
union, survived an assassination attempt that left him with gunshot wounds
to the shoulder and legs and saw a bullet tear into the top of his skull.
''There has never been violence against the labor movement like there is
now,'' the unionist said in a phone interview from the hospital, where he
has been recovering in the four months since the attack. ''But I was not
like many leaders in the labor movement who have been silenced.''
The bloodshed of Colombia's 37-year armed conflict and its drug trade has
touched people in all professions from supreme court justices to
shopkeepers. But being a union leader, or even a member of a labor group,
is one of riskiest of all trades.
According to a U.N. labor rights envoy who visited Colombia this week, 30
union members have been killed so far this year, after 112 died violently
in 2000.
Colombia has long been a deadly place for labor activists. Fear is one of
the reasons why only about 6 percent of the South American country's work
force is unionized, one of the lowest percentages for Latin America.
But observers say that with leftist guerrillas escalating their war,
unionists are increasingly targeted by rightists who equate their activity
with communist subversion.
''In the conflict a lot of assumptions are made quickly,'' said Rafael
Albuquerque, the envoy from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization.
''One of those assumptions is that many union leaders support the
guerrillas.''
In its latest report on human rights in Colombia, the U.S. State
Department attributed attacks on labor leaders to ''paramilitary groups,
guerrillas, narcotics traffickers, and their own union rivals.''
The National Labor School, a non-governmental labor advocacy group,
reports that about 1,500 union members have been murdered here in the last
decade.
''There is so much fear that many people believe joining (a union) is like
asking to be killed,'' said Juan Rosado, the school's president. ''Leading
one is even more dangerous.''
In the latest assassinations, an activist in Colombia's combative oil
workers union was dragged from his home in late-March and shot several
times in the head in the northern oil-refining city of Barrancabermeja.
Weeks later, a municipal union leader in the Caribbean city of
Barranquilla was executed, sparking two days of nationwide labor protests.
''Problems with violence against the labor movement in our country have
gotten very grave,'' Labor Minister Angelino Garzon said in an interview.
''And things are getting worse.''
During a tightly-guarded summit this week with labor leaders and U.N.
officials, the government agreed to install surveillance equipment in the
headquarters of dozens of unions. It already provides labor leaders, human
rights activists and journalists with bodyguards, armored cars and
bulletproof windows for their homes.
Mauricio Gonzalez, Colombia's deputy interior minister, said state
protection had thwarted two attacks on labor leaders in the last month.
But Rosado said the government was still considering a request for
protection from the president and vice-president of a coal miners' union
when the two were gunned down last month.
Garzon said despite the issuing of bodyguards and bulletproof glass,
things here will not get safer until the government does a better job
controlling the groups attacking labor leaders.
As a result of its mounting labor violence, Colombia faces possible
economic sanctions from the U.N's International Labor Organization.
''We hope it won't come to that,'' Garzon said. ''You don't help a
threatened labor movement by imposing sanctions that make it tougher to
compete.''
Borja was attacked Dec. 15 as he and three body guards left his Bogota
apartment complex in an armored car. Gunmen sprayed the vehicle and
surrounding area with 57 bullets.
In claiming responsibility, paramilitary leader Carlos Castano accused
Borja of belonging to Colombia's second-largest rebel group. Borja had
been serving as an intermediary in government peace talks with the rebels.
In February, authorities charged a police captain with conspiring with
Castano's militias to kill him.
''I, like the rest of us, am scared all the time,'' said Borja, who plans
to return to Colombia this fall. ''But my country, like my cause, are
worth fighting for.''
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
* CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at *
* http://www.prairienet.org/clm *
* and the CHICAGO COLOMBIA COMMITTEE *
* Email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or *
* Dennis Grammenos at [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
****************************************************************
* To unsubscribe send request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* unsubscribe clm-news *
****************************************************************
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
