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.

Interview with Marty Hoerth, Tsione Wolde-Michael and Erika Zurawski

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

_Colombian Trade Unionists Deaths Will Not Be Ignored, Pollution in India Will Not Continue _

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.

Interview with Javier Correa, president of 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.

Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. On average, right-wing paramilitary death squads or the military murder three Colombian trade unionists a week. Many more are threatened each day. At the same time the U.S. has given more than $3 billion in military aid, which funds both the military and paramilitary war on Colombian trade unionists, human rights workers and campesinos (peasants).

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.

Barrancabermeja, Colombia – “Nine compañeros have been assassinated, 45 have been displaced and 75 have had their lives threatened. The only thing these people have in common is that they work for Coca-Cola. Now the military and the paramilitaries are threatening our families,” said William Mendoza. Mendoza, vice-president of the beverage workers’ union SINALTRAINAL, was speaking July 2 to a delegation of the Colombia Action Network that visited July 2.