Colombia: 40 Unionists Murdered in 2009

[Sogdian]

(WNUA) — There continues to be a “systematic policy of violation of human rights, of violation of union rights” in Colombia, Alberto Vanegas, head of the Human Rights and Solidarity Department of the country’s main labor federation, the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), charged on Feb. 4 at the start of a two-day conference in the northwestern city of Medellín in Antioquia department. According to the union movement, 40 union leaders and activists were killed in Colombia during 2009, a slight improvement over the 49 killed the year before. Vanegas told the Spanish wire service EFE that “60% of the trade unionists killed worldwide are Colombians.”

“More than a number, this is a whole genocide against the union movement,” Vanegas said. According to the CUT, 2,721 unionists have been murdered since 1986; 573 of the murders have occurred since August 2002, when current Colombian president Álvaro Uribe took office. Just 2% of the murders have been punished, the unions charge. Some 150 people attended the conference, the Second National Meeting of Victims of Anti-Union Violence; about half were relatives of murdered union members, while the rest included representatives of human rights groups and United Nations agencies. The first conference was held in 2007 in the northern city of Barranquilla.

inteldaily.com/2010/02/colombia-40-unionists-murdered-in-2009/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+inteldaily/feeds+(Inteldaily.com)

[Nolan]

Fuck Uribe and his ass kissing agenda. I hope the FARC wins.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Is there any relation to this with the Colombian union members being killed by the Coca-Cola industries located in Colombia? Seems far too coincidental.

[The Red Next Door]

That why companies send jobs over there, so they can get away with this type of shit over here.

[cyu]

This is what capitalists call a "pro-business" climate - which is another way of saying that people will be shot if they try to start a union, and the government will "innocently" look the other way.

This is why Colombia gets the big bucks in funding from the American regime. "Fighting drugs" is the cover they use, when in fact the purpose of the funding is to maintain their "pro-business" (ie. pro-exploitation) climate and prop up the capitalist regime.

[Klashnekov]

Long Live FARC

[Kassad]

I don't usually like to just post links, but here's a Party for Socialism and Liberation article on the unionists in Colombia: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13661&news_iv_ctrl=1261

This will definitely intensify what's already a heated struggle in Colombia.

[ls]

Is there a further breakdown of why the people were killed and what positions (both in the workplace and in the union) they held? It would be very interesting in a country like Colombia where as people have correctly observed, the Western countries completely dominate it with little resistance (and the little resistance that surfaces gets crushed).

Both articles are relatively short both in size and on details after all, also I know little about colombia.

[Sogdian]

Is there any relation to this with the Colombian union members being killed by the Coca-Cola industries located in Colombia? Seems far too coincidental.

I watched this recent documentary (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5325643/The_Coca-Cola_Case_(Documentary)) about Coca-Cola's involvement in Union leaders' assassinations... Cola is one case and there are other undocumented multinationals and US involvement in the mask of "war on drugs" which makes Colombia the capital of Unionist assassinations, war on unions not surprisingly is systemic in capitalist-minded Colombian government.

[bayano]

Vanessa Zepeda is only the most recent of the unionists and other members of the resistance to be assassinated or disappeared in Honduras since the coup. I'd wonder what the numbers are there. The total number of deaths the Resistance claims is over 110, with 37 well documented murders since the golpe that are both soundly attributed to death squads or state forces and linked to the victim's participation in the resistance. Zepeda was killed a week and a half ago, as she left a Resistance meeting in the union hall where the resistance is housed.

[~Spectre]

Having been there a few times, I can tell you that the level of indoctrination you find among the Bogota bourgeois/elite -is nothing short of Orwellian.

If any of you in the states want to catch a chance to meet some of the scum of the Uribe government, you can usually catch at least one of them in Miami at any given time. You'll find other such human gems like Pedro Carmona there too.

They are very fund of the cuban bakery/cafe on calle ocho.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I watched this recent documentary (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5325643/The_Coca-Cola_Case_(Documentary)) about Coca-Cola's involvement in Union leaders' assassinations... Cola is one case and there are other undocumented multinationals and US involvement in the mask of "war on drugs" which makes Colombia the capital of Unionist assassinations, war on unions not surprisingly is systemic in capitalist-minded Colombian government.

Yeah, I've known about the Coca-Cola case for a while now. Some fucked up shit going on over there.