COLOMBIA
Unsafe for union organizers
By Berta Joubert-Ceci
Labor unionists around the world know that Colombia is the
most dangerous country for union leaders. A recent visit to the
United States by Francisco Ramírez Cuéllar,
president of the Colombian mineworkers' union, set this fact
into clear focus.
Early in the afternoon last Oct. 10, as Ramírez
Cuéllar walked from his home to have lunch with two
nieces, two men on a motorcycle approached him. The man on the
rear was holding a gun and looked straight into the union
leader's eyes. Ramírez Cuéllar was able to take
cover behind a pole. Luckily, the traffic light changed,
drivers honked impatiently, and the motorcyclists were forced
to continue on their way. That was the seventh time there has
been an attempt on his life.
This latest incident followed surveillance by the police,
intimidation and harassment of Ramírez Cuéllar
and other union representatives. Other incidents included the
explosion of two bombs in the union's office on May 2, one day
after police cars were seen in front of the office.
These episodes have happened during a struggle by the union,
Sintraminercol, against an attempt by the government of
Álvaro Uribe--on behalf of transnational banks and
corporations, primarily from the U.S.--to destroy Minercol, the
national mining enterprise.
Groups of lawyers representing transnational mining
interests work incessantly to change Colombia's mining laws in
order to allow the annihilation of both the state mining
company and the peasant, mining, Indigenous and Afrocolombian
communities that reside in the mineral-rich territories and
present an obstacle to the indiscriminate exploitation of their
resources.
Ramírez Cuéllar, like many Colombian union
leaders, has been a very visible and outspoken representative
for his union, both nationally and internationally. He has
written a book with the help of his union and other
organizations entitled "The Profits of Extermination: How U.S.
Corporate Power is Destroying Colombia." A must-read to fully
understand the rapacious U.S. imperialist thirst for Colombia,
it will be available in English in February.
Follow the oil pipeline
What makes U.S. corporations so nervous? In a talk in New
York City, Ramírez Cuéllar exposed some of the
facts. The following summarizes some of the points he
raised.
First of all, everything should be placed in the context of
the armed conflict in Colombia. For 50 years the gap between
rich and poor has initiated and maintained the longest current
and continuous civil war on the continent, in which two armed
entities have been in conflict--the guerrilla movements and the
state. To these, other actors have been involved, on one side
the popular sector and on the other, support for the military,
particularly from the U.S.
Seven years of research by Sintra minercol and other
organizations has focused on several points for detailed
investigation: the laws and the international treaties between
the Colombian government and transnational financial
institutions; foreign military aid to Colombia and its final
destination; the protection given to transnational
institutions; and the effect of all these policies on the
civilian population.
They found that treaties the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank signed with the Colombian government restricted
the rights of workers, Indigenous and Afrodescendants. They
also have restricted the enforcing of clean environment accords
like Kyoto, and others in the areas of mineral
exploitation.
To facilitate this systematic affront, disputes between the
Colombian state and the transnational companies were taken out
of the country's legal jurisdiction and transferred to private
arbitration tribunals outside of Colombia.
Another set of findings concerned facts surrounding U.S.
military aid under Plan Colombia. The researchers discovered
that a priority was given to military actions in regions where
transnational companies--mainly from the U.S., but also from
Britain and other countries--operated. This is true in Putumayo
to the south, bordering Ecuador and Perú, where Harken
Energy Co. has the largest gas reserve in the world. President
George W. Bush's family has interests in Harken. It also
applies in the north, in both Norte de Santander, which borders
Venezuela, and in Sur de Bolívar, where Harken is
exploring for oil and where the largest gold mine in the
Americas is located.
Other places also have military deployment, but nowhere is
Plan Colombia's money as concentrated as in the Arauca region,
also on the border with Vene zuela. The U.S.'s Occidental
Petroleum operates the oil pipeline Caño Limón
Coveñas in this region. Occidental lobbied hard for Plan
Colombia. Some $180 million of the plan is earmarked for the
sole purpose of creating an exclusive "oil battalion"--the 18th
Brigade, part of the Colombian Army. Its exclusive mission is
to guard the pipeline. This brigade is infamous for its
systematic violation of human rights. Its members recently
killed three union leaders in Arauca.
How have the changes in the laws, designed by the U.S. for
the transnational companies' benefit, affected the population?
Several provinces were declared exempt from rules regarding
human rights, among them Arauca, Norte de Santander,
Bolívar and Sucre--all regions the oil pipeline passes
through. Since then, human rights violations have increased 220
percent. And in only one year 267 people were assassinated in
Arauca near the pipeline zone.
Ramírez Cuéllar explained the connections
between drug trafficking, paramilitaries and the Colombian
government, on the one hand, and the CIA, U.S. government and
Israeli secret service (Mossad). They cooperate to destroy
opposition to this savage reaping of resources by finance
capital. Nowhere in Latin America is militarization for the
purpose of destroying the social movements increasing more than
in Colombia.
But the more that transnational finance capital tightens its
rope around the progressive movement with massive detentions,
threats, tortures, assassinations and massacres, the more
vibrant and militant the masses become.
On Human Rights Day, defiant social organizations in Arauca
sent a message to the world under the heading of "Resis tance,
Autonomy, Sovereignty and Action." It read in part: "We, those
kept hostage by the government, find ourselves in U.S.
captivity right here in Colombia, ... we call on you Colombians
who are aware of the need of an alternative, a change, we urge
you to mobilize and defend the most beautiful essence of
humans, life, dignity and freedom.
"Let us convert this struggle into a permanent social
mobilization that is able to transform the current government
scheme imposed by the United States.
"And above all, let us continue showing that in spite of
institutional terrorism, the policy of national security or
preemptive war, the people are still mobilizing, singing,
struggling. And that the people are expressing our ideals, many
times behind jail bars; and beyond the threat of death, liberty
and social justice will continue in our minds, our hearts and
in the ideals of every one of our children."
Reprinted from the Dec. 30, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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