Colombian unionists tour U.S.
Cite Coca-Cola in death-squad killings
By Rebeca Toledo
New York
Two union leaders from Colombia--from the Central Trade
Union and the national union of food and beverage
workers--kicked off a U.S. tour here Nov. 3. They came to the
United States to acquaint people with a lawsuit, filed in the
Southern District of Florida, that their union has brought
against the Coca-Cola Co.
Edgar Paiez told the audience that over the past 15 years,
more than 4,000 labor unionists have been assassinated in
Colombia. According to the United Nations, this is the highest
rate of assassinations in the world.
This year alone, 125 union leaders have been killed by the
paramilitaries. Of these, seven were Coca-Cola workers.
Paiez says the lawsuit charges Coca-Cola with systematically
violating workers' fundamental human rights, as reflected in
assassinations, detentions, forced displacement, firings,
violations of collective conventions of work, and the
persecution of the labor union.
The case is moving forward in Florida. To complement the
lawsuit, Paiez said, "We will be holding public hearings around
the world next year to present evidence against both Coca-Cola
and the Colombian government for their continued
persecution."
The first will be held in Atlanta next July 22. Atlanta is
the headquarters of Coca-Cola.
It will be followed by an August hearing in Brussels,
Belgium. In September the last one will be held in Bogota,
Colombia, itself.
Paiez appealed to all those fighting against injustices and
for union rights in the United States to join the campaign and
get involved in organizing for the Atlanta hearing.
Speaking about the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States,
Paiez said: "We would like to send our deepest condolences to
the families of the victims of the attacks. The loss of life
has affected us deeply, because we too suffer such attacks,
only they are acts of state terror."
Since Sept. 11, the Colombian government has increased its
attacks on the people in the name of fighting terrorism. Any
act of protest is now labeled as terrorism.
Paiez said war is not the answer to the tragic events of
Sept. 11.
Video about massacre
with U.S. cluster bombs
Samuel Morales Florez introduced a video entitled "The Other
Bloody Sunday" that documented a massacre carried out by the
Colombian military on Dec. 13, 1998, in the village of Santo
Domingo.
He charged, "The cluster bombs used were donated to the
Colombian military by the U.S. and were dropped by U.S.
pilots."
Seventeen people were killed, including seven children.
Twenty-five people were wounded.
In the film a survivor tells how helicopters and planes
circled overhead. At first, they dropped propaganda materials.
Then they dropped bombs right in the center of town, where many
people had gathered. There were explosions, followed by loud
screams.
The Colombian military at first denied that it used bombs at
all, but quickly had to retract this in the face of
overwhelming evidence. No one was ever charged with this
massacre.
It is just this kind of injustice that the Stop Impunity:
Colombia Demands Justice Campaign wants to put an end to. "The
Colombian government must be held accountable for these acts of
terror," concluded Morales Florez.
Thomas McGregor of the Impunity Campaign described it as an
international campaign to bring about justice for the people of
Colombia. He asked that U.S. activists pressure the government
to cut all military funding to the Colombian government.
McGregor also spoke about the fumigation of peasant lands:
"Fifty percent of all crops sprayed have been food crops. And
it is no accident, because one can clearly tell the difference
between a coca crop and a food crop; they are grown
separately."
The peasants have presented the government with proposals
for growing alternative crops instead of coca. The government
has refused them all. The speaker said this showed that the
Colombian and U.S. governments are not interested in ending
narcotrafficking.
"Along with the terror of the paramilitaries, this is an
effort to displace and depopulate lands so that the
paramilitaries can turn them over to the landowners," said
McGregor.
In a lively discussion after the presentations, Morales
Florez commented that the Colombian government has supported
terrorism in his country for years. Just recently, it created,
nourished and armed paramilitary groups.
"Today the government says it will combat the
paramilitaries. But how can it combat something that is within
it, something that has benefited the government so much?
Before, the Colombian military carried out these terror
attacks; now the paramilitaries carry out this dirty war."
The paramilitaries carry out such horrific massacres of the
people that they are infamous for the use of chainsaws on their
victims.
Elaborating on the attacks on the Coca-Cola workers, Paiez
gave this example: "At one plant, while the trade union was
negotiating for better wages and more job security, three
leaders were assassinated right in the plant at 8:30 a.m. At
9:30 a.m., paramilitaries kidnapped a fourth leader. At
midnight, the union offices were set on fire and all the
archives lost.
"The next day, the paramilitaries called a meeting inside
the plant to tell the workers to resign from the union by 4
p.m. or else. This is the kind of relationship that Coca-Cola
maintains with the paramilitaries."
Although the government originally detained some plant
personnel, no one was ever charged with these terror tactics.
The panel urged everyone to get involved with the campaign to
gain justice for these workers, and also to oppose the U.S.
government's Plan Colombia and Andean Initiative.
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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