>Yet
>nobody really knows what NED- and AID-funded labor groups are up to in
>Colombia and how much control the AFL actually exerts over people in
>sensitive countries like this where the Bush administration is heavily
>involved.
One place to start is to look at what the AFL-CIO has said about its own activities and the activities of the Colombian unions it is allied with. Also, check out http://www.laborightsnow.org/ which is the Web site of a joint project of the Solidarity Center and the UAW, which highlights labor abuses especially in Colombia, China, Burma, and Thailand. But here is a broad statement of the AFL-CIO on Colombia at http://www.aflcio.org/news/2001/0517_colombia.htm
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Terror War on Colombia's Unions Claims More Lives
When a local union president and vice president were murdered recently on their way to work at a Colombian coal mine, they became two of the latest victims in a terror war on that nation's union leaders and members that has claimed more than 1,500 lives since 1990.
Human rights activists say most of the killings in the past decade have been committed by paramilitary groups associated with right-wing business interests, though some have been carried out by guerilla groups. But no one has been tried or convicted in the 39 murders of union leaders so far this year, or in the 112 murders the United Nations counted in 2000, or in any of the 1,500 since 1990.
"Unless and until the authorities make a real effort to investigate these crimes and bring them to an end, the suspicion must remain that the gunmen are not acting alone," says Fred Higgs, general secretary of the 20-million member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Union (ICEM).
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions says the assassinations are part of a long campaign by the country's far-right movement to silence labor leaders who speak out against them.
A February 2000 report by the group Human Rights Watch presents "detailed, abundant and compelling evidence of continuing ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations."
Many of the victims have been labor activists fighting for decent wages and the freedom to choose a union; others have been killed while protesting layoffs and firings for union organizing, according to the human rights group , founded by the UAW in 1997.
Mine union leaders Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita were on their way to Drummond Ltd.'s La Loma mine in northern Colombia on a company-charted bus when a gang of gunmen pulled the pair from the bus. The terrorists, some dressed in military garb, then shot the union leaders execution style as their co-workers were forced to watch, according to a report from the ICEM.
Colombia's leaders have been targeted not only because of their fight for workers' rights, but also for their attempts to bring peace to a strife-torn nation. Colombia has been torn apart by continuing conflict between guerilla forces, the Colombian government and right-wing paramilitary groups waging their own war. The paramilitary groups adamantly oppose peace talks between the rebels and the government.
The nation's unions have been very vocal in their calls to participate in the peace talks between the government and the guerillas and to expand the talks to cover important social and economic issues that are opposed vehemently by the far right. "Colombian trade union leaders have been the leading advocates for peace, human rights and economic justice in a nation afflicted by internal violence and external economic pressure. And they have paid a heavy price for their advocacy," says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
"The AFL-CIO is committed to defending and supporting our Colombian sisters and brothers whose lives are repeatedly threatened because of their attempts to win basic, fundamental human rights," Sweeney says.
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The coal mine where slain union leaders Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita worked is owned by a company that closed its U.S. mines last year to move to Colombia. Drummond Ltd., based in Jasper, Ala., shut all but one of its northern Alabama mines, citing high costs, and began operating new coal mines in Colombia. The move cost about 450 Mine Workers their jobs.
UMWA Vice President Jerry Jones, who is also an ICEM vice president, condemned the assassinations and criticized Drummond's decision to operate in Colombia.
"When Drummond chose to switch many of its operations to Colombia, it did so knowing that country's hostile political climate and egregious human rights violations. The UMWA would hope the assassinations might make Drummond rethink its decisions to operate in a country where workers' rights and safety are tragically and violently violated on a regular basis," Jones says.
Not only has Drummond slashed its Alabama operations, it is shipping millions of tons of Colombian coal back to Alabama each year. According to the July 1999 issue of Coal Week International, Drummond signed a five-year deal with Alabama Power to ship it some 3.5 million tons of Colombian coal a year. In addition, Drummond supplies Colombian coal to the Alabama Electrical Cooperative and to a regional Florida power company.
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