------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 8, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
INTERNATIONAL VISITORS SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS
By Berta Joubert-Ceci Bogota, Colombia
From June 20 to June 26, some 60 delegates from Brazil, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Basque Country, Germany, Ireland, Britain and the United States participated in an International Caravan to Save the Lives of Colombian Workers.
This timely event was of extremely critical assistance to the beleaguered progressive movement in Colombia, whose government is dutifully advancing at lighting speed Washington's plans for the region. To conform to the ambitions of U.S. corporations, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez has put into place a terrorist state of repression using new laws and provisions, some of them unconstitutional under the 1991 Colombian Constitution.
Even though the Free Trade Area of the Americas is not yet in effect, a privatization process is rapidly sweeping the country. As a result the majority of the population is denied health care, education and vital basic services.
Some 63 percent of the people of Colombia live in poverty--25 percent in abject misery.
Natural resources like oil are being transferred to multinational corporations, mostly U.S.-based. The development of foreign-owned mega- projects in different regions of the country brings forced displacement of thousands of Afro descendants, Indigenous and peasants.
Paramilitaries at the service of the Colombian state and U.S. corporations routinely harass and threaten, and in extreme cases massacre these peoples.
The only obstacle to these corporate interests is the determined and courageous struggle--both armed and unarmed--that the Colombian people are waging. Under these conditions, it is no surprise that Washington is backing Colombia's militarization to suppress this resistance.
Throughout the packed agenda of visits and meetings, delegates confirmed the human rights violations that labor unionists and social organizations have charged for a long time.
In order to cover the agenda of visits to governmental departments and regions of the country, the international delegation divided into smaller groups. In the capital, Bogota, delegates met with the vice prosecutor, the vice minister of social protection and the embassies of the countries whose citizens were on the caravan. This included the United States Embassy.
The caravan's main sponsoring organization is the Colombian Coca-Cola workers' union, SINALTRAINAL, which had also requested meetings with other governmental departments. These included the presidency of the republic, the interior department, the public defender and the procuradoria. Both the president's office and interior ministry refused to grant a meeting--the former stating that since the subject was labor that the visitors should approach the labor department.
SINALTRAINAL also requested a meeting with Coca-Cola FEMSA; the company initially rejected, but later it agreed to meet on June 28. Coca-Cola is known for its harsh union-busting activities, including violence against workers trying to organize, and the union has been waging what it calls a "Stop Killer Coke Campaign."
Participants gathered a wealth of information through meetings both in Bogotá and other regions with organizations representing youth, women, Indigenous, Afrodescendants, human rights advocates, political movements and of course trade unions.
The delegation organized by the U.S.-based International Action Center met in the Buen Pastor Women's Prison with several women political prisoners, including the well-known Indigenous and peasant leader Luz Perly Cordoba.
Smaller groups of delegates traveled to Arauca, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga-Barrancabermeja, Cali and Medellin, where they met with different social organizations and trade union representatives.
Back in Bogota, the caravanistas, together with the sponsoring organizations, met throughout one day to evaluate the visits and plan a course of action. In general, their proposals reflect the urgency of the situation. They are meant to expose the grave situation as widely as possible in the international community. A goal is to make other governments and international labor organizations aware of and responsible for actions on behalf of the Colombian people.
Some of the proposals by the international delegates were:
Continue exposing the critical situation in Colombia, demanding an end to the support of the Colombian government and insisting on respect of human rights.
Coordinate international activities including the July 22 International Day of Action against Coca-Cola and a week of actions against this and other multinational companies.
Publicize the three international labor organizations' S.O.S. scheduled for September 2004, and the institutionalization of the caravan as a permanent body that can accompany the process of resistance in Colombia.
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