I forward this because I believe it casts a sidelight on the question of
"conspiracy theories." I have not read much about the specific case, but
such "narrowly-focused" conspiracies as is charged here are utterly
different in their political impact than the grander and more
spectacular kind of conspiracies feared by the extreme right and often
picked up by leftists.
First of all, the acts themselves are in the public record, and there
can be absolutely no doubt that the men killed or threatened were killed
or threatened, and that these attacks were directed against union
organizers. There exists also public-domain knowledge in regard to
negotiations before the murders and non-negotiations after them.
Coca-Cola admits all this. And the charges also lie within a long
history (also in the public domain) of the violent response of companies
to union organizing attempts. The political organizer (one, say,
attempting to organize a demonstration before the court house or
building a support group for the organizing efforts in Colombia) would
have no trouble in immediately catching and focusing the attention of
those she spoke to or readers of her leaflets. And even if it is not
established that Coke directly instigated the murderers the
public-domain events are damning enough: one is not caught up in a
hopeless wrangle over facts that can _only_ be (awkwardly) shown to be
plausible or possible. That is, regardless of how the unknown facts turn
out, we have a clear cut case here fitted to the needs of left
agitation, propaganda, and organizing.
This fits into the larger questions of Colombia-Solidarity, of Capital
and Labor, of Imperialism, of Corporations in the Third World, etc. --
and all without being sidetracked into giant and merely speculative
theories about the organization of an unseen world.
Carrol
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [R-G] Coca-Cola Murders
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:22:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Giles Grierson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IT'S THE REAL THING - MURDERS AT COKE
By David Bacon
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (11/24/01) -- After the leader of their union
was shot down at the gate into the plant where they worked, Edgar Paez
and
his coworkers at the Coca Cola bottling plant in Carepa, Colombia, tried
for four years to get the country's courts to bring the people
responsible
to justice. Instead, some of the workers themselves wound up behind
bars,
while they watched the murderers go free.
Believing Colombian courts incapable of ensuring justice, they
decided to haul Coca Cola into the US courts instead. To help them,
they
found a powerful US union.
This summer, the Colombian union, SINALTRAINAL, together with the
United Steel Workers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund,
filed a case in Florida against Coca Cola, Inc., Panamerican Beverages
(the largest soft-drink bottler in Latin America, with a 60-year history
with Coke), and Bebidas y Alimentos (owned by Richard Kirby of Key
Biscayne, Florida, which operates the Carepa plant.) The three
companies
are charged with complicity in the assassination of Colombian union
leaders. The unions hope this new strategy will stop a wave of murders
of
union militants that's lasted over a decade. Colombian unionists have
since been traveling the United States, gathering support for the case
and
future similar actions.
The Florida case charges that at 8:30AM December 5, 1996, a
rightwing paramilitary squad of the United Self Defense Forces (AUC)
showed up at the gate into the Carepa bottling plant. Isidro Segundo
Gil,
a member of the union's executive board, went to see what they wanted.
They opened fire, killing him. An hour later, paramilitaries kidnapped
another leader of the union at his home, who escaped and fled to Bogota.
That evening, they broke into the union's office, and burned it down.
The next day, a heavily-armed group went inside the bottling
plant, and called the workers together. "They said that if they didn't
resign by 4PM, the same thing would happen to them that happened to Gil
-
they would be killed," recalls Paez.
Coca Cola spokesperson Rafael Fernandez asserts the company's code
of conduct requires respect for human rights. Coke's Colombia
spokesperson, Pedro Largacha, claims "bottlers in Colombia are
completely
independent of the Coca-Cola Company." The bottler, Bebidas y
Alimentos,
says it had no way to stop the paramilitaries. "You don't use them,
they
use you," Kirby stated. "Nobody tells the paramilitaries what to do."
But the suit charges that plant manager Ariosto Milan
Mosquera, who had a history of partying with the paramilitaries, gave
them
the order to destroy the union. Paez says not only were the plant's
managers responsible, but that Coke benefited.
"At the time of Gil's death we were involved in negotiations with the
company," he says. "They never negotiated with the union after that.
Twenty seven workers in twelve departments left the plant and the area.
All the workers had to quit the union to save their own lives, and the
union was completely destroyed. For two months, the paramilitaries
camped
just outside the plant gate. Coca Cola never complained to the
authorities."
The resignation forms, the suit claims, were prepared by the
company. The experienced workers who left the plant, who had been
earning
$380-400 a month, were replaced by new employees at minimum wage --
$130/month.
During a subsequent investigation by the Colombian Justice
Ministry, the plant's director and production manger were detained,
along
with a local paramilitary leader. All three were later released without
charges.
The assassinations were neither the first nor the last among union
leaders in Colombian Coke plants. In 1994 two other union activists,
Jose
David and Luis Granado, were also murdered in Carepa, and paramilitaries
demanded workers quit the union. In 1989, Jose Avelino Chicano was
killed
in the Pasto plant. This year a union leader at the Bucaramanga plant,
Oscar Dario Soto Polo, was murdered. When the union denounced the
killings, the plant's chief of security, Jose Alejo Aponte, charged its
leaders with terrorism.
Five were jailed for six months. At the Barrancabermeja plant a
graffiti
was scrawled on the walls -- "Get Out Galvis From Coca Cola, Signed
AUC."
Juan Carlos Galvis is the president of the plant's union.
"One of our biggest problems in Colombia is that social protest in
general is being criminalized," Paez charges.
According to another Colombian unionist, Samuel Morales of the
Unified Confederation of Workers (CUT), the country's largest union
federation, "in many ways, transnational corporations virtually govern
the
states in which they operate. And in our country, it's become a crime
to
speak out forcefully against them. They get cheap labor by weakening
unions and getting rid of long term workers."
By October, 125 Colombian trade union leaders had been murdered
this year alone. Last year's assassinations cost the lives of 129
others
-- out of every 5 trade unionists killed in the world, 3 were Colombian.
Paramilitaries are held responsible for almost all trade union
assassinations. Robin Kirk, who monitors human rights abuses in
Colombia
for Human Rights Watch, says that there are strong ties between the AUC
and the Colombian military. "The Colombian military and intelligence
apparatus has been virulently anti-Communist since the 1950s," she says,
"and they look at trade unionists as subversives - as a very real and
potential threat."
"They believe it's a crime," adds Morales, "to present any
alternative, any option for social change -- just to struggle for
workers
rights and needs. The paramilitaries don't act by themselves. In
Colombia, they're called the army's 'sixth division.'"
Despite the wave of death and violence, U.S. aid to the Colombian
armed forces has grown rapidly. Under Plan Colombia, the U.S. has
funneled over $1 billion into the country, almost entirely in military
assistance. Paez charges the US-funded drug war is a pretext for
protecting transnational investors. "Plan Colombia's objective is the
elimination of movements for social change in our country," he says.
"That creates a much more favorable environment for the exploitation of
our natural resources and our labor force."
One objective of the Coke suit is to pressure the Colombian and US
governments to comply with the conventions of the International Labor
Organization and the Geneva Accords on Human Rights. But Colombian
unions
would also like to see those responsible for the murders brought to
justice.
"We want to strip off the mask hiding the involvement of
transnational corporations in our internal conflict," Paez explains.
"To
do this, we need a judicial forum outside the country, since within
Colombia those guilty of these crimes are treated with impunity. In
this
particular case, those responsible include Coca Cola. But they're not
the
only company pursuing policies which violate human rights. We're giving
our own global answer to their global operations."
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