Chicago, Il – In a spectacular development, Colombian trade unionist Luis Adolfo Cardona can breathe easy again after winning political asylum in the U.S. Cardona escaped kidnapping and execution by Coca-Cola’s death squads in 1996. On Dec. 5, 1996, the day before union negotiations were to begin, a Coca-Cola death squad came to the bottling plant where Cardona worked and shot dead the lead union negotiator Isidro Gil. The same paramilitary gang kidnapped Luis Adolfo Cardona that afternoon, but he escaped using his skills as a semi-professional soccer player to tear away and dodge their attempts to shoot him down. Later that night, the paramilitaries, who work in collusion with the Colombian military, looted and burned down the union hall. A week later the paramilitaries appeared inside the Coca-Cola bottling plant while managers distributed resignation letters for all the union members to sign.

Since that time, Luis Adolfo and his family have been hounded by Coca-Cola’s death squads. Forced to move twice within Colombia, Luis Adolfo Cardona eventually came to the U.S. through an AFL-CIO protection program for Colombian trade unionists. While Luis was living in Washington D.C. and Chicago, his wife and young daughter lived in Bogotá and continued to receive death threats from the paramilitaries. Luis says, “When the Colombian government heard that I was in the U.S. talking about corruption and all the social problems, my family was threatened with death.” At that point, Luis Adolfo Cardona decided to bring his wife and daughter to the U.S. and apply for asylum.

When asked how he feels about winning asylum, Luis says, “I and my family, we feel very happy now that there is no longer the phantom of a possible deportation back to our country. Our return there is not possible because of the imminent danger of losing my life.”

The Coca-Cola corporation refuses to take responsibility for the murder of the nine trade unionists. Coca-Cola continues to receive big profits from its operations in Colombia, but rejects any responsibility for the conduct of its bottlers or management. When asked what the political asylum victory will mean for the Campaign to Boycott Coca-Cola, Luis responded, “I think it is important to continue the campaign of resistance against the politics of the Coca-Cola corporation and to continue the campaign at the international level against the Colombian government’s assassinations of trade unionists; also to boycott Coca-Cola’s products and to force the multinational to stop their political assassinations against the workers, against the community and against a normal life.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s granting of political asylum to Luis Adolfo Cardona exposes Coca-Cola and their violations of union and human rights in Colombia. Dan Parry, a Colombia Action Network activist, says, “The process for political asylum includes a very detailed investigation of Luis and his family, including investigations by the FBI in Colombia and the U.S. The only conclusion that can be reached is that Luis Adolfo Cardona’s story and the experiences of his union are true.” When asked why he thinks Homeland Security granted his application, Luis said, “I think the U.S. government was able to verify how dangerous it is for me to return to my country, where the death squads would assassinate me and possibly my family also. The U.S. government is also conscious of the social problems and was able to verify the situation in terms of us living in Colombia at this time.”

The granting of political asylum to Luis Adolfo Cardona follows another huge blow against the Coca-Cola corporation. In June, the largest trade union in the U.S., the Service Employees International Union, passed a resolution at their convention calling for the support of the Colombian trade unionists and the Coca-Cola boycott. With 1.7 million members, the SEIU resolution takes a firm stance against corporate murder of Colombian trade unionists and the continuing U.S. government funding of war and chemical fumigation called Plan Colombia. Luis Adolfo Cardona, a guest at the SEIU Convention, was warmly received with applause by the 4000 delegates.

On July 22, an International Day of Action to Boycott Coca-Cola is being organized, with the help of the Colombia Action Network (CAN) in the U.S. Seven students and solidarity activists from the CAN recently returned from a two-week trip to Colombia to investigate human and labor rights in Bogotá, Barrancabermeja and Arauca. While in Colombia, they met with SINALTRAINAL, the food and beverage union that Coca-Cola is trying to break. The CAN activists are asking people to call Coca-Cola and demand that the remaining members of the union in Colombia not be fired or dismissed.

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Madison, WI – “I watched as they put a bullet into his head,” said Luis Adolfo Cardona, a former worker at a Colombian Coca-Cola bottling plant. He was speaking of Isidro Segundo Gil, a lead union negotiator at the plant. “I knew I would be next,” Cardona continued. Later that day, Dec. 5, 1996, Cardona was kidnapped and was likely headed for the same fate as his friend until he escaped.

“Fear sometimes paralyzes people,” Cardona said, “but it can also make you react.” Cardona described to an audience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison how he ran “in zigzags” to avoid being shot by paramilitary gunmen. After he got away, he rounded up his wife and daughter and they went to live in Bogota, the nation’s capital. “My daughter was grabbing my leg, crying, saying ‘I don’t want to leave my house,’” Cardona said. While living in Bogota for a few years and working for his union, SINALTRAINAL (the National Union of Food Industry Workers), Cardona continued to receive threats, which forced him to flee to the U.S. under the protection of the AFL-CIO. Cardona now resides with his family in Chicago and is seeking permanent asylum.

To kick off its ‘Boycott Coke’ campaign, the newly formed Colombia Action Committee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted Cardona on Oct. 16, the National Student Day of Action against Coca-Cola. A captivated audience of students and activists heard about Colombian paramilitary atrocities against workers in Colombia – atrocities supported and condoned by U.S. corporations such as Coca-Cola. While in Madison, Cardona also met with leaders of an area church group interested in promoting social justice and workers’ rights. Cardona’s visit to the Madison area was part of a tour sponsored by the Colombia Action Network.

Cardona, who worked for twelve and a half years at the Carepa Coca-Cola plant and played soccer for its corporate team, said he didn’t set out to be a union activist, but became increasingly concerned about discrimination at his workplace. Cordona said, as soon as the union was founded, “we were immediately met with phone threats and letters,” sometimes aimed not just at the activists but also their families.

“In Colombia,” Cardona said, “you have three options. You stay silent, you die, or you get out of the country.” Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world in which to organize a union. On average, three trade unionists are killed each week, Cardona said. According to news reports and human rights organizations, nearly 4,000 Colombian union activists have been killed since the mid-1980s. Right-wing paramilitary groups, often working in collaboration with the Colombian military, have perpetrated much of the killing – with the express mission to destroy the labor movement.

According to Cardona, Coca-Cola’s management at the Carepa bottling plant allowed members of these death squads to enter the plant gates and murder his friend. “The men who shot Gil had been inside the plant before,” Cardona said, and noted they were the same men who grabbed him later that day. He described how local Coca-Cola managers were often seen in public consorting with known death squad members. The union office of SINALTRAINAL was looted and burned down by paramilitaries after Gil was murdered. Union members were forced to resign from the union under threats of violence. The union resignation cards “went directly to paramilitary personnel,” Cardona noted.

With the help of United Steelworkers of America lawyers, SINALTRAINAL has filed a lawsuit against Coca-Cola. Among the lawsuit’s charges are that Richard Kirby, the U.S. owner of the Carepa plant, talked with members of the paramilitary prior to Gil’s murder and made public comments about wiping out the union. James McDonald, Kirby’s attorney, was quoted in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in June of 2002 as saying, “Everyone recognizes the lawlessness in some parts of Colombia. Does that mean that Coke et al. are responsible for the violence perpetrated? I think that’s a stretch.” McDonald went on to say, “The bottom line is, we deny these allegations.” Nine other Coca-Cola workers in Colombia besides Gil have been murdered in recent years, yet Coca-Cola management continues to deny any culpability.

When asked why U.S. workers and students should be concerned about Colombian workers, Cardona pointed out that Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. aid. Approximately $2.5 billion in U.S. tax dollars has been pledged to Colombia over the last three years through Plan Colombia, which Cardona referred to as ‘Plan Washington.’ “Think about who is benefiting,” he said. While purportedly to stop the drug trade, “most of the money for Plan Colombia stays in the U.S.,” he said, funding the manufacture of helicopters, weapons and fumigation chemicals, all of which are being used against Colombian peasants. Cardona described the grisly effects of mass fumigation, which include skin rashes and burns, water contamination and birth defects in babies whose mothers drank polluted water. Cardona pointed out that American workers aren’t seeing better wages or increased job security as a result of these expenditures, yet corporate profits continue to rise.

Speaking of profits, in 2002, Coca-Cola made nearly $4 billion. Douglas Daft, Coca-Cola CEO, received $105 million in compensation. Meanwhile, the new Coca-Cola workers at the Carepa bottling plant, hired after the union there was destroyed, earn $130 per month, three times less than those earned by former union employees. SINALTRAINAL called for an international boycott of Coca-Cola and its products on July 22, 2003, Cardona said, and American workers and students are beginning to act. “Support the boycott, and support the right of Colombian workers to organize,” Cardona said.

The list of Coca-Cola products is long and includes Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Swerve dairy drink, Minute Maid, Dasani water, Nestea, and Powerade. Colombia Action Committee organizers at UW-Madison kept the heat on as they embarked on a successful ‘500 by the 5th’ campaign, the goal of which was to obtain 500-plus signed letters to Coca-Cola board members by December 5, a National Day of Action called by the Colombia Action Network to commemorate the murder of Isidro Gil. Organizers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have already been successful at getting a university minority scholarship program to stop ordering Coca-Cola products at its events. Through the spring semester, the group will continue to build the movement against Coca-Cola, against corporate crimes and for workers’ rights in Colombia, by taking the issue to other organizations and activists on campus and in the community.

For more information on the UW-Madison boycott Coke campaign, email Kris Penniston or Sara Augustine.

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Tom Burke of Fight Back! interviewed Luis Adolfo, a leader of Colombian Coca-Cola workers. The heroism of Coca-Cola workers who are standing up to company-hired death squads has inspired support from workers across Colombia, and around the world.

Fight Back!: What are the working conditions for trade unionists at the Coca-Cola Company plant in Colombia?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: Coca-Cola in Colombia is clearly implementing a campaign of throwing the union out. As part of this attack, Coke violates the labor union contracts, dismisses their workers, while paramilitary bands promote the assassination of union militants who are then forced to renounce their union affiliation, their membership with the union.

Fight Back!: Who is responsible for the assassinations of the Colombian union activists in the Coca-Cola bottling plants?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: The paramilitary groups are directly responsible for the assassinations, but Coca-Cola is permitting the paramilitary death squads access to the bottling plants.

Fight Back!: The U.S. is spending more than $2 billion on a war plan known as Plan Colombia. How is it affecting Colombia and the workers movement?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: Plan Colombia impacts the workers significantly. The Colombian people and the country are losing their national sovereignty. The Colombian government works under what is imposed on it by the U.S. government. Under U.S. political, economic and military advisors, the Colombian government wages a war of extermination against every form of resistance to the plan of colonization or privatization, against any labor reforms or social progress. Fascist politicians plot against the workers, making things worse, with the justification of combating terrorism or drugs.

Fight Back!: With the new president, Uribe, how has the situation for trade unionists changed?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: The new president, Uribe, is implementing more paramilitary groups. These groups work without scruples for the companies in stomping out the rights of the workers, especially at Coca-Cola. The new president in Colombia has changed the practice of the law and introduced new laws that divide the country into zones for pacification by armed forces and armed gangs. The police raid our union houses, supposedly looking for literature and weapons of the subversives or terrorist plans. Oftentimes the police place weapons or subversive literature and blame all those trade unionists present saying they are subversives and terrorists. They plan this with the company, Coca-Cola, and then announce the results in public.

Fight Back!: Explain your work situation when you worked at the Coca-Cola plant.

Luis Adolfo Cardona: My situation as a worker at the Coca-Cola bottling plant was terrible and affected my family and fellow workers. We workers were trying to claim our minimum rights, but we were mistreated – ultimately mistreated by the directors of the multinational Coca-Cola company. We were victims of the management’s amnesia. The company said that if we followed up with our legal claims and bothering of Coca-Cola, then the management would talk with the boss of the paramilitary death squads. The manager said he already talked with them and they will do what they want and will drive out all the union workers. Also, the management dismissed our fellow workers – only one form of injustice. They assassinated five in Uraba, Antioquia, and twenty-five workers were displaced. I am one of these. I was working in the same plant when one of my union brothers was assassinated by the paramilitaries. That same day in the afternoon, I was kidnapped by the paramilitaries that pretended they were taking me to the city for torture and then to proceed to assassinate me. Fortunately, I was able to escape, and arrived at the police station. The police brought me to another place with my family. I want to clarify this. The paramilitaries could not kill me because people had seen that I had run away. The police were not able to hand me over to the paramilitaries for assassination, even though they work together. Too many people had seen my escape.

This same day, our union house was burned down by the paramilitaries. All the workers were forced to renounce the union under the threat of death. The paramilitaries took up positions inside the buildings of the company. As for my life and that of my family, from this moment on, we were spinning. I was declared a military objective by the paramilitaries. I was forced to run all over the Colombian territory, a terrible situation for my family, trying to prevent a final attack and being assassinated. I decided to leave the country and separate from my family in Colombia and come to the U.S. I joined an AFL-CIO protection program for a one-year period. Following that I have to return to Colombia without a job. I was dismissed from Coca-Cola, who said I was lazy and turning down work. Before working at Coca-Cola, I never had a problem, but now look at my situation. This multinational violated my rights and those of my fellow union workers.

Fight Back!: What are you doing now in the U.S.?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: I am involved in an AFL-CIO protection program for one year in the U.S. I think that I am doing very important work sharing my knowledge of Colombia’s problems, but most importantly how Coca-Cola mistreats their workers. Coca-Cola uses all their might. Coke is a huge multinational economic beast and they use everything they have against us. Corporate terrorism is used against the workers and their families. The American people do not know this, because Coke sells a divine image of their multinational corporation as caring for people. Coke has begun a campaign to lessen the damage to their image that our campaign is making. They are promoting an image that Coca-Cola helps to economic growth.

Fight Back!: What can the trade unionists and activists here in the U.S. do to help your situation and the campaign against death squad Coca-Cola?

Luis Adolfo Cardona: For me, I think we must unite our forces for initiating a campaign against this multinational corporation, to reduce Coca-Cola’s profits as much as possible. It is of great importance to hurt their international image. This, I think, can hurt the company very much. Also, by communicating to Coca-Cola and to politicians in the U.S. that we will deliver a message to the Coca-Cola company in Colombia and to the Colombian government that they must compromise with the union and old this multinational responsible for its criminal actions.

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