Colombian President Uribe Confirms U.S. Unions' Fears

Last week, the AFL-CIO sent a delegation of trade unionists, including representatives of the United Steelworkers on a fact-finding mission to Colombia, South America -- the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. Approximately 2,300 unionists have been killed in Colombia since 1991; 470 since the current president, Alvaro Uribe, took office in 2002. Five have been killed already this year.

I represented the USW on this delegation as it asked numerous unionists, Colombian congressional representatives, the ILO, the Colombian Constitutional Court, Attorney General Mario Iguaran, and President Uribe about the continued violence against trade unionists in that country.

Our meeting with President Uribe took a chilling turn when I raised our collective concern about the pervasive anti-union culture in the military, companies and even the government in Colombia -- a culture which labels those workers attempting to organize and exercise their union rights as "guerillas" or "terrorists." In a country where the Colombian military, along with right-wing paramilitaries aligned with the military, are at war with the guerillas, such labels target those workers for assassination.

As an example of anti-union stigmatization, I related to President Uribe a conversation I had with a colonel of the Colombian Army's 18th Brigade shortly after this Brigade shot and killed three trade union leaders near Saravena in August of 2004. Colonel Medina of the 18th Brigade told me at that time that he knew he was required as an army officer to protect trade unionists as he would all citizens. However, he claimed that many unionists were in fact guerrillas -- a claim which is untrue but which makes unionists fair game for attacks by the military.

In response, President Uribe said to me that he meets with unionists every month and that many of them have good hearts. Like the colonel, however, he followed up this statement with a pregnant "but." To wit, he said that it was his experience as a student (presumably decades ago) that a tactic of the guerrillas was to infiltrate the union movement, the student movement and the press.

Then, Uribe went on to claim that the three unionists killed near Saravena in 2004 were in fact guerillas linked to the guerilla group ELN. I disagreed with the President, pointing out that his own attorney general had concluded, after investigation, that this claim was not true, and that the 18th Brigade had actually planted weapons on the unionists after the fact to make it look like they were insurgents killed in a gun battle. In response, Uribe said that he had gone to Saravena personally and that members of the community had assured him that the three killed were in fact members of the ELN.

So, based on hearsay, without any proof, and in defiance of his own attorney general's conclusions, the president clings to the contention that these individuals were "terrorists."

Sadly, this was not a slip of the tongue by Uribe. Indeed, he has made such dangerous statements before. Consider what he told Colombia's leading newspaper El Tiempo. In discussing two trade unionists killed last year, he said that they were killed because one of the men was a "terrorist." Again, there was never any proof for this assertion.

And, indeed, human rights groups, and the UN High Commission for Human Rights as well, have debunked any theory of union-guerilla collaboration, and are unanimous in the conclusion that unionists in Colombia are being killed, not because they have any illegal affiliations, but precisely because they are unionists.

In the end, Uribe's comments revealed why the murders of unionists continue and why fewer than 3 percent of the hundreds of cases of trade union killings have ever been successfully prosecuted - because of the stigmatization of unionists by the highest ranks of the Colombian government, including the President himself.

While in Colombia, the AFL-CIO delegation also met with representatives of many unions and union delegations. The unionists we met with, as well the numerous Congressional representatives, were unanimous in their view that unions in Colombia are disappearing -- both as a result of overt anti-union violence as well as the legal assault by President Uribe which has left less than 1 perfect of the workforce with the legal right to collectively bargain.

This is the country with which the Bush administration is insisting the U.S. sign a Free Trade Agreement. He insists that Congress approve the deal, claiming that the numbers of unionists killed in recent years is down. This ignores the fact that the numbers are still large -- certainly enough to continue to qualify Colombia as the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. This also ignores the fact that, after years of anti-union violence and anti-union legislation, there are simply fewer unionists remaining to kill.

The U.S. Congress must continue to resist rewarding the Uribe government with a Free Trade Agreement. The lives of unionists in Colombia literally depend on it.

Comments

[ChamberPost]

Let's cut through the rhetoric and look at the facts.

http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/02/colombia-deserv.html

[FarmworkerLawyer]

The lack of comment on this article is both depressing for its-one-sidedness and frustrating for that illustrative exposure of the American public's lack of awareness about the murderous regimes that their tax Dollars prop up throughout the western hemisphere.

Alvaro Uribe is the golden-boy of the Bush administration. He is propped up by the influx of the massive amounts of Bush administration funding for his regime. If there ever was a man who has the propensity for usurping dictatorial powers from a democratic governance it is Alvaro Uribe. Not, as W would have us believe, Hugo Chavez.

The glaring issues ignored by the Bush administration regarding this butcher include answering the questions about how, despite hundreds of billions of Dollars in military aid, the flow of cocaine from Colombia continues unabated. Could it have something to do with the involvement of Alvaro Uribe and his cronies in profiting from the cocaine trade? But Condi and W will never acknowledge that.

It is also interesting to note that the persons attacking Mr. Kovalik attack the picture of Che Guevara on his wall. They don't attack the substance of his allegations or make any offer of proof refuting them. Clearly, the mindless rants of the neo-con attack dogs monitoring the "liberal" outlets for an expose of the failed foreign policies of the other golden boy, the moron that they sold to the American public to be its salvation: George W. Bush.

[Trusted1]

It may be hasty to jugde a man on the superficial. But deeds, the accuracy of his information, or his ability and his resolve to find out the truth and let others know the truth, may be a better guide. Since he has a guerrilla on the wall, that could mean he can tell the difference between a guerrilla and a unionist, that he has a certain familiarity with the subject. Doesn’t it? Or, at least he can ask a head of state. Can’t he? The Attorney General of Columbia has solved the puzzle through investigation and answered the question. His conclusions were dismissed by the same head of state, going only on hearsay, and against hard testimony. To Kovalik, this situation is not so much about the “big picture” as it appears to be for you, but about the situation on the ground, the small detail, which points to a travesty of justice, not the small price to pay for a trade agreement. You can respect the President, but not his Attorney General?

But, again to the “big point” in your comment, the question of the portrait of Che Guevara, as portrayed by the Post-Gazette photo. If you read the article, you will find Kovalik has a statue of Don Quixote also, in his office. What do you make of the statue? Do you make of it something I don’t?

The featuring of the Guevara portrait in the Post-Gazette article and photo, and in your comments, shows as much about the newspaper reporter, the photographer and you, as it does about Kovalik, in his capacity and responsibilities as a union lawyer, maybe even more, as much as I know at least, since it’s the only thing in his office shown in the photo. But, you try to raise suspicion as to his motives, the Constitution or his fellow Americans, or, is that to some responsibility he must have to you and your ideal “trade deal?” You don’t tell us, you only insinuate. But, through insinuation, your attempt at character assassination falls short of its mark.

[Pdsatx]

It's important to note Kovalik's remarks in a certain context. Look, for example, at this:

http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/07086/772756-28.stm


See anything interesting in the photo that might, oh, be a cause for skepticism?

Also, consider Kovalik is a labor lawyer; his job is to scuttle trade deals to protect his clients.

The truth, and Kovalik just prances right over it, is that unionist deaths have dropped by two-thirds since Uribe has taken office. Kovalik tells you, apparently with a straight face, that this is simply because most of them have been killed off already. It's just a giant coincidence the numbers have been trending down
coinciding exactly with Uribe's time in office.
It's another huge, unrelated coincidence the murder rate in general, for ALL Colombians, has declined dramatically under Uribe. Same goes for kidnappings(down 70%) and other crimes. Meanwhile, the economy, stock market, and tourism are up dramatically.

I crossed swords with Kovalik a few months ago at an anti-FTA forum. He shared the stage with other union leaders, Liberation Theologists, and at least one communist. None of them bothered to mention the FARC, the band of terrorists who started the violence in the first place, until I pressed them. It was all about demonizing Uribe, who enjoys 80% approval ratings in Colombia, and killing off a trade deal that will help alleviate at least some of the poverty in the Andean nation.

Anyway, again, look at the photo in the picture and tell me Kovalik's motives, besides his professional job as a trade killer, aren't in any way related to the fact Uribe has knocked the guerillas back on their heels and sent them scurrying back into the jungle and into the protective arms of Hugo Chavez.

[Turnow]

Another good reason to end USA military aid to Columbia, the largest recipient of such aid in the Western Hemisphere. Purportedly for use to combat the cocaine industry. Right.