Just was looking at the new Sept./Oct. '03 issue of New Left Review. Longish piece on Columbia. 90% of the murdered trade unionists worldwide are killed there. M.P. http://www.newleftreview.net/
On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 15:45:06 -0700 (PDT), <steveorchid at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In yet another chainsaw massacre of trade unionists the bodies of 3 trade
> union activists were found in a communal grave. This is the work of the
> death squad government of Colombia that congressional Democrats and
> Republicans vote to support with billions of dollars in military aid
> every year. -Steve Argue
>
> From IWW News:
>
> Yet another chainsaw massacre in Colombia
>
> The bodies of three trade union activists who were taken away by a
> paramilitary death squad earlier this month have been discovered in a
> communal grave. They had been murdered with a chainsaw.
>
> 15.09.2003 (By Alfredo Castro, ANNCOL Colombia) On the afternoon of
> September 2nd three peasant farmers, who were also brothers, were
> traveling by horse near a place known as 'La Loma del Chivo' in the
> municipality of Ponedera in the Atlantico department of Colombia's north
> coast. The men, Cesar Augusto Fonseca, Jose Rafael Fonseca Cassiani and
> Ramon Fonseca Cassiani, were all also members of the SINTRAGRICOLAS
> section of the Colombian agricultural workers' trade union FENSUAGRO.
>
> According to their trade union, and to witnesses in the area, a group of
> paramilitaries ambushed the men and they were forced to dismount their
> horses. Four paramilitaries subsequently took them away in a gray jeep to
> an unknown location. Some time later the men were all found in a mass
> grave in the 'La Montana' ranch (owned by a Mr Teodoro Ariza), also in
> Pondera municipality. All had been cut up with chainsaws.
>
> According to FENSUAGRO both national and regional authorities have
> ignored all requests to investigate the crime as they have with the
> recent assassinations of the SINTRAGRICOLAS president Victor Jimenez
> Fruto and his predecessor Saul Colpas.
>
> In a separate case of anti-union violence on September 10th David Jose
> Carranza Calle, the 15-year-old son of trade union leader Limberto
> Carranza, of the food and beverage workers' union SINALTRAINAL, was
> kidnapped by six masked men who took him away in a white truck and
> tortured him, demanding to know where his father was. At the same time as
> the attack was taking place a telephone call was made to the home of the
> trade union activist. The caller was recorded as saying, "trade unionist
> son of a bitch, we are coming to kill you, and if we don't get you we'll
> attack your home".
>
> According to SINALTRAINAL the attack is almost certainly linked to the
> current struggle that the union is involved in against the Coca-Cola
> Company.
>
-- Michael Pugliese