Minneapolis, MN – About 600 people, chanting “the banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” joined Occupy MN, along with labor unions and community groups for a march on the banks here, Oct. 29. The protest coincided with the anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash.

Starting at Peoples Plaza, the march moved through downtown Minneapolis. Coffins bearing the words “corporate greed” were delivered to the front of major banks.

“This is a great event,” stated Deb Konechne of the MN Coalition for a People’s Bailout, who helped MC the protest. “We have had enough of the rich and their banks,” she continued.

Speakers included labor leaders Elliot Seide, director of AFSCME Council 5, Michelle Sommers, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, Gerardo Cajamarca of the International Mission of the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL which has fought against corporate abuses of Colombian workers and faced severe repression, and others.

#MinneapolisMN #SINALTRAINAL #AFSCMECouncil5 #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyMN

Meredith Aby of Fight Back! interviewed members of a delegation to Colombia: Marty Hoerth, Tsione Wolde-Michael and Erika Zurawski.

Community Action for Justice in the Americas and the Colombia Action Network organized a delegation of student and community activists from Montana and Minnesota that traveled to Colombia in June. The delegation met with human rights organizations, labor unions and campesino (peasant) groups to investigate the true effects of U.S. military aid to Colombia.

Paramilitary death squads murder an average of two to three Colombian trade unionists every week. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document that U.S. military aid, called Plan Colombia, funds the repressive Colombian military and right-wing paramilitary death squads. The U.S. has spent over $3.5 billion since 2000 to fund Plan Colombia.

Fight Back!: What did you see during your trip?

Erika Zurawski: U.S. military aid to Colombia just went up again, renewing $742 million in military aid. As a result, political repression by paramilitary death squads and the Colombian Army has risen dramatically. In the city of Tamé, 85 people were already assassinated from January to May 2005. The situation is deteriorating. Colombians directly relate this to U.S. military aid.

While we were in Tamé, we heard the testimonies of around 50 people with the courage to denounce the massacres of the people in their city. Some of these testimonies were made at a public meeting where paramilitaries were present. The people of Tamé, like the rest of Colombia, are dedicated to resisting oppression and to working towards positive change.

Fight Back!: What is the current situation for the Coca-Cola workers’ union, SINALTRAINAL?

Tsione Wolde-Michael: Coke’s new move is to use psychological tactics in addition to physical ones to dissuade Colombians from joining the union. Company representatives scare workers’ families into signing ‘voluntary agreements’ to resign from their jobs. The Coke psychologists say if the father or mother does not resign, they will get no compensation from Coca-Cola. If the workers resign then Coca-Cola takes no responsibility in lawsuits for job layoffs or if they are murdered.

Nine SINALTRAINAL trade unionists have been killed by Coca-Cola death squads. Local vice president William Mendoza specifically credited the Coca-Cola boycott with protecting them and helping them keep their jobs. Because of the Coke boycott, Mendoza receives a call once a month from the U.S. Embassy to see if he’s alive. In 2003, when eleven Coca-Cola plants were closed, pressure from the Coke boycott forced the company to relocate the union workers instead of throwing them on the street. The international boycott has helped keep the Coca-Cola workers’ union alive.

Fight Back!: Under Plan Colombia, the U.S. government purchases chemical poisons for the Colombian government’s aerial spraying in the countryside. What is the impact that you saw of U.S.-sponsored fumigation in Colombia?

Tsione Wolde-Michael: The fumigation is interesting when you look at it in the context of the ‘war on drugs.’ Our U.S. tax dollars are supposed to be spent to help fight the drug war and coca production. We see that fumigation kills the coca, yes, but it also kills legal crops and animals. People are sprayed too!

In the end, even people growing legal crops are forced to grow coca. The reason is, when you grow a legal crop and the government sprays you, you do not have your crops to sustain yourself, and your animals are dying off, and your family members are sick. You either get up to move, which is sometimes what the government wants so they can get your land, or you begin to grow coca. Campesinos decide to grow coca because it will eventually grow in the polluted soil and it has a guaranteed income.

In Santo Domingo, helicopters fly in to come pick up coca. Whereas farmers who grow legal crops take a three-hour mule ride followed by a two-hour boat ride to get their crops to market. It just is not worth it to take that trip. Conveniently, it is great for U.S. policy because it looks like Bush is trying to stop drugs, when in fact all the money is going to the paramilitaries and military. Fumigation forcibly displaces people and creates opportunities for U.S. corporations to exploit the land and resources.

The ‘war on drugs’ is really about securing U.S. interests and having another puppet government that is strategically placed next to Venezuela and near Bolivia. By controlling Colombia, the U.S. is trying to prevent the full realization of the Bolivarian process – the unity of South American countries against U.S. imperialism.

Fight Back!: You met with many social organizations who are fighting for economic and political rights in Colombia. What dangers do they face from the right-wing government of President Uribé?

Marty Hoerth: Social organization leaders face warrants and arrest. While the police do not immediately act upon them, the warrants limit the movement and organizing of those leaders.

We witnessed this with the campesino leader Álvaro Manzano. We were supposed to accompany him back to his hometown. Previously, he had been arrested, detained and forced to sign a confession that he was a guerilla fighter. The government used this signed paper as ‘evidence’ of rebel activity and further targeted his fellow activists. He escaped from the secret police, the DAS, and went to Bogotá. Eventually he needed to return home, so he took a bus to meet us in Barrancabermeja but only a block from the bus station he was arrested again by the DAS. He was with a member of our U.S. delegation. Fortunately, two weeks later Álvaro was released without charges due to a lack of evidence.

Many leaders have these arrest warrants out for them and can be imprisoned at any time. Three years ago the government had arrest warrants out for six activists on the board of directors of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasants Association, now it is sixty.

Fight Back!: What connections do you see between the U.S. occupation in Iraq and the U.S. intervention in Colombia? What connections do Colombians make between these two areas of U.S. foreign policy?

Erika Zurawski: Colombia, like Iraq, is an oil-rich and occupied country. The difference is that the U.S. is more able to hide their involvement in Colombia because their government bows to U.S. interests. The U.S. cannot hide their involvement, however, from the Colombian people, who say that policies in Colombia are made by the U.S. State Department. Colombians do not choose to displace themselves and give their land to multinational corporations.

Colombia is a land occupied by soldiers and paramilitaries, and those fighting for the people of Colombia are labeled as terrorists and are the targets of assassinations, disappearances and death threats. In Iraq, the U.S. is trying to secure the same government compliance as in Colombia. Though U.S. presence in Iraq is visible now, without the resistance forces that continue to fight against the occupation, a sovereign Iraq will disappear under neo-liberal oppression, as in Colombia.

Colombians understand that resistance to U.S. occupation in Iraq is resistance to U.S.-led oppression in Colombia. A victory by the resistance in Iraq will be a victory to the people in Colombia because it will be a blow to the U.S. agenda of war and terror. Just as Colombians who fight for justice are not terrorists, neither are the Iraqis. Alirio Joreda, a former local president of USO, said, “We admire the strength of the resistance of the Iraqi people in defense of their national sovereignty and will continue to carry out actions in support of them.”

#UnitedStates #Interview #Colombia #Interviews #ColombiaActionNetwork #PlanColombia #CocaCola #SINALTRAINAL #Americas

Chicago, IL – Students boycotting Coca-Cola have won another victory. At Chicago’s DePaul University on July 7, university administrators from across the U.S. agreed to an independent investigation of the murder of nine Colombian trade unionists who worked at Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola uses death squads to break the Coca-Cola workers’ union – SINALTRAINAL – in Colombia. In India, Coca-Cola has been illegally polluting the water and land of poor peasant farmers.

The students came to DePaul to protest Coca-Cola and meet with administrators from the University of California system, DePaul University, University of Illinois, Duke University, Ohio State and others. These schools are questioning multi-million dollar contracts, most of them exclusive, with Coca-Cola.

Some colleges have already banned Coke products – for example, the College of DuPage and Lake Forest College in Illinois, New Jersey’s Rutgers University and Carleton College in Minnesota.

Coca-Cola is growing more worried and hiring more public relations people to combat the spreading student movement to Boycott Coke.

The University of Michigan, represented at the July 7 negotiations by an administrator and a student, decided in June to set a timeline for Coke to agree to an independent investigation and to take corrective action on both the Coca-Cola murders in Colombia and the pollution of water and farmers lands in India.

At the meeting, University of Michigan’s Clara Hardie announced, “I represent the Student Coalition To Cut The Coca-Cola Contract. We are 5,000 students of 20 student groups, ranging from environmental to human rights groups that have been working on the campaign for over seven months now.”

Colombian trade unionist Luis Adolfo Cardona said, “Twenty-five Colombia solidarity activists and students protested outside while Coca-Cola met with administrators and a few students. Coca-Cola does not want me, as a survivor of kidnapping by a Coca-Cola death squad to be in the same room, telling the truth about the crimes of their multi-national corporation. The students took a principled position.”

Ben Meyer of DePaul Students Coalition Against Coca-Cola reports, “The student representatives all stood up and walked out at 9:30 a.m. We said we were willing to return to the meeting if our demands were met and gave the group an hour to make a decision.”

Ben continued, “A little over an hour later a group of representatives from the commission came down to get us and told us that Coca-Cola was no longer part of the group that would decide on the methodology and logistics for an investigation. Instead, the group, which has been dubbed a ‘working group,’ will consist of students and administrators with advisors who have experience with labor investigations. Needless to say, this was a major victory for us. We returned to the meeting and continued to press our other points.”

Luis Adolfo Cardona said, “The Universities’ Working Group committed to meeting with representatives of my union, SINALTRAINAL, and with representatives from community and peasants groups in India on Aug. 9. Coca-Cola will have to change its policies not only in Colombia, but other parts of the world. The students are doing a very, very good job of campaigning for justice for the oppressed communities and workers of the world!”

Students will continue to press the Coca-Cola Boycott on campuses across the U.S. and Coca-Cola will continue to backpedal and to try to shift blame for the Colombian trade unionists’ deaths on to others. Students will struggle to broaden the scope of the investigation and seek redress for the victims of Coca-Cola death squads, especially victims in the union SINALTRAINAL. Coca-Cola will seek to limit the investigation to current conditions inside the plants where SINALTRAINAL is no longer allowed.

The Colombia Action Network launched the Coca-Cola Boycott here in the U.S. over three years ago, during the time when Coca-Cola death squads were active. Students across the U.S. have taken up the campaign and made it their own, kicking Coke off campus and publicizing the plight of workers and peasants in Colombia and India. The student organizing and activism on campus is the key to winning victories in the ongoing Campaign to Boycott Killer Coke.

#ChicagoIL #News #Colombia #CocaCola #SINALTRAINAL

Javier Correa is the president of SINALTRAINAL, the courageous beverage workers’ union, which fights for labor rights in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. Coca-Cola-sponsored death squads are responsible for murdering nine Colombian trade unionists. SINALTRAINAL calls for an international boycott of Coca-Cola products because of Coke’s use of paramilitary violence against the union.

Fight Back! : What effect does Plan Colombia (the U.S. military aid package) have on SINALTRAINAL?

Correa : Plan Colombia limits free speech and limits the ability for people to enter cities and regions in order to organize the workers. The war terrorizes the workers and their families. Plan Colombia attacks our union, because our union doesn’t want the war. We demand a political solution to the social and armed conflict in Colombia. We always struggle for peace and social justice. At the same time, Plan Colombia motivates unions to protest against the abuses suffered by the people in the zones where the Colombian government does fumigations, bombings and machine gun attacks. Plan Colombia also, to the union, is a violation of our national sovereignty.

We reject the presence of North American soldiers on our soil and the intervention of the United States government in our country’s affairs. We see Plan Colombia as a tool of force to subject the Colombian people and our movements to the will of the transnational corporations, so that the big foreign companies, without any barriers, can exploit our natural resources and our labor. Plan Colombia is a plan against our country. It is an instrument of military domination against organizations that resist and that struggle for a different or alternative model of life. Also, Plan Colombia forces the governments of the region to impose the so-called free trade agreement on their people, the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). Plan Colombia is a plan for domination.

Fight Back! : What are the conditions for SINALTRAINAL today?

Correa : At this time we live under real conditions of great persecution. We live with a lot of uncertainty due to the policies of the foreign companies and of the Colombian state that continuously violate our rights. The government refuses to acknowledge the conditions of poverty and misery that the workers and the people live in. This puts the workers in a struggle for survival and in defense of their lives, a difficult struggle.

Fight Back! : How is the boycott against Coca-Cola affecting the work of SINALTRAINAL?

Correa: The boycott, or the campaign against Coca-Cola, has had a positive impact for the union and for the workers of Colombia. First, because the world is learning what is happening in Colombia. Second, the truths of the abuses by Coca-Cola are being revealed. Third, it has put increasing pressure on Coca-Cola. Since 2002, Coca-Cola has not assassinated any of our members. Although other types of aggression continue, this is a major advance. Fourth, the boycott has allowed the continued existence of the union, because there is a strong sense of solidarity around the world with us, the workers of Coca-Cola and SINALTRAINAL. And fifth, we are very hopeful that we will achieve a victory against Coca-Cola in order to obtain truth, justice and compensation [reparations].

Fight Back! : How do the SINALTRAINAL members feel about our solidarity work here in the United States?

Correa: First of all, there is an understanding that the United States government is responsible for the aggressions that we suffer in Colombia. And we see the North American people, who speak out against the policies of the U.S. government and of U.S. corporations, as being very different from the U.S. government. Second, the solidarity work in the U.S. gives us a lot of hope, a lot of strength to keep fighting. Third, we see that we are not alone in this struggle; that equally, we must continue to strengthen solidarity between the people. And in general, the workers and the union are very grateful for your solidarity because, thanks to all the support, even in the middle of such a difficult conflict as in Colombia, it is possible to keep organized and to struggle for change for all of society. It makes us very happy to see how the campaign creates a higher consciousness among many people in the United States and in other countries, and to see how, through this campaign, the truth becomes known about what is happening in our country and how our struggle unites other sectors of the population here – like students, indigenous peoples, the peace and anti-war movement, the women’s movement, peasants and ethnic minorities.

Fight Back! : What do you want us to do here in the U.S. in order to support the struggle of the SINALTRAINAL members?

Correa : One very important task is to help eliminate Coca-Cola contracts in universities and in other institutions. Another is to demand that Coca-Cola resolve the requests for compensation [reparations petitions] that were presented by SINALTRAINAL and require that the U.S. government and corporations like Coca-Cola adopt a policy of respect for human rights. Another possibility is to send delegations to Colombia so that you may verify testimonies directly from the victims and convince Coca-Cola and the United States government that the abuses are real.

#Interview #Colombia #Interviews #PlanColombia #CocaCola #SINALTRAINAL #JavierCorrea #Americas

In July, the Colombia Action Network (CAN) sent a solidarity delegation of anti-war and student activists to meet with representatives from the Colombia trade unions, including the CUT, Colombia's largest labor federation; USO, the oil workers' union; the Bogota teachers' union and SINALTRAINAL, the beverage workers' union which is fighting at Coca-Cola plants. The goal of the delegation's two-week visit was to stand in solidarity with the people of Colombia and investigate the effects of the U.S. military aid package, Plan Colombia. The delegation saw the effects first hand. Two unions had members killed the same day the delegation visited them.

Government Repression

In addition to extralegal violence, the Colombian government is also waging a war by 'legal' means. The Colombian Congress passed the new Democratic Security Act, similar to the U.S. Patriot Act. It legalizes the indefinite detention of people the government labels 'suspected terrorists,' these people then lose their rights to formal accusations, to bail and to being considered innocent until proven guilty. Every trade union and social movement organization the delegation talked to expressed concern about this new law. They explained while these acts of repression were standard practice for the armed forces and police in the past, but at least when such activities were illegal, activists could use the legal system to fight the unlawful detention and imprisonment of their fellow compañeros and compañeras. Now the government has given itself these new powers legally under the guise of 'anti-terrorism' legislation.

Activists and trade unionists in Colombia specifically blamed the Bush administration for these new repressive policies. They said that post 9-11, the Colombian government, especially under the current president Alvaro Uribe, has been given clear direction from the U.S. to use whatever means necessary in order to fight against both leftists and rebels.

Domingo Tovar, director of human rights for the CUT (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores), layed out the political situation for us on our first day in Bogota, “There’s an annual 30,000 dead each year. Only 7% are killed in combat between the two forces. One hundred sixty kids die daily due to poor health and nutrition and the rest of the deaths are the responsibility of the state. The government is the primary violator of human rights. There are more than 12,000 members of the armed forces who are devoted to violating human rights and paramilitarism.”

He continued, “Colombia is the country with the most assassinations of union members in the world. Under the administration of Uribe, the current president, there's been more than 160 union deaths. This year there’s been 29, including a compañero this morning. Under Uribe there's been more than 700 illegal arrests. Under the new anti-terrorism statute it gives judicial police the power to investigate, capture and condemn. The CUT has more than 100 members in jail and more than 500 are in exile. The violation of human rights will increase due to the application of Plan Colombia or Plan Patriotica, and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Because of that, please send a message to the U.S. to not continue this war on Colombia.”

As Tovar points out, the U.S. is supporting the Uribe government for its own purposes. The U.S. gives $3 million in military aid per day to Colombia because the U.S. has plans for the country and the region. The U.S. wants Colombia to be a part of its free trade vision for the hemisphere. The U.S. wants its corporations to be able to sell their goods cheaply in Colombia and for their products to be made cheaply there as well. However, in order for the FTAA and other free trade agreements to pass and be implemented, several conditions need to change. Colombia's strong labor movement and rebel armies are in deep opposition to these policies. Additionally, Colombia lacks the infrastructure for free trade. So the U.S.’s military aid is used to train the military in torture and in to wage warfare against the guerillas. The U.S. military aid is also being used to guard Occidental Oil's pipeline in Arauca and to guard the highways being built for multi-national trade.

Fighting for Control of Oil

By law, the state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol, used to handle 50-70% of the nation’s oil production. Six years ago, under the previous president, the law was changed to give 70% to multi-national corporations. This change decreased the amount of revenue the state earns from oil production and it increased taxes for Colombians. It also meant more profits for foreign oil companies like Occidental Oil and BP Amoco.

In May, the oil workers union, USO, completed one of the most important strikes in Colombia’s recent history. The government, acting on behalf of multi-national corporations and World Bank pressure, wanted to sell off its national industries, including Ecopetrol. The government purposefully sabotaged the oil company’s economic viability to justify selling it to foreign companies. Had this plan for privatization succeeded, it would have robbed the Colombian people of an important source of wealth, and it would have placed one of Colombia’s most valuable resources, oil, in the hands of foreign corporations. It would have killed the nation’s most militant union.

The battle began this past spring when the Colombian government instituted layoffs that violated the union contract and directly targeted the leadership of the oil workers union. USO responded with a 36-day strike to fight against further layoffs, against the privatization of the oil company, and for the right to have a union. 70 to 80% of the oil workers are unionized at Ecopetrol. 65% of the union went out on strike. The company offered bonuses, bribes and promotions to try to persuade workers not to strike.

During the strike, the families of strikers received letters and phone calls threatening death. Pressure was brought to bear on the family members of union workers, who in a few cases caved in and encouraged their loved ones to scab rather than risk job loss and the family's economic support. The union remained strong however, and in the end the government agreed to not privatize the company and to keep it 100% Colombian. With their courage, USO won an important victory for the Colombian people.

Unfortunately, after the strike, two USO members were framed for a crime they didn't commit, under the new 'terrorism' laws. One member is charged with planting a bomb and running from the scene of the crime, even though he had a broken leg at the time. The jail they are held in is extremely overcrowded. In whispers they told the CAN delegation that paramilitaries inside the jail are trying to intimidate the union activists and get special privileges from the jail guards.

These tactics have not broken the Colombian spirit. In July, several months after the strike, there was still a considerable amount of political graffiti throughout the entire country calling for nationalized oil. Graffiti expressed solidarity with the union using slogans like, “The battle for USO is the battle for Colombia!”

The Battle against Killer Coke

In Barrancabermeja the delegation met with the vice-president of the beverage workers union (SINALTRAINAL), William Mendoza. He gave the delegation context for the struggle at Coca-Cola plants throughout Colombia: “Since 1990 the Coca-Cola company has had the goal of union-free plants in Colombia. Twelve years ago 96% of the Coke workforce was unionized. 96% of the jobs with Coke were full-time permanent positions. Now only 4% of the jobs with Coke are permanent full-time jobs. The rest are now temporary jobs. In 1993, 1808 workers were members of SINALTRAINAL, but now only 300 workers are with the union. The company’s campaign of firing, pressuring and threatening union members and leaders has severely hurt the union. Nine compañeros have been assassinated, 45 displaced and 75 threatened.”

Recently Coca-Cola has applied to the Colombian government to dismiss 63 workers, including 31 leaders of the union. This is in violation of their contract. These union workers should be relocated to other positions or transferred to other plants. The government has approved this attack and each of Coke's massive layoffs. These firings are more evidence that Coca-Cola, with its economic and political power, is plotting with the Alvaro Uribe administration to eliminate the union.

Mendoza continued, “Another tactic Coke is taking is to close the plants. They have closed twelve in total. The union believes the plants will be reopened but without a union. However the union offers a better way of life for the workers.” He explained, “At Coca-Cola's plants a union worker will earn $260 per month and work an 8-hour day, whereas a non-union worker will earn $110 per month, the legal minimum, and work 14 to 16 hours per day. Coca-Cola is trying to eliminate the contract by closing all the plants where union members work. However, Coke isn't just trying to destroy the union through plant closings. Several union members in Barrancabermeja, including the vice president, reported that their families had been threatened and that paramilitaries had tried to abduct their children.”

SINALTRAINAL members in Barrancabermeja stated that the company and the paramilitaries were working together to destroy the union. They gave the delegation several examples and personal testimony of cases when known paramilitaries were allowed into the plant to meet with Coca-Cola executives, even after the workers reported these in-plant meetings to Coca-Cola in Bogota. They even gave the example of Coca-Cola donating free soda pop to paramilitaries so they are refreshed while manning the check points that intimidate and terrorize people in the Barrancabermeja area.

William Mendoza, in an email communication to the CAN, said, “If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives.” The truth of that statement may be imminent. Mendoza also said that if the firings take place and the union is broken, “It makes things very complicated for me – in terms of my security. This decision removes any political cost to the paramilitaries who would assassinate me.”

Since 2002, the Colombia Action Network has been organizing in solidarity with SINALTRAINAL. Last summer the CAN joined the international campaign for a boycott of all Coca-Cola products for their union-busting tactics including the support of right-wing paramilitary death squads. Mendoza informed the delegation that the movement in the U.S. has helped. He said, “We've felt international solidarity and pressure has decreased the threats to us. The company has had to give some means of security to us because of the international pressure. It’s because of this international pressure that we can continue our struggle.”

#UnitedStates #News #Colombia #ColombiaActionNetwork #CocaCola #USO #SINALTRAINAL #Americas

For two weeks in July, a solidarity delegation of the Colombia Action Network (CAN) traveled in Colombia, meeting with leading trade unionists, peasant leaders and other participants in that country’s powerful movement for justice and liberation. The CAN delegation was made up of anti-war and student activists from Illinois, Minnesota and Connecticut. The delegation investigated the impact of U.S. military aid through Plan Colombia and extended solidarity to the struggle of the Colombian people against U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. has sent the Colombian government nearly $3 billion in military aid, which funds both the military and paramilitary war on trade unionists, human rights workers, student leaders and campesinos (peasants). This aid includes military advisors, weapons, helicopters and fumigation chemicals.

The CAN delegation met with representatives from the unions leading the labor movement in Colombia, including the CUT, Colombia's largest labor federation; USO, the oil workers’ union; the Bogotá teachers' union and SINALTRAINAL, the beverage workers’ union which has been fighting at Coca-Cola plants.

Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. On average, right-wing paramilitary death squads and the military murder three Colombian trade unionists per week. Many more are threatened every day. During the trip, two of the unions the delegation met with had members murdered that very day.

Despite the danger, unions are fighting back and defending their right to organize. In May, the oil workers union, USO, completed one of the most important strikes in Colombia’s recent history. The government has been purposefully sabotaging the national oil company’s economic viability in an effort to justify selling it to foreign companies. Not only would this injure the Colombian state by taking away a valuable national income generator, it would leave all of Colombia's most valuable resources in the hands of foreign multinationals and kill the nation’s most militant union. This spring the Colombian government instituted layoffs which violated the union contract and targeted the union leadership. USO organized a strike for 36 days to fight against further layoffs, the privatization of the oil company and for the right to have a union. To end the strike, the government agreed to not privatize the company and to keep it 100% Colombian. This is an important victory for the Colombian people.

Leaders of USO told the CAN delegation that the union was determined to resist any further attacks by the Colombian government.

Another union fighting for the right to organize is SINALTRAINAL, the beverage workers union. Since 2002, the Colombia Action Network has been organizing in solidarity with this union. Last summer the CAN joined the international campaign for a boycott of all Coca-Cola products for their union-busting tactics, including Coca-Cola’s support of right-wing paramilitary death squads. Vice-president William Mendoza informed the delegation that the movement in the U.S. has helped. He said, “We’ve felt international solidarity and the pressure has decreased the threats to us. The company has had to give some means of security to us because of the international pressure. It’s because of this that we can continue our struggle.”

Matt Muchowski, a student activist from DePaul University who is organizing the effort to kick Coke off his campus, explained, “The paramilitaries are open in their support of the multi-national corporations and there’s been even a magazine article which described a meeting between the paramilitaries and Coca-Cola. I take this to be further proof that corporations such as Coca-Cola work against democracy and human rights. I will take this information and the contacts I’ve made here with SINALTRAINAL back to Chicago to continue to fight for workplace and student democracy.”

While traveling in the northern Colombian states of Antioquia and Arauca, members of the delegation talked with campesinos about how the fumigation chemicals that are purchased with U.S. military aid kill legal crops in along with coca. Campesinos said three years after the land has been fumigated they could probably grow coca, but that they had no idea if the land could ever sustain a less hearty crop like corn again. They argued the policy is ridiculous because instead of decreasing coca growth it is increasing the need for their communities to rely on quick growing cash crops like coca. Campesinos also expressed concern about the long-term environmental effects of spraying these poisonous chemicals on their lands. The chemicals not only destroy crops and rainforest, they make the livestock sick and pollute the rivers.

Campesinos in both areas have been fumigated almost every year since the start of Plan Colombia. In addition, each year before the area is fumigated, it is ravaged by the Colombian military, followed by the paramilitary. The military and paramilitary threaten, harass, torture and terrorize communities before wiping out their ability to grow food, in an effort to punish them for potentially siding with the two national liberation forces: the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army).

Thistle Parker-Hartog from the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, Minnesota explained, “It’s important for people in the U.S. to understand the conditions Colombian campesinos face every day. Most of these farmers have no connection to the armed struggle and are merely trying to work enough to support their families and create a stronger community. The U.S.-funded Colombian military and paramilitary bring terror and intimidation into their streets and into their very homes. I hope that North Americans will be moved by the poignant stories from our delegation to take political action to stop the Plan Colombia policies which are impacting these campesinos.”

#UnitedStates #News #Colombia #ColombiaActionNetwork #USO #SINALTRAINAL #Americas

Killer Coke's use of terror tactics has not broken the spirit of SINALTRAINAL. The union's struggle is winning international attention, and last July an international boycott of Coca-Cola products began in response to Coke's use and support of paramilitary death squads in Colombia. The Colombia Action Network (CAN) is organizing support for the militant labor movement in Colombia. From June 30 to July 14, a delegation of CAN student and anti-war activists from Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin met with representatives from many human rights groups, campesino organizations and unions in Colombia, including SINALTRAINAL, to hear about the effects of Plan Colombia (a U.S. military aid package).

Mendoza explained that Coca-Cola is changing their strategy. Because of international pressure, Killer Coke's union busting strategy includes less actual murder. Now the company is using the Colombian government to break the union. The Ministry of Social Protection (formerly the Labor Ministry) decided in favor of the Coca-Cola Corporation in the third and final appeal of their dismissal of 63 members of the beverage workers' union. In this way, Coca-Cola and the Ministry are working together to deliver a blow to SINALTRAINAL.

The situation for the members of SINALTRAINAL is extremely critical. Twenty days after the union is formally notified of the decision, the company will be able to dismiss more than 30 of the union workers. The other affected workers are union leaders who have union protection. In order to dismiss those union leaders, the company will have to formally request the removal of their union protection. That process can take as little as one month. Through this process the union could be eliminated from all the Coca-Cola plants. The union's leadership, like SINALTRAINAL vice-president William Mendoza, could be out of work and without security protection in less than two months.

William Mendoza explained the importance of the government's decision, stating, “The judicial system in this country is now making its decisions based on politics rather than the law. The most likely outcome is that Coca-Cola, with its economic, political and legal power, will apply pressure so that the decision comes out in its favor and it can dismiss the union leaders. This will then conclude the greatest infamy against an organization that struggles to improve the conditions of workers and in favor of the human rights of all Colombians. The only desire of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's government is to eliminate all the forms of organization of the Colombian people in order to impose a totalitarian regime. A regime in which the common denominator will be terror, hunger and misery for the people, so that the rich can become even richer.”

SINALTRAINAL and the Colombia Action Network are calling for solidarity. They are asking supporters to call or contact Coke headquarters on July 22, the International Day of Action Against Coke, to denounce Coca-Cola's union busting. Colombian union leaders need support. They are concerned because now, international political pressure is protecting them and their families from murder – but when they are laid off from Coca-Cola, and no longer members of a union in the spotlight, the paramilitaries will kill them. By voicing support for the members of SINALTRAINAL, we can try to prevent a murderous attack against the courageous sisters and brothers of the Colombian labor movement!

To contact Coca-Cola: Douglas N. Daft, CEO

Coca-Cola Company

One Coca-Cola Plaza

Atlanta, GA 30313

Board of Directors

Coca-Cola Company

PO Box 1734

Atlanta, GA 30301

For more information go to:

www.colombiaactionnetwork.org

www.sinaltrainal.org

www.fightbacknews.org

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