On 21 May workers involved in construction operations in BP’s Tauramena installation entered into occupation demanding:
• a wage increase; the establishment a wage scale;
• due process in disciplinary decisions;
• labour guarantees for the workers.
On 2 June army forces entered the plant. At time of writing they are harassing the workers, who stay overnight chaining themselves to plant equipment so that they cannot be dislodged.
Numa Andrés Paredes Betancourt, a member of the National Executive Committee of the ACEU (one of Colombia’s main student union federations), visited Britain recently as part of a trip organised by Justice for Colombia, the labour movement campaign in solidarity with workers and students in Colombia. Daniel Randall spoke to him at the National Union of Students conference in Blackpool.
DR: Could you tell us something about the campaigns you’re running currently?
The Colombian army has assassinated three members of the agricultural workers trade union FENSUAGRO, from the town of San Juan de Sumapaz on the outskirts of the Colombian capital Bogotá.
On 18 March the men were travelling to another town to inspect some cattle, when they went missing. Some days later the Colombia media reported that the army had killed three guerrillas in the area and, on 27 March the families of the three men identified their bodies.
From Justice for Colombia
The National Trade Union School [NTUS], a EU funded research institution based in Medellin, Colombia, records 94 assassinations of trade unionists in 2004, an increase on the 90 trade unionists that both the NTUS and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) registered killed in 2003.
The NTUS has also reported an increase in “disappearances” and arbitrary detentions.
From Justice for Colombia: Just after midday on Saturday January 29th some 500 members of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian Army entered the rural area of Jiguamuando.
The soldiers spent some six hours terrorising the Afro-Colombian inhabitants of the area accusing them of being supporters of leftwing FARC guerrillas. Homes were raided, local people beaten up and supplies and livestock were destroyed.
By Pablo Velasco
Inside:
Strike wave in South Korea
From the Colombian trade union federation, CUT
In 2003, 78 trade unionists were killed in Colombia by paramilitary groups. Since the foundation of the Colombian Trade Union Federation (CUT), 3,800 trade unionists have died that way.
The State has not had the political will to find those responsible, to judge them and thus mitigate the pain of the victims. The vast majority of the legal cases has been archived or remain in preliminary stages, without possibility of showing to the world the truth about these crimes against humanity.
IN LONDON
Vigil 7.30 p.m. Friday 26 March onwards to coincide with negotiations between union and senior managers in Bogotá
Picket 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday 27 March
Both outside Coca Cola Great Britain and Ireland HQ headquarters, 1 Queen Charlotte Street, Hammersmith, London W6 (adjacent to Hammersmith tube).
more information below
STATEMENT FROM SINALTRAINAL
By Pablo Velasco
Colombian oil workers halt privatisation: solidarity works!
Colombian oil workers have won their struggle against privatisation, thanks to their resolute strike action backed up by international solidarity.
One of the fiercest debates at the Irish Social Forum (see page 6) was about the decision of University College Dublin's student union to boycott Coke in protest at the company's alleged links with far right paramilitaries in Colombia. Activists say a number of trade union activists in the company's plants have been murdered, many local union organisations have been destroyed, under threat from paramilitary organistions.
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