Solidarity delegation travels from U.S.
Bogotá tribunal to expose Coca-Cola's crimes in
Colombia
By John Catalinotto
New York
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other supporters of
the Colombian union movement held a news conference in front of
Coca-Cola Corporation's New York headquarters on Dec. 3 to
announce that a solidarity delegation would be traveling to
Bogotá to attend an International Tribunal on Dec.
5-7.
The U.S. delegation joins others from Latin America and
Europe in the capital city for the event, which will put the
Coca-Cola bosses on trial for criminal acts against unionists
in that country.
Teresa Gutierrez of the Committee to Stop U.S. Intervention
in Colombia, a subcommittee of the International Action Center
(IAC), said her group and the Committee for a New Colombia are
sending 22 people. Another six are going from the Committee for
Social Justice.
Gutierrez said the U.S. delegation is composed of human
rights activists, students, labor lawyers, solidarity activists
and unionists. "The delegates," Gutierrez explained, "aim to
learn about how Coca-Cola officials not only carry out
appalling anti-union practices but also take part in the
ongoing violations carried out by paramilitary death
squads."
Sinaltrainal--Colombia's National Union of Food Industry
Workers--along with the United Steel Workers and the
International Labor Fund have filed a case in U.S. courts
accusing Coca-Cola of using paramilitaries to intimidate and
assassinate union organizers.
The lawsuit focuses on the murder of Isidro Segundo Gil and
the intimidation of five of his co-workers at a bottling plant
in Carepa.
Gutierrez added, "The IAC is also establishing a response
network with tens of thousands of activists in the United
States and around the world through its web site and email and
is asking them to help broaden coverage of the tribunal. The
IAC plans to publish daily reports from Colombia on the
tribunal hearings and demonstrations against Coca-Cola."
The tribunal is sponsored by Sinaltrainal plus the labor
umbrella group United Central of Colombian Workers (CUT) and
the Campaign Against Impunity. The events will begin with a
national protest at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in
Bogotá on the morning of Dec. 5.
In the event of any harassment, repression or obstruction by
the Colombian authorities against the Colombian unionists or
against the international delegates, Gutierrez said, the IAC's
network "will respond with a massive protest campaign."
Clark, a founder of the IAC, told media that the U.S. has
more troops in Colombia at this time than it had in Central
America during the 1980s, when Washington was intervening in El
Salvador and Nicaragua.
Other speakers included Rev. Luis Barrios, a professor at
John Jay College, and a group of Colombian-American high school
students who gathered toys to send with the U.S. delegation for
Colombian children.
Reprinted from the Dec. 12, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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