Workers around the world
By Andy
McInerney
COLOMBIA
Death squads
‘defend business freedom’
Colombian death-squad front person Carlos Castaño
has been posturing as a public figure in recent weeks.
Castaño heads the "United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia" (AUC), a network of paramilitary outfits that carry
out the Colombian military's dirty war against the
people.
In a letter to Colombia's Congress, Castaño spoke
of his network's ties to the country's business elite. "Why
shouldn't national and international companies support us?"
he asked. "The growing support of the business sector is an
urgent necessity in our case.
"We have always proclaimed that we are the defenders of
business freedom and of the national and international
industrial sectors," the death-squad head insisted. Fernando
Devis of the big landowners' Society of Colombian
Agriculturalists confirmed the support of some landowners for
the AUC, according to a Sept. 7 Associated Press report.
In an interview with Colombian television in March, the
thug admitted that drug trafficking accounts for at least 70
percent of the AUC's operations.
In a separate interview in August, Castaño spoke
openly of contacts between his group and the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency. According to him, the DEA was looking for
an alliance with the AUC--supposedly to fight
narcotrafficking.
The AUC is part of the Colombian government's network of
terror against the Colombian people. In a typical operation,
Colombian military troops enter a town to search for weapons.
The next day, AUC or other government-linked death squads
enter the town and massacre alleged supporters of the
Colombian revolutionary movements.
For example, AUC thugs entered the town of Ituango in the
northern province of Antioquia. They torched the homes of
70-100 families as well as schools and a clinic in the
area.
In the February El Salado massacre, over 300 AUC members
in military uniforms massacred 36 civilians, accusing them of
supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia-People's Army. Military and police checkpoints
outside the area prevented human-rights groups from reaching
the scene during the three-day orgy of violence.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency helped organize
paramilitary groups in Colombia in the early 1990s.
ECUADOR
New tremors shake ruling elite
Completely dependent on U.S. support for its existence,
Ecuador's President Gustavo Noboa faces growing pressure from
the Andean country's Indigenous peasantry and working class.
At the same time he has pledged to U.S. investors to wage "a
war against extreme left sectors that are blocking
privatizations."
His words, spoken on Wall Street Sept. 8, came after
Indigenous protesters blocked roads across Ecuador's
countryside. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE) and the Coordinating Committee of Social
Movements (CMS) staged actions across the country. The
protests were against Noboa's plans to privatize sectors of
the economy, base the economy on the U.S. dollar, and support
the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia to escalate the
counterinsurgency war in Colombia.
Noboa is allowing the United States to use the Manta Base
in eastern Ecuador for counterinsurgency operations against
Colombia.
"We are calling on all Ecuadorans, from town and
countryside, to rise up with us and show their indignation,"
CONAIE President Antonio Vargas said Sept. 3. He pledged a
progressive escalation of the protests until the movement is
stronger than the January movement that toppled Noboa's
predecessor, Jamil Mahuad.
Mass mobilizations in Ecuador, fueled by IMF-imposed
economic austerity measures, have toppled two presidents in
three years.
THAILAND
Workers set up tent
city
Striking garment workers have set up a tent city in front
of the Government House in Bangkok, Thailand, to protest
government and employer repression. The women workers,
members of the Thai Kriang Durable Textile Trade Union,
charge that police attacks on their strike in June violate
the country's labor law.
The 1,500 workers at Thai Durable stopped work and
occupied the factory in May when the company refused to grant
a raise of 5 cents per day. Security guards backed by riot
police attacked the strikers on June 14, evicting them from
the factory.
That police action generated a wave of support for the
strikers. Over 2,000 workers joined the strikers at a July 27
protest in front of the Government House. Many stayed to form
the tent city.
The striking women also received support from the powerful
Assembly of the Poor, which has staged mass marches to gain
government compensation for land destroyed by a dam project.
There are now three tent cities set up by the two groups.
Riot police are stationed less than 10 feet away from the
camps.
BELGIUM
Activists arrested
supporting Erdal
On Sept. 5, police arrested seven members of the Committee
for the Freedom of Fehriye Erdal for distributing fliers and
wearing political T-shirts. The activists were campaigning
for Turkish political prisoner Fehriye Erdal, who has been
held in a Belgian prison since September 1999.
The activists waged a successful campaign to force the
city government in Brussels to back down from restricting
their ability to publicize Erdal's case. The mayor of
Brussels tried to forbid all solidarity actions and
threatened to arrest all "leaflet distributors who are
wearing T-shirts." After an uproar, he had to rescind the
ban.
But the ban continued in effect in the so-called "neutral
zone" around government offices in Brussels. The seven
activists arrested on Sept. 5 were charged with distributing
literature. The committee reports that the seven were subject
to racist harassment and brutality in the police stations and
that their T-shirts were confiscated.
"No repression, no matter what form it may take, will be
able to undermine our support for Fehriye," a Sept. 6
statement by the committee said. "Our solidarity campaign
will only end when she is granted the right to asylum."
Erdal was accused of being a member of the Revolutionary
People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKC-P), a Turkish
revolutionary movement. She was arrested for being in an
apartment where small firearms were found. She was acquitted
of all charges in court, but she is still being held in
prison in Belgium for the "national security of Turkey."
Erdal has been on hunger strike for weeks to protest her
imprisonment.
This article is copyright under a Creative
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