Milwaukee, WI – Colombia Action Network organizer Tom Burke came here Oct. 28 to speak about U.S. intervention in Colombia. Burke, who was served a Grand Jury subpoena in the FBI activist raids in late September, made strong observations on people’s movements both in the U.S. and Colombia.

“The U.S. government is targeting us for speaking out against war and oppression. In the U.S., for anti-war activists, repression comes in the form of FBI raids and grand jury investigations,” said Burke, “In Colombia, it comes in the form of prison, torture and death squads. We understand that the U.S. government is intent on putting some of us in prison, just as they target and set up hundreds of young Arab and Muslim men. The U.S. government imprisons young African-American, Chicano, Latino and other people in ever increasing numbers to control them and rob them of their dignity.”

Burke travelled on a fact-finding trip to Colombia hosted by the Oil Workers’ Union (USO) in 2003. At the time Burke was an executive board member of SEIU Local 73, a 23,000-member public sector union in the Chicago area. Burke was in Colombia at a time when death squads murdered three trade unionists every week. Colombia continues to be the most dangerous place in the world for union activists, with one murdered every week. Often implicated in these tragedies are U.S. corporations such as Coca-Cola, Drummond Coal and Chiquita Banana. Farm, labor, women and student activists in Colombia are regularly kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and murdered simply for organizing for social change.

“For activists in the U.S. interested in supporting the people of Colombia, shutting down the School of the Americas is a major step,” said Burke, referring to the U.S. government-led training site in Fort Benning, Georgia for foreign paramilitaries, many of whom are implicated in human rights abuses.

Large national protests against the School of the Americas will be held Nov. 19-21 at Fort Benning. Buses are being organized around the country to attend. Look to www.soaw.org for more information.

#MilwaukeeWI #InJusticeSystem #Colombia #ColombiaActionNetwork #FBI #SchoolOfTheAmericas #USO #September24FBIRaids #Americas

Erika Zurawski of Fight Back! interviews two Colombian trade unionists who are in the U.S. through the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Jhonny Meneses is a union leader from SINCONSTASCAR (a union of taxi drivers in Cartegena) and an outspoken opponent of U.S. free trade and economic policy in Latin America. Nelson Quijano is a union leader from USO (Oil Workers Union). USO is a leading social force in Colombia. In the spring of 2004, USO went on strike for several months to successfully fight the privatization of the national oil company.

The U.S. has spent over $3 billion on military aid through Plan Colombia. International human rights groups agree that this money is being spent on a war against the Colombian people through the funding of government sponsored right-wing paramilitary death squads. The paramilitaries target any progressive activist in the name of ‘national security’ and have made Colombia the most dangerous place to be a trade unionist in the world.

Fight Back!: What is Plan Colombia and how does it affect different sectors of Colombian society?

Meneses: Plan Colombia is a project financed by the United States which claims to help Colombia confront drug trafficking and the guerrilla movement. It’s really a plan that results in declaring war not only against drug trafficking and the guerrilla movement, but also against the Colombian people. It’s a strategic plan that’s based principally on militarizing all the strategic zones where the Colombian economy is driven by the interests of not only the Colombian government, but also of the United States – interests that in the end will mean control of the land, control of industry and of commerce by the capitalists. Plan Colombia is the principal base of trade agreements such as the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas] and the TLC [Free Trade Agreement]. In order for such agreements to take effect, a country must guarantee security to investors and undergo labor reform that hurts the Colombian people – namely the farmer and the small trader. The plan reaches past the Colombian borders. It aims to eventually extend throughout the Andean region, but Colombia is a very strategic point for the entry of commercial development that would only benefit the United States.

Fight Back!: What is neoliberalism and how does it relate to Plan Colombia?

Meneses: Neoliberalism is a political model based on the economy, which has to do with private capital rather than with a state economy. This is a model that has tried to gain ground in Latin America, but has been confronted by different social and popular organizations because it has to do with the control of state goods by private capital. The control of production is in the hands of only a few, not of the workers. The market is controlled by a monopoly – farmers don’t even control their own production. The country has lost the ability to feed its people – Colombia imports the vast majority of the foods it consumes.

The peasant has been directly affected by the great agricultural and technological production of the United States, which has flooded our country with products that, although don’t have the same quality nor human health benefits, are more economical; therefore, the peasants cannot sell their own products. The peasant is not given a space to supply what he produces because everything is based on the ownership of production supplies.

Furthermore, in Colombia there is a huge concentration of wealth. 20% of the richest families own 52% of the country’s income, while 60% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Fight Back!: What is the Free Trade Agreement?

Meneses: It is one of the two trade agreements that the North American government wants to negotiate with the Andean countries. This agreement is actually in the review plan before the Colombian Congress and in other countries such as Ecuador and Peru. The Colombian government wants to have a say in the agreement and is currently criticizing it. Ecuador and Peru have advanced further in the negotiation process. This agreement does not rely on the democratic participation of the Colombian people. It is being carried out behind closed doors. The Colombian people don’t know of the initiative nor even know what it is based on. Its name, as it indicates, deals with bilateral free trade, but it is really free trade for the U.S. and not for the other countries involved, as they are not ready for a commercial development of such magnitude, in which they will find themselves facing the economic and commercial power of the U.S. The agreement aims to restructure the industry of participating countries so that industry favors U.S. companies – not even the American people. At the heart of this agreement you will see an invasion of U.S. products that would enter to compete with the weak economy of the Andean countries. Apart from this, it would further generate low labor wages, thus continuing to increase the misery of the workers.

As a consequence of this commercial plan from the United States government, many civil and union organizations have organized mobilizations which continue to grow larger and include peasants, indigenous peoples and the rest of the civilian population because they are the ones affected most by the trade agreement. Marches have been organized at the national level so that the governments don’t continue to be forced to accept that the agreement be implemented, as it would create more poverty in the Andean countries.

Fight Back!: How have the people of Colombia responded to Plan Colombia?

Quijano: Plan Colombia strengthens the resistance. Based on the consequences that Plan Colombia has brought to the Colombian people, peasant, indigenous, social and union organizations alike say to the world, specifically to Colombians, that the plan only aggravates the armed conflict that we live with in the interior of our country. Plan Colombia does not provide a single benefit to the communities where it is being carried out, such as the communities of Arauca, Putumayo and other zones under the plan’s influence. This resentment toward Plan Colombia can be seen in the different expressions of protest that have come about in our country. For example, we have indigenous and peasant protests in the Colombian southwest and there is constant resistance from the people of Arauca and neighboring zones against this plan.

Fight Back!: How does Plan Colombia affect union members and trade unions?

Quijano: Plan Colombia is basically a military plan in which the civilian population, including trade unions, finds itself in the middle of the conflict. President Uribe wants to polarize the country, because to him there exist only those citizens who are with the government and those who are against the government. He allows no freedom of civil opposition to his policies by community organizations or unions. The president and his cabinet accuse social organizations that criticize the actions of the army and the paramilitaries as being supporters of insurgent [rebel] groups, and is putting these organizations under the watch of paramilitary groups. Add this to Uribe’s military mandate of persecution of insurgent groups and of any person who collaborates with them. Such groups, according to Uribe and to the U.S., are considered terrorist groups, and combating them is one of the objectives of Plan Colombia. Uribe is using judicial power, in this case prosecution, to set up judicial processes against social and union leaders in his eagerness to demonstrate results for the U.S. government.

Fight Back!: What is the relationship between oil and Plan Colombia?

Quijano: One of the clearest objectives of Plan Colombia is to ensure that the oil reserves in Colombia are for the exclusive use of multinationals, primarily U.S. companies. Because of this, the majority of economic aid to Colombia is concentrated in increasing the number of troops surrounding the oil infrastructure of our country. We see a large concentration of troops around the pipeline of Caño Limón Covenas, which is the principal route of oil extraction for the multinationals outside of our country, not forgetting that Plan Colombia also seeks control of the oil reserves of countries such as Venezuela, Brazil and other South American countries, even if military intervention if necessary.

The Colombian union movements, in support of the oil workers who defend our oil as a Colombian resource that should benefit Colombians, constantly reject the deceit of Plan Colombia, primarily because it causes grave situations of violence, like those that occur in Arauca, a very important region for oil. An example of the degradation of the armed conflict that Colombia lives, and that is militarily supported by the United States, is the assassination of three union and social leaders at the hands of the Colombian army on Aug. 5 in the city of Arauca, with the pretext that they had open investigations due to a presumed crime of rebellion. Testimonies by the people of Arauca have been able to prove that the assassination was an extra-judicial execution, which demonstrates the level of persecution by the Colombian government toward social and union movements

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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

The Colombia Action Network (CAN) works to stop and is investigating the effects of Plan Colombia, the U.S. government’s military aid package for the war against poor peasants and working people. Over $3 billion in U.S. tax dollars have gone to pay for the Colombian military and private contractors (mercenaries) that repress the people’s movements. The U.S. government is funding a dirty war against a popular rebellion by the insurgents of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in the countryside. The FARC control nearly half the country’s territory and are growing more popular in the cities. The FARC demands an end to poverty, oppression and exploitation by foreign companies, rich businessmen and narco-traffickers.

The delegation will see how George Bush, like Clinton before him, is funding a dirty war that uses chemical fumigation to drive poor peasants off their land; meanwhile big narco-traffickers’ plantations remain untouched. The delegation will hear from human rights lawyers, trade unionists, peasants’ association leaders and women community organizers about the paramilitary death squads and their partners in the Colombian military who murder and intimidate whole villages, towns and cities. The paramilitary death squads have killed, on average, three trade unionists every week for the past eight years.

Representing the Colombia Action Network are students and solidarity activists from across the country who have been leading the Campaign to Boycott Killer Coke, by raising awareness and taking action to spread the ‘boycott Coca-Cola’ theme across U.S. campuses. The delegation is meeting with the leaders of the militant union SINALTRAINAL, who have had nine of their union leaders murdered by Coca-Cola’s death squads. No one has been brought to justice and Coca-Cola continues to deny responsibility, despite eyewitness evidence. The students and activists of the CAN will be organizing meetings and report backs from their trip during the summer and fall.

Contact the Colombia Action Network at:

info at colombiaactionnetwork.org

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Barrancabermeja, Colombia – It is 6:00 a.m. and one thousand oil workers surround the leaders of their union, USO (Union Sindical Obrero de la Industria del Petrolero). At the entrance to Ecopetrol, the national oil company, Jose Fernando Ramirez, the human rights director for USO, starts chanting, “Long live the oil workers union!” and then “Down with Plan Colombia!” Workers thunder their response.

In Colombia, a country where three trade unionists are killed every week, this is a powerful act. Oil workers come close as militant union leader, Christo Sanchez, speaks against privatization of both their jobs and the company. Ecopetrol is violating their collective bargaining agreement and trying to unilaterally change the pension benefit. The workers are not having it.

Barrancabermeja, where the name is bigger than the city, pumps huge amounts of oil. 60% of Ecopetrol’s oil is refined here. Behind the oil workers, twenty riot police line the street, while an armored personnel carrier and thirty fully-armed soldiers with snaking barbwire block the oil refinery entrance. On this day, the Ecopetrol bosses use the soldiers to block the union leaders from entering the refinery to negotiate. This is the reality of the U.S. ‘Plan Colombia,’ the $2.1 billion in U.S. tax money spent for war and repression in Colombia.

Until recently, the union ran the political life of this oil town. Now, the paramilitary death squads, a lethal extension of the Colombian Army, have moved in. Popular organizations are paying the price for Plan Colombia.

“In 2002, 481 people were killed in Barrancabermeja, a city of 250,000,” reports Henry Lozano, a human rights lawyer with CREDHOS (Corporacion Regional para la Defensa de Derechos Humanos). “The paramilitaries are responsible for the majority of killings. The killings are political. The social organizations – the unions, political left, churches, democratic opposition, other sectors and lawyers – their resistance is the target.” Jaime Meza, human rights activist, says, “We defend the lives and social gains of the USO, the oil workers’ union, for instance. These sectors are the target of U.S. economic interests that want to privatize the oil and mines.”

At the USO rally, Pablo Araneles, a CREDHOS worker who escaped a death squad attack in 1998, protects the union leaders. A pacifist from the International Peace Brigades follows Pablo Araneles to protect him.

The oil workers’ union is one of the strongest unions in Colombia, but they are not alone.

Coca-Cola Workers

In the city of Bogotá, there are many powerful unions with brave leaders. On Dec. 5, a Coca-Cola Workers’ Conference of more than three hundred trade unionists – plus lawyers, students and international solidarity activists – met to discuss the murder of eight Coca-Cola workers and the elimination of their union. The goal is a campaign in Colombia and the U.S. to force Coca-Cola to recognize the union and to stop the killing trade unionists.

Javier Correa, the President of SINALTRAINAL, the food and beverage workers union, talked about having their union hall burned to the ground by paramilitaries. Grown men cried while describing their union brothers being shot at work. Lawyers told how Coca-Cola managers threaten to call paramilitary bosses if the workers refuse to sign union resignation letters. Professors spoke about U.S. and other multinational corporations carving up Colombia for profit.

U.S. banks and corporations are all over Colombia. Along with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, they are squeezing profits and spilling blood.

Battle in Bogotá

In Bogotá, like other Colombian cities, the social movements are organized around the unions and the power of the working class. The students, urban poor, indigenous peoples and other sectors rally together with the unions. The teachers are especially influential, and their union, led by women, is among the most militant – defending the rights of the working class and the people as a whole. Their union hall is always busy, with meetings inside, debates on the front steps and discussions on the street.

Bogotá, a city of seven million, is home to the more than one million people displaced by the U.S. Plan Colombia. Poor peasants and village folk are forced to live in the poorest, most overcrowded shantytowns on the sides of Bogotá’s mountains. The poor are displaced because U.S. warplanes and helicopters spray fumigants, similar to those used in the Vietnam War, on crops and rainforest areas the Colombian government wants cleared of people.

Poor peasants are pushed into the cities as part of U.S. war strategy against the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, often referred to by their acronyms in Spanish – the FARC and ELN. These peasant-based rebel armies have the support of large numbers of people in their fight for liberation.

Plan Colombia combines the U.S. fumigation strategy with death squads run by the Colombian military. The Colombian military is advised by U.S. armed forces officers. The aim is to ‘drain the sea, to kill the fish’ – to drive the rural supporters of the rebel armies out of their homes in the countryside, isolating the guerrillas from their supporters. The policy leads to mass killings, torture and the violation of human rights. For the Colombian government, the unexpected result of turning peasants into refugees is the spread of rebellion to other rural areas and the big cities. Colombia is rumbling like an oil well before it explodes!

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